[Ohio-talk] Fwd: A Disability Valentine: Wherever You Are Is Where We Want To Be

Fri Feb 21 16:04:39 UTC 2014

Beautiful.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Suzanne
Turner
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 11:55 AM
To: ohio-talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Alexis.N.Tyson at IRS.GOV
Subject: [Ohio-talk] Fwd: A Disability Valentine: Wherever You Are Is Where
We Want To Be

Good morning!
This was sent to me today and it is a wonderful Valentines gift! I wanted to
share it with you all.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Suzanne
Please read and share!

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: <dcm.aware at gmail.com<mailto:dcm.aware at gmail.com>>
Date: February 14, 2014, 11:49:50 AM EST
To: Suzanne Turner
<sturner at ClevelandSightCenter.org<mailto:sturner at ClevelandSightCenter.org>>
Subject: Fwd: A Disability Valentine: Wherever You Are Is Where We Want To
Be

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Amber Smock <asmock at accessliving.org<mailto:asmock at accessliving.org>>
Date: February 14, 2014, 11:31:55 AM EST
To:
"ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.com<mailto:ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.
com>"
<ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.com<mailto:ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.
com>>
Subject: FW: A Disability Valentine: Wherever You Are Is Where We Want To Be
Reply-To:
ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.com<mailto:ndla-general-list- at googlegroups.c
om>

Thought I would share with folks on this list as well.
Amber

From: Amber Smock [mailto:asmock at accessliving.org]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2014 10:30 AM
To: Amber Smock
Subject: A Disability Valentine: Wherever You Are Is Where We Want To Be

Dear Access Living friends and allies,

In the spirit of Valentine's Day today, I wanted to share an amazing piece
of writing about disability solidarity. Mia Mingus wrote "Wherever You Are
Is Where I Want to Be" back in 2010, but it continues to ring true at the
same time as it challenges.

One word the piece uses is "crip": a word that is short for "cripple," long
a negative word, but that people with disabilities have reclaimed as a word
that is positive, shows community, is OUR word and no one else's. Another
word is "ableism": the discrimination against people with disabilities
through attitudes, assumptions and barriers.

Mia writes from the standpoint of a person with a physical disability who is
also a person of color, identifies as queer and is a nationally recognized
activist. Her standpoint is that of disability justice: going to what
disability rights alone cannot address, such as putting intersectional
identities front and center, affirming that many of us are not simply one
identity, recognizing the communities that have been hidden or oppressed to
date.

What is it like when we people with disabilities are together? Why is
cross-disability space so important? How do we love each other? This is what
she is saying. Read on. Happy Valentine's Day.

Amber Smock
Director of Advocacy, Access Living
PS: Thank you to AL staffer Aziza Nassar for reminding me of this piece!

Wherever You Are Is Where I Want To Be: Crip
Solidarity<http://capwiz.com/accessliving/utr/1/CAGSTQTSDH/OGPATQTSJR/101740
20431>

By Mia Mingus

I want to be with you.  If you can't go, then I don't want to go.  If we are
traveling together, sharing political space together, building political
family together, then I want to be with you.  I want us to be together.

We resist ableism dividing us.  I resist my disability being pitted against
your disability.   We will not be divided.

What does crip solidarity look like?  Between crips?

We are traveling, trying to track down food.  My chair can't go into this
restaurant, your dog isn't allowed in that restaurant; so we will order in.
You can't fly to the meeting, so we will come to you-all of us.  They won't
let you go to the bathroom because they say you're "too slow", so we will
demand they do-and make them wait for you-together.  Sometimes we are
comrades, sometimes we are strangers, but we will stay together.  We move
together.

I know what it is like to be left behind, left out, forgotten about.  I know
you know as well.  We vow to not do that together, to each other.

I am not "giving-up" an evening out with able bodied friends.  This is a
glorious evening in with crip love as opposed to a night out without you
(and without parts of me).  Loving you more helps me to love me more.
Loving me means loving you.

Because the truth is, I am continually giving-up the able-bodied-washed
version of myself that people have come to know.  What I came to know as a
disabled child because I never knew things could be any other way.  For most
of my life it has been easier to perform a survival able-bodied-friendly
version of myself, rather than nurturing the harder to live
disabled-self-loving version of who I ache, desire and need to be.  Because
it has often meant the difference between a-little-bit-more-connection and
a-little-less-isolation.  But what is the point of connection, if you still
feel isolated and alienated from your self?  And what is that connection
built upon and from?  How do I want to be connected?

And it is not easy.  But being together helps.

And when taxis won't take us because of one of us, or both of us.  And I
can't use mass transit, but you can.  Then we will use our crip super
community powers and do what we do best: make shit happen; make something
out of nothing; and survive, one ride, one pill, one stop to rest at a time.
Together.

We will find other ways (create our own ways) and talk liberation and access
and interdependency with our comrades.  We will weave need into our
relationships like golden, shimmering glimmers of hope-opportunities to
build deeper, more whole and practice what our world could look like.  We
will practice what loving each other could look like every day.

Courageously.  And we will help each other to do it, in the face of
seductive ableism; in the face of isolation as queer people of color, again;
in the face of isolation from political community and movements, again.  We
will help each other love each other and, in doing so, love ourselves.

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Suzanne Turner, BSW, MPA
Employment Coordinator and Benefit Specialist

Cleveland Sight Center
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