Disability Justice – a working draft by Patty Berne
In recent years, on websites and new media locales, on flyers and in informal conversations, I’ve witnessed people add the word “justice” onto virtually everything disability related — from disability rights based services and access audits to disability scholarship — while doing nothing to shift either process or end goal, thinking that the word change alone brings that work into alignment with disability justice.Not so. So when Jane Dunham with the National Black Disability Coalition asked me to write “What Is Disability Justice” for the 2015 SDS Pre-Conference Disability and Social Justice Summit, even though SDS was demonstrating NO commitment to Collective Access for those of us who cannot pay, physically or financially, for ableist transportation, I appreciated Jane’s valuing my voice and contribution, and her efforts struggling with the unspoken and passive aggressive liberal racism of the academe, so I agreed. Plus, I really like Jane ♥. I wrote the following also knowing that it would serve as a good draft for the upcoming Sins Invalid project writing a Disability Justice statement, which will certainly be different and better after being worked through by the crew here.However, I wanted [...]