Antiracism & Social Justice Resources

Many children have learning disabilities and it's up to parents and schools to work together to ensure that each child's unique educational needs are met. But what if the school disagrees with your goals for your child? You are at a disadvantage if you don't know the law. This book teaches you to: identify a learning disability; understand your child's rights to education; untangle eligibility rules and evaluations; prepare and make your best case to school administrators; develop IEP goals and advocate for their adoption, and explore and choose the best programs and services.

The memoir of a paraplegic journalist, describing his experiences as a reporter for National Public Radio in exotic locations, and the challenges of living in a wheelchair.

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond theparticular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to thereal and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practicalphilosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theorie sand thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to aricher, more responsive approach to social co-operation.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so--"a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity" (People). Solomon's startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life.

"At thirty-two, Ady Barkan had everything he wanted: a fulfilling career in the progressive movement, a brilliant wife, and a beautiful newborn son. Then his luck ran out. What he thought might be carpal tunnel was in fact ALS, a neurological disease that would probably paralyze and kill him quickly. But then, with his life slipping away and American democracy under grave threat, he turned a devastating diagnosis into his most potent tool. [This book] is a rousing memoir featuring intertwining narratives about determination, perseverance, and now to live a life of purpose. The first traces Ady's battle with ALS. The second shows his journey from a goofy political nerd to a prominent figure in the progressive movement, becoming one of today's most vocal advocates for social justice. [This book] is an evocative and unforgettable memoir about activism, dedication, love and hope."--Book jacket flap

Sensitive and practical, this book openly discusses the ways in which personal thoughts, feelings, and questions about disabilities can influence effective communication between people with and without disabilities. It offers simple and effective ways to become more comfortable with the concept of disability, and it opens the door to better social and professional relationships. Featuring activities and exercises that encourage self-examination, this guide helps us all create more enriching personal relationships and work toward a fully inclusive society. It will help you overcome fears and dispel stereotypes while enhancing personal growth, professional development, and community outreach.

For psychotherapist, painter, feminist, filmmaker, writer, and disability activist Harilyn Rousso, hearing well-intentioned people tell her, "You're so inspirational!" is patronizing, not complimentary. In her empowering and at times confrontational memoir, Don't Call Me Inspirational, Rousso, who has cerebral palsy, describes overcoming the prejudice against disability--not overcoming disability. She addresses the often absurd and ignorant attitudes of strangers, friends, and family. Rousso also examines her own prejudice toward her disabled body, and portrays the healing effects of intimacy and creativity, as well as her involvement with the disability rights community. She intimately reveals herself with honesty and humor and measures her personal growth as she goes from "passing" to embracing and claiming her disability as a source of pride, positive identity, and rebellion. A collage of images about her life, rather than a formal portrait, Don't Call Me Inspirational celebrates Rousso's wise, witty, productive, outrageous life, disability and all.

Based on interviews with almost a hundred activists, this book provides a detailed history of the struggle for disability rights in the United States. It is a complex story of shifts in consciousness and shifts in policy, of changing focuses on particular disabilities such as blindness, deafness, polio, quadriplegia, psychiatric and developmental disabilities, chronic conditions (for example, cancer and heart disease), and AIDS, and of activism and policymaking across disabilities. Referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act as "every American's insurance policy," the authors recount the genesis of this civil rights approach to disability, from the almost forgotten disability activism of the 1930s to the independent living movement of the 1970s to the call for disability pride of the 1990s. Like other civil rights struggles, the disability rights movement took place in the streets and in the courts as activists fought for change in the schools, the workplace, and in the legal system. They continue to fight for effective access to the necessities of everyday life -- to telephones, buses, planes, public buildings, restaurants, and toilets. The history of disability rights mirrors the history of the country. Both World Wars sparked changes in disability policy and changes in medical technology as veterans without without limbs and with other disabilities return home. The empowerment of people with disabilities has become another chapter in the struggles over identity politics that began in the 1960s. Today, with the expanding ability of people with disabilities to enter the workforce, and a growing elderly population increasingly significant at a time when HMOs are trying to contain healthcare expenditures.

Covers the entirety of U.S. disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. It places the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of U.S. history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. This work pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As the author, a historian and disability scholar argues, to understand disability history isn't to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, he illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. This work fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation's past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all

How should we respond to individuals with disabilities? What does it mean to be disabled, and is a disabled person necessarily less independent and less competent than a person who is not disabled? Is a life with a disability a life worth living? In this compelling book, three experts on disability issues, ethics, and the law address several pressing issues in bioethics, including the prospect of genetic discrimination, heroic treatment of seriously impaired neonates, and whether severely impaired competent individuals should be permitted or assisted to die. Anita Silvers, David Wasserman, and Mary Mahowald bring important philosophical theories to bear on subjects of concern in a wide variety of disciplines dealing with disability, and they do so in the context of the groundbreaking Americans With Disabilities Act. Disability, Difference, Discrimination will be of great interest to the legal, philosophical, and medical communities engaged in ongoing debates about the disabled.

A powerful memoir of one of the most influential disability rights activists in U.S. history and her mission to create a more accessible world for all. From fighting for educational access as a young person, to A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction "...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."-Buzzfeed One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism-from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington-Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy's struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples' rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

Bri M. shares ideas on how we can make our podcasts accessible and tell stories that don’t reduce people with disabilities to being one-dimensional sources of inspiration.

Prolific writer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha is a queer disabled femme writer, organizer, performance artist and educator of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. She visits us to discuss disability justice lessons and examples in relationship to her latest book Care Work.music by Mother Cyborg and Tunde Olaniran-www.patreon.com/Endoftheworldshowwww.endoftheworldshow.org/@endoftheworldPC--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/how-to-survive-the-end-of-the-world/message

Captions are being created and will be available soon.A conversation with Patty Berne, Reina Gossett, Kiyaan Abadani, and Malcolm Shanks. Moderated by India ...

[CC] "Disability Justice work is .. new in the sense that we're building the shared political framework and shared language, so it's also a very exciting time." - Mia Mingus Disability Justice deals with the oppression of disability, but at the same time also deals with other systems of oppression and injustice - it is a 'multi-issue politic.' It moves beyond rights- and equality-based approaches, beyond access and inclusion in unjust systems, instead working towards collective justice and liberation, towards transforming society as a whole. This interview with Mia Mingus, one of the leading articulators of what Disability Justice is about, was done recently in Ottawa, where she gave two talks on 'Beyond Access: An Introduction to Disability Justice.' Interview transcript available at: http://equitableeducation.ca/2013/mia-mingus-disability-justice Interview by Greg Macdougall, http://EquitableEducation.ca for The Icarus Project, http://TheIcarusProject.net Mia Mingus' website: http://LeavingEvidence.wordpress.com

An American Studies Association 2020 Freedom Course Disability Justice, COVID, and Abolition In this panel, leading disability justice and abolitionist community organizers and thinkers - Mia Mingus, Talila "TL" Lewis, and Liat Ben-Moshe (moderated by Connie Wun)- discuss the importance of centering disability justice in addressing the ongoing public health crisis and abolition of the carceral state. What has and does centering disability justice, an inherently intersectional framework, under a pandemic mean? What are disability justice frameworks for abolition? And why are they necessary now? How do these frameworks help us to both challenge the current moment and build a different future? Informed by their decades of work and scholarship, they expand contemporary abolitionist discourses by examining the ubiquitousness of ableism and the need for disability justice and transformative justice across the entire carceral landscape. Panelists: Mia Mingus - Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) Talila "TL" Lewis - Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities (HEARD) Liat Ben-Moshe - Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois, Chicago Connie Wun - AAPI Women Lead Co-Sponsors: AAPI Women Lead and ASA Critical Disability Studies Caucus ASL Interpreters: Stephanie Chao, Tricia Vazquez

In PART 1, watch Sins Invalid Director Patty Berne and Bianca Laureano, MA, CSE, CSES talk about the history of the reproductive justice movement! This conversation was originally planned as episode 14 of our Facebook Live talk show, Crip Bits. Unfortunately, we had significant tech issues and could not continue with the live broadcast in June 2019. We are uploading this video because the conversation is rich and critical! This video is also part 1 of 4. Stay tuned for parts 2, 3, and 4! Content warning: selective abortion, rape, incest Learn more about Bianca Laureano and her excellent courses at: http://www.anteuppd.com/ Learn more about Sins Invalid at: sinsinvalid.org

November 18, 2020 Panel discussion with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Sami Schalk on crip justice today. In the face of ongoing police brutality against disabled Brown and Black queer and trans folks, how can we think about intersections of disability justice and #BlackLivesMatter? As the pandemic wears on, what are the care- and community-centered responses to COVID-19 and able-bodied white supremacy? What is the place of pleasure and desire in the long history of disability justice organizing? This panel discussion will explore disability justice approaches to working toward and imagining otherwise. Cosponsored by CLAGS and Wesleyan University’s Departments of American Studies; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Accessibility Services Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled nonbinary femme writer, performance artist, freedom dreamer and disability and transformative justice worker of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan, Irish and Roma ascent. She is a Lambda Award-winning author or co-editor of 9 books, including, with Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement; Tonguebreaker; Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice; Bridge of Flowers; Bodymap; Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home; and The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities. A lead artist with Sins Invalid since 2009, they are on the organizing team for the Disability and Intersectionality Summit and the 2020 winner of the Lambda Literary Foundation's Jean Cordoba Prize in Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. Sami Schalk is an associate professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her research focuses on disability, race and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. Schalk’s first book Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, & Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction (Duke UP 2018), explores how Black women writers use nonrealist genres to reimagine the possibilities and limits of body-minds, challenging our understanding of the meanings of disability, race and gender. Schalk’s next project focuses on disability politics and Black activism in the post civil rights era. She identifies as a fat black queer femme disabled cis gendered woman. She can be found on Twitter as @drsamischalk and on her website, samischalk.com.

This webinar is co-organized by the Disability Visibility Project and the Longmore Institute on Disability. Join us for a conversation about disability justice with Patty Berne, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Alice Wong; moderated by Yomi Wrong. Patty and Leah are contributors in Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, a new anthology edited by Alice. Yomi Wrong is an Oakland-based consultant, activist and disability justice dreamer who formerly served as Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living. She currently works in healthcare compliance, where her role is to advance quality medical care for people with disabilities. Patty Berne is a Co-Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of Sins Invalid, a disability justice based performance project centralizing disabled artists of color and queer and gender non-conforming artists with disabilities. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled autistic nonbinary femme writer and disability/transformative justice worker, a descendent of many gardeners, psychics, teachers, border jumpers, people with a hustle, queer cousins and weirdo/neurodivergent people. To view the event transcript, https://www.dropbox.com/s/7l5oqm2ffgbhzkj/Disability%20Visbility%20Nov%207%20transcript.txt?dl=0

On Feb. 28, 2017, Lydia X. Z. Brown (they/them), past president of TASH New England, chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council and a board member of the Autism Women’s Network, presented on inequities in health services for disabled people with an intersectional focus on race, sexual orientation and gender identity. They also explored potential tools for change, from policy and advocacy actions (e.g., strengthening regulations, trainings, education and building coalitions) to community empowerment (e.g., collecting data and stories, creating safe spaces and providing trainings—especially by disabled people of color, for disabled people of color).

Dance is much more than the movement of bodies — it's a mode of communication. For Antoine Hunter, a Bay Area artist, choreographer and activist who is also Black and deaf, dance helps him create community for all people who want to learn to fully express themselves. To learn more about the disability justice movement, visit: https://dohadebates.com/disabilityjustice/ To take action and join the fight for equality, follow @WorldEnabled and sign the Global Compact on Inclusive and Accessible Cities: www.cities4all.org This series aims to advance the mandate of the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility. ►► Subscribe & join the conversation: http://bit.ly/38fuJjZ ►► Subscribe to Course Correction: https://megaphone.link/QF2056074382 Don’t Settle for a Divided World. Think. Debate. Act. Let’s find solutions to the world's most pressing problems. Doha Debates examines the world's most pressing challenges through live debates, digital videos, a TV series, blogs and podcasts. This innovative approach includes Majlis-style conversations designed to bridge differences, build consensus and identify solutions to urgent global issues. ►► Follow us on Facebook: http://Facebook.com/DohaDebates ►► Follow us on Twitter: http://Twitter.com/DohaDebates

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AAWW is a national literary nonprofit dedicated to the belief that Asian American stories deserve to be told. We host events in NYC and broadcast them here! Please support us by donating at https://aaww.org/donate so we can continue this work. You can also become a fanclub member and receive custom designed pins & stickers at https://aaww.org/fanclub/. Join us for a book launch and conversation for Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and disability justice poetics conversation with Leah and Cyree Jarelle Johnson. What the hell is disability justice? How do collective care, disability justice and sick and disabled Black and brown femmes save the world and each other during this time of apocalypse—or do we? What are the histories and present day struggles and triumphs of disabled Black and brown queers in our movements and communities? Come discuss these and other provocative questions with writer, cultural worker and performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and poet and essayist Cyree Jarelle Johnson, and celebrate the launch of this long-awaited, beautiful new book. -- http://aaww.org http://facebook.com/AsianAmericanWritersWorkshop http://twitter.com/aaww AAWW is a national not-for-profit arts organization devoted to the creating, publishing, developing and disseminating of creative writing by Asian Americans–in other words, we’re the preeminent organization dedicated to the belief that Asian American stories deserve to be told. We’re building the Asian literary culture of tomorrow through our curatorial platform, which includes our New York events series and our online editorial initiatives. In a time when China and India are on the rise, when immigration is a vital electoral issue, when the detention of Muslim Americans is a matter of common practice, we believe Asian American literature is vital to interpret our post-multicultural but not post-racial age. Our curatorial take is intellectual and alternative, pop cultural and highbrow, warm and artistically innovative, and vested in New York City communities. Our curatorial platform is premised on the idea of a big-tent Asian American cultural pluralism. We’re interested in both the New York publishing industry and ethnic studies, the South Asian diasporic novel and the Asian American story of assimilation, high culture and pop culture, Lisa Lowe and Amar Chitra Katha, avant-garde poetry and spoken word, journalism and critical race theory, Midnight’s Children and Dictee. We are against both an exclusive literary culture that believes that race does not exist and Asian American narratives that lead to self-stereotyping and limit the menu of our identity. We are for inventing the future of Asian American literary culture. Named one of the top five Asian American groups nationally, covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Poets & Writers, we are a safe community space and an anti-racist counterculture, incubating new ideas and interpretations of what it means to be both an American and a global citizen.

This is the audio described (AD) version of this episode, provided for our blind and visually impaired followers. For the original version of the episode, please go to https://youtu.be/nf1MW7_f-vg (Recorded before Covid-19). In the first episode of our first season on national public TV, Laura interviews two performance artists whose work illustrates how difference and neurodiversity can make art and society richer and more equitable. Alice Sheppard is a disabled dancer/choreographer and the artistic director of the company Kinetic Light. Jess Thom is a performer and comedian with Tourettes and the founder of Touretteshero. In their conversations with Laura, they question our attitudes towards disability and explore how art can challenge our notions of the normative. Guests: Alice Sheppard is the Artistic Director of Kinetic Light, as well as a choreographer and dancer in the company. Jess Thom is a British performer, comedian and activist. Thom created Touretteshero to increase awareness of and expand perceptions of what is possible with Tourette’s Syndrome. SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter: www.lauraflanders.org/subscribe/ FOLLOW The Laura Flanders Show Twitter: @theLFshow Facebook: @theLFshow Instagram: @theLFshow ACCESSIBILITY This version of the episode is presented with audio description to increase accessibility for our blind and visually impaired audience. The original closed captioned version of this episode is available here: https://youtu.be/nf1MW7_f-vg. A transcript, related podcast, and visual description of this episode are available at www.lauraflanders.org/disability-justice. If you would like to request accessibility-related assistance, report any accessibility problems, or request any information in accessible alternative formats, please email: info@lauraflanders.org #DisabilityJustice #disability #art #dance #theater #equity #accessibility

Moderator: Dani McClain Plenarists: Loira Limbal, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Veralucia Mendoza We keep each other alive. Through mutual aid, through mothering, through the essential work of low-wage care providers and the care work of disabled kin for each other, Black and Brown communities have been honing the expertise to carry our world through the crisis of this pandemic to a future rooted in care. In particular, the femmes, the disabled, the queer and trans folks within our communities have done this labor and forged this genius. In this plenary conversation we will honor care work while resisting the urge to romanticize it. We will explore what needs to shift within our economy, political systems and our social justice movements to create the care-based world we need.

Disability justice is a social justice movement which focuses on examining disability and ableism as they relate to other forms of oppression and identity such as race, class and gender.[1] It was developed in 2005 by the Disability Justice Collective, a group including Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milbern, Leroy F. Moore Jr., and Eli Clare.[1] In disability justice, disability is not considered to be defined in "white terms, or male terms, or straight terms."[1] The movement also believes that ableism makes other forms of prejudice possible and that systems of oppression are intertwined.[1] The disability justice framework is being applied to a intersectional reexamination of a wide range of disability, human rights, and justice movements.[2][3][4][5]