[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.00,0:00:01.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Stacey Milburn]... the National Youth Leadership Network.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:01.57,0:00:07.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and I'm a performance artist, I do some work with Sins Invalid.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:07.96,0:00:10.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[reporter] And what's this gathering here today?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:10.31,0:00:12.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Stacey Milbern] Sure, this is a disability justive convening, um,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:12.92,0:00:16.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a bunch of us have been at the Allied Media Conference (AMC)
Dialogue: 0,0:00:16.85,0:00:22.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's been kinda, just this growing space for disability um and disabled people,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:22.26,0:00:29.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's this kind of growing framework about looking at the ways disability connects with other issues.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:29.47,0:00:35.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, often times, disability gets separated, and it's a way to really like maintain ableism,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:35.07,0:00:39.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and not look at the way that disability connects in with like how our bodies are policed,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:39.50,0:00:44.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or how our bodies um experience trauma in the medical industrial complex,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:44.19,0:00:54.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or even just like how our bodies, yeah, are kind of forced to fit this standard of what beauty is, or what independence is.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:54.36,0:00:57.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Leah] Yeah, and so the way I've been trying to describe it
Dialogue: 0,0:00:57.29,0:01:01.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is that I think that I feel like disability justice is to the mainstream disability rights movement
Dialogue: 0,0:01:01.56,0:01:05.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's similar to the difference between environmental, the environmental justice movement,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:05.51,0:01:07.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the mainstream environmental movement.\N
Dialogue: 0,0:01:07.64,0:01:10.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Um, what a lot of us in disability justice are working against
Dialogue: 0,0:01:10.91,0:01:14.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is a mainstream movement that's very white, very straight, very middle class,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:14.82,0:01:17.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,um, we are led by people of colour, by queer people of colour,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:17.92,0:01:20.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we have analysis that goes beyond access
Dialogue: 0,0:01:20.45,0:01:23.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to looking at the effects of environmental racism on disability,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:23.39,0:01:25.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or poverty, or the medical industrial complex,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:25.72,0:01:28.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and also, um, just echoing what Stacey said,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:28.15,0:01:31.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a lot of us feel that as people who do social, many kinds of social justice work,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:31.57,0:01:36.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,often people with disabilities, y'know we get to kind of be the cute people who march at the beginning,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:36.47,0:01:38.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who roll at the beginnning of the march, who people feel heart-warmed by,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:38.80,0:01:41.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but we're not seen as leaders or as part of the movement,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:41.22,0:01:43.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we wanna change that.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:43.15,0:01:46.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[interviewer] And what does disability justice mean to you?
Dialogue: 0,0:01:46.61,0:01:50.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Stacey] To me, what I think what's been most amazing about it is like,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:50.01,0:01:53.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,disability justice has been a, just has been a space to kind of be whole.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:53.15,0:01:55.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Like, you don't have to cut yourself up into little pieces,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:55.57,0:01:57.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and go here and go there,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:57.34,0:02:02.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and also just like being able to connect with folks in like this really interdependent way,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:02.23,0:02:05.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where everybody's really taking care of each other,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:05.09,0:02:10.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and yeah, just, yeah kinda creating community and developing relationships
Dialogue: 0,0:02:10.93,0:02:14.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where people are actually like practicing liberation.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:14.03,0:02:19.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[interviewer] And what are some of the specific things that you're calling for?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:19.38,0:02:23.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Leah] I think it's really important that we build movements that are sustainable.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:23.72,0:02:27.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Um, and I think that's one of the things that disabled people are really fierce and know a lot about.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:27.92,0:02:33.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Um, speaking as a chronically ill, queer, disab... queer woman of colour, I've been working in movements since I was 16,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:33.92,0:02:39.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's a way of organizing that assumes that everybody can make it to 16 meetings a week, and live on coffee.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:39.19,0:02:44.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And for a lot of us, whether we're disabled, whether we're parents, whether we're old, that's not an option,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:44.00,0:02:46.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it stops us from making movements that don't burn out,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:46.94,0:02:49.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that are actually going to be around to transform society.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:49.76,0:02:54.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I think making sustainable and interdependent movements {\i1}in{\i0} the new world we're building
Dialogue: 0,0:02:54.15,0:02:55.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is what DJ (disability justice) is all about.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:55.97,0:02:58.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Stacey] Yeah, actually can I add onto that?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:58.14,0:03:02.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think, too, disability justice has just been, I don't know, like when we think about...
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.89,0:03:06.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there's a really limited idea of access and accessibility,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:06.28,0:03:11.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and when we're really really able to stretch it out to like what do people need to be who they are?
Dialogue: 0,0:03:11.02,0:03:14.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It becomes like creating a world where everybody can really participate.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:14.95,0:03:19.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Mothers, we've seen that work out well, and um, yeah, working class folks, everybody,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:19.49,0:03:22.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and disability kind of really pushes that forward.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:22.76,0:03:32.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Amy Goodman] We'll be broadcasting from the US social forum tomorrow, then on to Toronto, I'll be speaking in Toronto on saturday night, you can go to our website democracynow.org...