What we’re about
Do you enjoy reading books and then discussing them with others? Are you disabled or disabled allied? Are you interested in learning about and discussing disability justice with others? Join the Disability Justice Book Club today!
All events will be online. We strive to make every event as accessible as possible! Please feel free to share your access needs with the organizer.
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Excerpted from "Disability Justice, Explained" by Dominique Stewart (https://the-ard.com/2023/08/17/disability-justice-explainer/)
What is disability justice?
Disability justice is a movement-building framework that recognizes how ableism and disability are interconnected with other systems of oppression and identities, including race, class, and gender, informing how we function in society.
How is it different from disability rights?
The disability rights movement established and protected basic human rights for disabled people who were historically shut out and denied. It also gave legal recourse for discrimination that denied such access, equal opportunity, inclusion, and full participation.
But like other movements (civil rights and women’s rights), it failed to represent and address the issues of all the intersectional identities cushioned within the disability rights movement.
“At its core, the disability rights framework centers people who can achieve status, power and access through a legal or rights-based framework, which we know is not possible for many disabled people, or appropriate for all situations […] Rights-based strategies often address the symptoms of inequity but not the root. The root of disability oppression is ableism and we must work to understand it, combat it, and create alternative practices rooted in justice.” – Patty Berne and Sins Invalid, “What is Disability Justice?”
What are some issues that disability justice addresses?
• “Police violence and murder of disabled and Deaf BIPOC, and prison justice for disabled and Deaf imprisoned BIPOC
• Climate justice, surviving climate catastrophe and fighting for the rights of disabled, elder and medically vulnerable people to survive climate events, in and outside institutions
• Fighting immigration laws like Trump’s public charge law that excludes disabled people from being able to migrate
• Equal access to education for BIPOC disabled youth and adults, ending the special-ed-to-prison pipeline” (NAMED Advocates).
The 10 principles of disability justice are intersectionality, leadership of those most impacted, anti-capitalism, cross-movement organizing, recognizing wholeness, sustainability, cross-disability solidarity, interdependence, collective access, and collective liberation. Read the detailed explanation of each here https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bed3674f8370ad8c02efd9a/t/5f1f0783916d8a179c46126d/1595869064521/10_Principles_of_DJ-2ndEd.pdf
Other resources:
Disability Justice — Project LETS
Home Page — Disability Justice Project
https://stimpunks.org/
https://teams.the-ard.com/disability-justice-workshop
https://www.healthjusticecommons.org/understanding-and-transforming-the-mic
