Disabilities, Access and Inclusion Reading, Watching, Engagement List

A disability lens explores the relationship between bodies and the social environment. With this list, we dive deep into disability culture, exploring the assumptions and exclusions of what how we think about being normal, independent, and healthy. These authors, artists, and activists rethink access and justice by imagining a world that values all bodies. By telling their stories of discrimination and resistance, they explore how their disability experiences are shaped by gender, race, sexuality, and geography. Enjoy!

Reading:

1. DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada, Girls Without Barriers: Intersectional feminist analysis of girls and young women with disabilities in Canada (2020) https://dawncanada.net/media/uploads/page_data/page-64/girls_without_barriers.pdf

Girls Without Barriers is a project led by the DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada, with the objective of reporting what is known on the rights, needs, and experiences of diverse girls and young women with disabilities, and address the gaps in order to promote their full participation in girl-serving programs in Canada. Using an intersectional analysis, the report dresses a comprehensive, yet not exhaustive, picture of the systemic dynamics that erase girls and young women with disabilities from human rights framework, statistical analyses, violence-prevention programs, schooling policies and practices, etc. @DAWNCanada analyses the systemic oppressions that shape the lives of Indigenous, racialized, rural, and gender/sexual diverse girls and young women with disabilities, and those living at the intersection of multiple oppressions. This is ground-breaking work in Canada, leading a path for promoting the full participation of all girls and young women with disabilities. 

2. Alice Wong, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From the 21st Century (2020)

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

3. Keah Brown, The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me (2019) 

In The Pretty One, Brown gives a contemporary and relatable voice to the disabled—so often portrayed as mute, weak, or isolated. With clear, fresh, and light-hearted prose, these essays explore everything from her relationship with her able-bodied identical twin (called “the pretty one” by friends) to navigating romance; her deep affinity for all things pop culture—and her disappointment with the media’s distorted view of disability; and her declaration of self-love with the viral hashtag #DisabledAndCute.

4. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming of Disability Justice (2018)

In this collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award–winning writer and longtime activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of color are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a tool kit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.

5. DC, The Oracle  Code, Graphic Novel (2019) trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s0ZicTDQ0U

After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed, Barbara Gordon enters the Arkham Center for Independence, where Gotham's teens undergo physical and mental rehabilitation. Now using a wheelchair, Barbara must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Within these walls, strange sounds escape at night; patients go missing; and Barbara begins to put together pieces of what she believes to be a larger puzzle. But is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Fellow patients try to connect with Barbara, but she pushes them away, and she'd rather spend time with ghost stories than participate in her daily exercises. Even Barbara's own judgment is in question. In The Oracle Code, universal truths cannot be escaped, and Barbara Gordon must battle the phantoms of her past before they swarm her future.

6. Alison Kafer, Feminist, Crip, Queer (2013)

In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world.

7. Disability and Difference in Global Contexts: Enabling a Transformative Body Politic, Nirmala Erevelles (2011) 

This text proposes a relational analysis to understand disability within a global context; theorizes disability in critical relationship to race, gender, and sexuality within the context of transnational capitalism. This is an interdisciplinary text that spans the humanities and the social sciences in the areas of social theory, cultural studies, social and educational policy, feminist ethics and theories of citizenship. From education to sociology and even poetry theory, disability studies is a growing discipline that offers a unique critique of our standards of normalcy and acceptance in our society; interest in this topic, among all fields of research will continue to increase and it is important that we include books with this focus on our lists. 

Watching:

1. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, Netflix https://cripcamp.com/

Down the road from Woodstock, a revolution blossomed at a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, transforming their lives and igniting a landmark movement. 

2. Special, Netflix

A young gay man with cerebral palsy branches out from his insular existence in hopes of finally going after the life he wants. 

3. Love on the Spectrum, Netflix

Finding love can be hard for anyone. For young adults on the autism spectrum, exploring the unpredictable world of dating is even more complicated. 

 4. Atypical, Netflix

When a teen on the autism spectrum decides to get a girlfriend, his bid for more independence puts his family on a path of self-discovery. 

5. Speechless

Maya DiMeo is the mom who will do anything for her husband, Jimmy, and kids Ray, Dylan, and JJ, her eldest son with cerebral palsy. As we move into the new school year, the DiMeos, who have always been on the search to find the right school support for JJ, are faced with a new and unfamiliar reality. The DiMeo kids are going to continue at the same school! This is unchartered territory for the DiMeos but, as always, they will find a fun balance in everything they do while adjusting to the concept of becoming actual members of a community. 

 6. The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)

The Peanut Butter Falcon tells the story of Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down syndrome, who runs away from a residential nursing home to follow his dream of attending the professional wrestling school of his idol, The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). A strange turn of events pairs him on the road with Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a small time outlaw on the run, who becomes Zak’s unlikely coach and ally. Together they wind through deltas, elude capture, drink whisky, find God, catch fish, and convince Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), a kind nursing home employee charged with Zak’s return, to join them on their journey. 

Blog: 

1. Mia Mingus, Leaving Evidence, https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/about-2/

We must leave evidence. Evidence that we were here, that we existed, that we survived and loved and ached. Evidence of the wholeness we never felt and the immense sense of fullness we gave to each other. Evidence of who we were, who we thought we were, who we never should have been. Evidence for each other that there are other ways to live--past survival; past isolation.

2. Leaving Evidence is a blog by Mia Mingus. Disability Visibility Project, ADA 30 in Color, https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/ada30/

#ADA30InColor: a series of original essays on the past, present, and future of disability rights and justice by disabled BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) writers.

3. Disability Justice Network of Ontario, https://www.djno.ca/blog

The Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO) aims to build a just and accessible Ontario, wherein people with disabilities: Have personal and political agency, Can thrive and foster community, Build the power, capacity, and skills needed to hold people, communities, and institutions responsible for the spaces they create

Engage:

1. Crip Camp: The Official Virtual Experience, https://cripcamp.com/officialvirtualexperience/

The Crip Camp Impact Campaign is inviting all grassroots activists and advocates to join us this summer for a virtual camp experience featuring trailblazing speakers from the disability community. All are welcome, you do not need any activism experience to participate. The virtual camp runs every Sunday at 2 pm PST/5 pm EST from May 17th to August 30th for one and a half hours each.