Status Updates From Care Work: Dreaming Disabil...

Maybe Leah could be considered a “child” of Frida if we consider the ways Frida performed marginalized identities for personal gain and activist clout, fabricated lore, and engaged in theft at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty…

Although much like Leah, Frida was a person of European heritage who fetishized Indigenous people, engaged in Indigenous cultural identity theft, and performed fabricated family lore with culturally appropriative clothing and hairstyles

Leah’s Irish great-grandfather Anthony James Conlon was a star of early 1900s basketball. Born in Ballina, Mayo County, Ireland, he immigrated to the U.S. as a child with his father and brother, Pat & Patrick Conlon who settled in Fitchburg, MA. Anthony married Emma Bergner June 11, 1901. Her ancestors immigrated from Saxony, Germany. Leah also has ancestors from Bützow on her dad’s side.

On p. 9 Leah thanks Frida and Harriet’s Children workshop participants. This is an example of the ways Leah has profited from cultural identity theft. Leah created a workshop Leah is not, nor is anyone in her family a “child” of Frida or Harriet. This is fraudulent representation and exploitation of falsely claimed marginalized identity for personal gain and activist clout. Leah is German, however. Not bipoc.

Still on page 9. I am a survivor of The Seattle Disability Justice Collective. It was a destructive group where physical and sexual assaults occurred with extreme exploitive labor practices, theft, and abuse. Most evidence of DJC Seattle has been scrubbed by narcissistic abusers & financial predators dodging accountability for criminal behavior. Susan Naomi Finkelstein aka Bear has a long record of assault and theft

Clarification on the last comment. I was in the Sick and Disabled Queers Facebook group from its early days. It was not always secret & changed to a secret group later. I was not in the bipoc SDQ group and do not know who moderates that, but it’s my understanding the moderators of that group removed several white people misrepresenting themselves as people of color. Leah’s accomplices were among those removed.

Still on page 9. Leah thanks the Sick and Disabled Queers group and the Sick and Disabled Queer and Trans People of Color Facebook group. These are secret groups moderated by high-control narcissistic abusers. Sick and Disabled queers was founded by a white race-shifter— notoriously racist Erika Maria Reinstein, who has also used pseudonyms Billie Strain, Billie Rain, William Maria Rain, Mix William, & Rain-Shadid

Leah thanks the Harriet Tubman Collective. Like Leah, Talia A. Lewis is narcissistic & has enabled Leah’s harmful behavior for years. I guess when you have a book written by a movement narcissist, there is going to be a long list of enablers and other narcissistic abusers in the acknowledgments section.

One more comment about the Deaf Poets Society. There was previously a group with the same name that was legitimately a Deaf community group featuring Deaf poets. That’s not what this is. One tactic of predatory journals is to select names that are the same or similar to legitimate groups. It’s a deceptive tactic intended to manipulate people. Hearing disabled people: it’s not okay for you to behave this way.

Leah also thanks the Canaries. I don’t have direct experience with that group but as a neurodivergent person I have experienced abuse from Leah specifically targeting me as a neurodivergent person. She’s been extremely harmful to other ND people. The majority of those she has abused are neurodivergent. She exploits neurodivergent and Autistic communities intentionally. Stop giving her access to new victims.

Still page 9?! Leah acknowledges and thanks the “Deaf Poets Society.” This fraudulent group has a predatory online journal. It is NOT a society of Deaf poets. It is HEARING disabled poets. The hearing disabled poets named their group “Deaf” poets in order to raid resources designated for Deaf communities. It is cultural appropriation and theft. The predatory journal also charged submission fees. Red Flag!

No one in Deaf community spaces in Seattle knows Leah. Leah does not respect Deaf people in her local communities. It is only HEARING interpreters and HEARING CART professionals who profit while Leah raids resources intended to support Deaf community organizing. Leah needs to drop her mic, sit down, turn her voice off, and listen to Deaf—Stop speaking about Deaf people without Deaf people!

Continuing the discussion of Leah and Deaf community… in 15 years of events with this writer, Deaf community has never been present. There are hearing interpreters and one or two isolated Deaf people but Leah has not built meaningful relationships with Deaf community anywhere she has lived. It is performative for Leah to acknowledge Deaf community. She has actually abused Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.

In the Thanks and Acknowledgements, Leah thanks the Deaf community. Leah is a hearing person and is not part of any Deaf community. She does not know Deaf community members in her local communities and does not support actual Deaf people. She has however targeted individual Deaf and Hard of Hearing people and isolated them from Deaf community for years.

Ugh. Still page 9? How much BS can Leah fit on one page? Leah mentions Sins Invalid in the Thanks and Acknowledgements. Sins Invalid is such a cesspool of Movement Narcissism and covert abuse. It has been that way since it was established. I also think the way this small, very controlling group of individuals calls themselves “The Founders” of the movement is a red flag. It is cult-thinking & needs to stop.

“I am not the one right kind of cripple, the kind that is convenient enough to nod at and ignore all the rest. I am all the rest” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018, 9).

Leah Louise Albrecht is not “all the rest.” What an arrogant, gross claim to make. She has a lifelong pattern of ignoring important differences, appropriates others’ experiences as her own, & uses the term “we” when it’s not appropriate.

“This book … was made through many community conversations, organizing efforts, arguments, fuckups, terrible challenges and Crazy brilliant ideas and leaps of faith. These ideas were crafted by collective disabled genius, science, and labor” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018, 9).

As a survivor of the Disability Justice Collective, I assure you that what really went on behind closed doors wasn’t brilliant genius.

“This book is also emphatically not the product of a single smart and special person’s brain” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018, 9).

Now, however, Leah self-identifies as a messiah and gives herself the self-bestowed titles “THE ONE AMAZING TRUSTWORTHY PERSON” & “The One Who Will Save Us” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2023, 254).

As a survivor, I know this is an example of Leah’s Narcissistic grandiosity.

Comment on the previous quote: Future faking is a tactic where someone makes false promises about the future to manipulate you in the present. When Leah hooks you at the beginning and lures you in with these wild, dreamy, decolonial, majestic promises, it is a deliberate manipulation tactic. Leah’s future-faking is definitely not the revolution.

Leah may have written this book in sleep pants. As a survivor, I guarantee you this book is NOT a “majestic” disabled “revolutionary” “dream”:

“No matter where I was paying rent, these pieces were mostly written in the majestic disabled revolutionary space of writing from my bed in old sleep pants. So thank you to this decolonial, queer, disabled bed space of wild disabled femme of color dreams.”

Dedication: “To the beloved, kindred, needed”

The problem with this dedication is that Leah is one of those individuals who fronts a beloved community politic while her private behavior is the antithesis of what she says and writes. She doesn’t love or need you. She’s not your kin. Leah uses tactics of love-bombing then devalues and discards her targeted victims.

Correction: The previous quote was not from Leah but from Stacey Park Milbern. What I said about how Leah uses the term “love” still stands. Leah does not love people, she uses them. And one of the people Leah is totally using here is Stacey. Leah is an irresponsible writer who doesn’t know what love is.

Leah is one of those perpetrators who deliberately emotionally manipulates and misrepresents “love” to abuse their victims– often without them even knowing it. It may seem like “love” at the beginning, but it is actually grooming.

example:
“I have loved disabled people of color my whole adult life and am still amazed to discover that the more I love our people, the more I remember where I come from.”

These people did not do their jobs as editors or proofreaders:
Edited by Lisa Factora-Borchers
Copy edited by Shirarose Wilensky
Proofread by Alison Strobel
For one thing, verifying the accurate spelling of names is the basic bare-minimum and they did not even do that. What else did they miss? A lot.

I forgot to mention in my comment on the cover— Leah is spelling Piepzna wrong. Leah’s great-grandmother, Mrs. Louise (Piepszna) Smolen married Joseph Smolen. They came to the U.S. from villages in Podkarpackie, Poland. The Polish spellings of their names were Ludwika Pieprzny and Józef Smoleń. In the U.S., Louise Smolen spelled her maiden name using an s before the z in Piepszna.

The way Leah “collects” Black, Indigenous, and People of Color writers on the praise page is completely nauseating. Praise from Qwo-Li Driskill is absolutely atrocious. Like Leah, Qwo-Li Driskill uses a self-bestowed pseudonym as a deceptive publishing practice, to conceal the fact that [Paul Edward Driskill] is a white person with zero indigenous ancestry. They resigned after being exposed as an ethnic fraud.

Lydia Brown is also featured on the praise page. Leah is using a self-bestowed pseudonym and also self-identifies as Autistic. My direct experiences with this writer as a developmentally disabled person is that they are actually extremely anti-autistic and harmful to autistic people. They use their platform to target vulnerable people, particularly in neurodivergent communities. It’s a real problem.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is quoted on the praise page. There have been multiple allegations of narcissistic abuse made by women involved with Leroy’s Krip-Hop Nation and by disabled people who were harmed through Sins Invalid. Leroy himself has also made allegations of financial abuse that he says he experienced from other Sins Invalid founders and members, including Patti and Leah. It’s not a beacon of liberation.

[Image description (by the artist): A book cover design. The text reads “Leah Lakshmi Piepznia-Samarasinha / CARE / Dreaming Disability Justice / WORK” and the illustration is a marker drawing of brown limbs entwined with roots and branches, tilting across the cover]

No one discuses the fact that this author is using a self-bestowed pseudonym and cover art of brown bodies as a deceptive publishing tactic…