Andy

“A future where disability justice won looks like queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, folks of colour, and women, girls, and nonbinary humans are living in a world where disability is the norm, and where access is no longer a question but a fait accompli. Gone are the days where our disabled bodies and minds are compared to the able-bodied and able-minded. We’ve flipped the script. We still like our non-queer, non–people of colour, non-disabled friends and we’ll have them at our fully accessible dance parties (which include comfy chairs and couches for our aches and pains, subwoofers that make you feel the vibrations, active listeners, and personal support workers, so we can fully enjoy our time out, and plenty of room as well as fully accessible bathrooms for wheelchair-users to dance, dance, and dance as well as pee with ease, and no stairs in sight and clear paths to sway or rest as we please).

Because, please, did you really think this could go on, this able-bodied and -minded domination? It’s not that we’ve flipped the script to exert power and replicate oppressions on our able-bodied and able-minded friends, they just over time learned to not take up so much space and not be offended or feel left out if we don’t organize with them in mind. Actually, in our accessible/disabled future, binaries are broken. We fully live on and in the spectrum of possibilities of non-stigmatized minds and bodies. In this spectrum, we are fully connected to one another, which means that decolonization has happened and is still happening and that patriarchy has been toppled and much more. This interconnectedness that we now live daily means that sometimes our able-bodied and able-minded friends are learning every day, including from their mistakes, and are understanding in how many ways our differences and disabilities manifest. This also means that we have collectively built this future and thus have learned and understood differences and disabilities, and all of us are still doing that important work even when it is hard because this future world is ours!

-KARINE MYRGIANIE JEAN-FRANÇOIS AND NELLY BASSILY, DAWN (DISABLED WOMEN’S NETWORK) CANADA”
― Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs

“Alguien que juega con la palabra creatividad, otra de las palabras que queremos subrayar es la compositora y cantante Leika Mochán. Leika Mochán, quien a través de su voz construye constelaciones sonoras que se expanden para deleitar los sentidos. Este es un fragmento de lo que nos platicó:

Para mi siempre ha sido, lo más importante para cantar es escuchar. Entonces por ejemplo yo en estos tiempos que además pues estando todo el día la familia en la casa hay mucho más trabajo qué hacer en la casa, puedes abrir tu oído y antes de pensar en loopear y en generar tu propio acompañamiento.

Por ejemplo yo pongo la lavadora y me encanta cantar con la lavadora. Te da increíble porque te da un acompañamiento armónico y ritmo y hay de esto en todos lados en la casa, pues hay que abrir el oído y escuchar y escuchar la calle, los sonidos de la calle casi todos tienen al final esto de los bucles en el tiempo, las repeticiones, los ciclos, pues los hay siempre, ¿no?, si uno pone atención ahora que estamos mucho en casa.

Por ejemplo a mi me visitan los mismos pájaros todos los días. Tengo una plantita de romero y hay un pajarillo amarilloo que se planta que todos los días a las 8 de la mañana se para en la plantita de romero y tiene su propio canto. O sea que como si uno abre el oído puedes empezar a encontrar la música en todo tu entorno y jugar con ello.

—Leika Mochan en la Hora Nacional (2021, abr. 4).”
― Leika Mochan

“Para mi siempre lo más importante para cantar es escuchar. Entonces yo en estos tiempos que además estando todo el día la familia hay mucho más trabajo qué hacer en la casa, puedes abrir tu oído y antes de pensar en loopear y en generar tu propio acompañamiento.

Yo pongo la lavadora y me encanta cantar con la lavadora. Te da increíble porque te da un acompañamiento armónico y ritmo. ¡Y hay de esto en todos lados en la casa! Hay que abrir el oído y escuchar. Escuchar la calle, los sonidos de la calle. Casi todos tienen al final esto de los bucles en el tiempo, las repeticiones, los ciclos, los hay siempre si uno pone atención ahora que estamos mucho en casa.

A mi me visitan los mismos pájaros todos los días. Tengo una plantita de romero y hay un pajarillo amarilloo que se planta que todos los días a las 8 de la mañana en la plantita de romero y tiene su propio canto. Si uno abre el oído puedes empezar a encontrar la música en todo tu entorno y jugar con ello.”

—Leika Mochan en la Hora Nacional (2021, abr. 4). (editado).”
― Leika Mochan

“Sometimes I feel impatient about how much ableism has forced us to emphasize accessibility to get people to pay even a modicum of attention to it. Collective access is revolutionary because disabled people of color (and disabled people in general) choosing each other is revolutionary. And, in many ways access should not be a revolutionary concept. It is the routine, every day part of the work. It is only the first step in movement building. People talk about access as the outcome, not the process, as if having spaces be accessible is enough to get us all free. Disabled people are so much more than our access needs; we can’t have a movement without safety and access, and yet there is so much more still waiting for us collectively once we build this skillset of negotiating access needs with each other.

Tonight I am taking time to appreciate and enjoy access as a communication of our deepest desires. When my new friend makes their house wheelchair accessible so I can come over, a whole new level of safety and trust opens up. When a love takes initiative to reach out to event organizers to make sure my buds and I can fully participate, that’s thoughtfulness, and also political commitment in practice. When I eat dinner with dear ones and they know which spoon or cup to grab, that’s attunement. When I can ask a friend to move my body, it’s because I know they want me to be comfortable out in the world. When I can do the impairment-related parts of my routine around someone, that’s intimacy, a gift of letting each other into our most private worlds.

Feeling thankful for access—and interdependence—as an opportunity for us to show up for one another, and also for crip spaces that give us a taste of what can take place when we have each other. I am so hungry for us to be together. I am so ready for what is around the corner.

—STACEY PARK”
― Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs