WEBVTT

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My name is Lydia X. Z. Brown,

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and I'm an attorney, advocate, 
community organizer, educator, strategist,

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and thinker and writer
on disability rights and disability justice.

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For over 10 years, my work has focused
on interpersonal and state violence

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targeting disabled people
at the margins of the margins,

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especially disabled people living
at the intersections of disability, race,

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class, gender, sexuality,
language, and nation.

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Like all disabled people, it's impossible
to say that there was one instance

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in which I suddenly became aware of

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inaccessibility or exclusionary practices
in social life,

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because my entire life has been shaped
by the forces of ableism.

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Like most other autistic people,
I experienced bullying

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throughout my childhood and in schools,

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and I experienced a disconnect between

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the ways that I moved through the world
and the ways that people around me,

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who were largely not autistic,
moved through the world.

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But I will say that one of the times
that I became most aware

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of grave injustices targeting
other disabled people

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were a series of incidents
that were widely publicized

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when I was in high school.

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And, in all of those instances,
young autistic people were criminalized,

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taken out of their schools,
often charged in adult criminal court

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for simply existing while autistic.

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In many of those cases,
the autistic students in question

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had been subjected to prolonged restraint
and seclusion, sometimes for hours,

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before they were the ones who were charged
with assaulting the teachers

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in the schools in the first place.

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Some of those students were white.

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Others were Black, brown,
or other people of color.

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And, in all of those cases,
the sentiment that came most strongly

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and clearly through public reporting
on the incidents,

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was that these were kids
who had to be managed or controlled,

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instead of, here are kids who have 
been targeted on the basis

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of disability discrimination.

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That, to me, was a very clear indicator
of just the beginning

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of how pervasive and how awful
violence against disabled people is,

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especially those who are
multiply marginalized.

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In the cases of many of the white students,
if they were unlucky,

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they might have been forced
out of their school.

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But in the cases of the Black and brown
disabled students,

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some of them were sentenced
to prison terms of years.

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Others were killed outright.

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Although the ADA was passed
and signed into law three decades ago,

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government agencies, individual
organizations, and even and especially

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disability advocacy organizations,
flagrantly and violate-

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flagrantly and blatantly violate
the ADA's most basic provisions.

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Government agencies that are required
to support disabled people

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and provide and enable access
for disabled people

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routinely disregard those obligations.

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Private corporations and nonprofit
organizations do much the same.

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Colleges and universities do not
respect their disabled students.

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Corporations do not respect
their disabled employees.

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Writ large, in society,
although the law has changed,

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the values that we hold
and the beliefs that we have

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as an entire society
have not changed at all,

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because you can't legislate morality.

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You could pass the best laws on the books,

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and even if you somehow monitor
and enforce them,

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it doesn't mean that you've actually
changed the ways that people think

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and talk about and understand 
and react toward and act

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about disabled people
and disability in society.

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So, when I think about ways
that the ADA has fallen short,

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it's not necessarily just
what is the language of the ADA,

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but it is how individual advocates,
it is how courts,

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and it is how those with positions
of power and access to privilege

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and resources choose to act
or not act upon the ADA.

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And you see that everywhere.

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The disability organizations
that have the most access

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to power, privilege, and resources

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generally advocate only for the interests
and the issues that affect those

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who already hold the most privilege
in disabled communities.

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That is, they care deeply about issues
that primarily, or only,

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affect disabled people who are white,
who are monied, who are degreed,

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who are otherwise considered palatable.

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But for disabled people who are
at the margins of the margins,

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for disabled people of color,
for disabled people that are

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generationally low income,
for disabled people who are undocumented

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or have other immigration status
other than citizenship,

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for disabled people who belong 
to minority religions,

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for disabled people who are queer or trans,

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for disabled people who cannot work

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in the ways that are
expected under capitalism,

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those issue areas of inclusion
in the corporate workplace

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or the ability to access 
swimming pools in a hotel

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or the ability to bring
your service animal on a plane

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can be important,
but are often not affecting our lives

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in the same daily ways as they do
those who have infinitely more privilege.

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And so, where I see the gaps are
where are the folks

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who have power, privilege, and resources
in talking about the right

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to Black and brown
disabled students to AAC?

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Where are those folks in thinking about
the horrific violence inflicted

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on largely Black and Native disabled
people in carceral systems?

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Where are those same people
in looking at the ways in which police

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destroy the lives of sex workers and
people who are using criminalized drugs

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who are not white, who do not come
from upper middle class

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or upper class families and neighborhoods
and communities?

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Where are those folks when thinking about
the ways in which universities

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not only prevent disabled students
in general from accessing supports

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and accommodations,
but put the brunt of that violence

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most predominantly on queer and trans
disabled people of color

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and even force disabled students,
especially those that are multiply marginalized,

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out of the university altogether,

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or prevent them from ever getting to ask
the university in the first place?

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Where are those same advocates
when thinking about not just,

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how are disabled people in the U.S.
represented or not represented in media

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or in electoral politics,
but what about the ways in which

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the United States inflicts
and causes disability globally

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through our wars, through our imperialism,
through our colonization?

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We need to be pushing as hard
as we possibly can for money to go

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directly back into the hands
of directly impacted community members

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and out of harmful systems
like the foster system, police, prisons,

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coercive mental health care.

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We need to be demanding
a return of resources

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and a return of power,
and that is a ceding of power

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by nondisabled people, by white people,
by those who have hoarded and controlled

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the most amount of power
and privilege and resources,

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and done so at the direct expense
of disabled people

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at the margins of the margins,

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and that has to start
within our own organizations.

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Disability nonprofits are notorious
for being so often white-led

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or predominantly white-led,
and sometimes only white-led,

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for being male-led,
for being led by people who are either

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not disabled at all or have what
are considered palatable disabilities,

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and that needs to change.

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And the only way that will change
is if those people

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who occupy those positions of power
agree to give up that power.

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Not to be told, "You don't have a voice,"
to be very clear.

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To be told, "Your voice doesn't have to
be the one that's in charge

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and holds all the power."