Disability Justice

We know that each person has multiple identities, and that each identity can be a site of privilege or oppression. The mechanical workings of oppression and how they output shift depending upon the characteristics of any given institutional or interpersonal interaction; the very experience of disability itself is being shaped by race, gender, class, gender expression, historical moment, relationship to colonization, and more.

We know ableism exists in the context of other historical systemic oppressions. We know to truly have liberation we must be led by those who know the most about these systems and how they work.

We are anti-capitalist as the very nature of our body/minds resist conforming to a capitalist "normative" level of production. We don't believe human worth is dependent on what and how much a person can produce. We critique a concept of "labor" as defined by able-bodied supremacy, white supremacy, and gender normativity. We understand capitalism to be a system that promotes private wealth accumulation for some at the expense of others.

Necessarily cross-movement, Disability Justice shifts how social justice movements understand disability and contextualize ableism, lending itself toward a united front politic.

We value our people as they are, for who they are, and understand that people have inherent worth outside of capitalist notions of productivity. Each person is full of history and life experience. Each person has an internal experience composed of their own thoughts, sensations, emotions, fantasies, perceptions, and idiosyncrasies. Disabled people are whole people.

We pace ourselves, individually and collectively, to be sustained long-term. We value the teachings of our lives and bodies. We understand that our embodied experience is a critical guide and reference pointing us toward justice and liberation.

We value and honor the insights and participation of all of our community members. We are committed to breaking down ableist/patriarchal/racist/classed isolation between people with physical impairments, people who identify as "sick" or are chronically ill, "psych" survivors, and those who identify as "crazy," neurodiverse people, people with cognitive impairments, and people who are of a sensory minority, as we understand that isolation ultimately undermines collective liberation.

We meet each other's needs as we build toward liberation, knowing that state solutions inevitably extend into further control over our lives.  We see the liberation of all living systems and the land as integral to the liberation of our own communities, as we all share one planet. We attempt to meet each other's needs as we build toward liberation, without always reaching for state solutions which can readily extend its control further over our lives.

As brown, black and queer-bodies disabled people we bring flexibility and creative nuance that goes beyond able-bodied/minded normativity, to be in community with each other.

No body or mind can be left behind-- only moving together can we accomplish the revolution we require.