Transcript


01:35
talk wasn't recorded okay
01:39
sorry this is the next one
01:53
okay mouse you're on perfect
01:56
well first of all thank you everybody
01:58
for your patience uh we want to make
02:00
sure
02:00
everything is accessible so thank you
02:03
for waiting as we got
02:04
everything set up my name is
02:08
mel's felton i use they them pronouns i
02:11
am the one of the one of the two april
02:14
youth board seats
02:16
as well as the youth project and
02:19
unserved underserved communities
02:22
coordinator
02:23
for the disability action center over in
02:25
eastern washington
02:27
north idaho uh and
02:30
thank you so much for joining us today
02:32
for this workshop
02:33
i want to mention a few housekeeping
02:35
items before we get started
02:37
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can find the menu bar either at the top
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of the screen uh this is where you'll
02:51
find closed captioning for today's
02:53
session
02:54
you can view the captioning by selecting
02:56
the cc tab
02:57
on the menu bar stream text is also
03:00
available for today's calls
03:02
you can find that in the conference
03:04
website connected
03:05
connect conference website connection
03:08
instructions for this session
03:11
for sign language interpreting you can
03:13
find the interpreter on the screen
03:15
you can change the interpreters panelist
03:18
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03:19
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03:48
um for q a please use
03:51
the uh q a box that will you will see at
03:54
the
03:54
in the same bottom panel um if you have
03:58
a question and this will be a very uh
04:00
conversational uh
04:04
uh breakout please use the q a
04:08
i will be trying to keep up with any
04:10
questions that are posted in the chat
04:12
but there is a chance that your question
04:14
will be missed so if you have a question
04:16
post it in the q a
04:19
um you can also ask questions or make a
04:22
comment
04:23
you can use the raise hand option on the
04:26
menu
04:27
um that also allows us to know if you
04:29
have a question
04:30
uh for those of you using the phone
04:31
today or using keystrokes we ask that
04:34
you press star nine
04:35
on your keypad to raise your hand we
04:38
will then
04:38
let you know um when we unmute you
04:43
and also um i think most importantly in
04:46
the
04:47
these zoom times if you um are joining
04:50
in
04:50
on the conversation through audio um
04:53
please keep background sounds to a
04:55
minimum
04:56
and if you are not speaking uh keep
04:58
yourself
04:59
on mute with that i am going to uh
05:04
pass this uh presentation over
05:07
to uh christiana for those of you who
05:11
have maybe
05:12
dropped into some of our youth
05:13
coordinators connect this past year you
05:15
may have had a chance to hear them speak
05:18
and i was so happy to have them back a
05:21
fellow washingtonian
05:22
and a fellow dog lover so thank you so
05:26
much for being here christiana and
05:28
speaking at our
05:29
first virtual youth conference and the
05:32
floor is yours
05:34
thank you um hello everyone uh thank you
05:37
for that introduction my name is
05:39
christiana ruby sumner
05:40
um my pronouns are they them i
05:44
uh for those who um
05:47
for image description i am a black
05:50
non-binary person
05:52
with black secretary glasses
05:56
and wearing a black sweater
05:59
with a turtleneck and an amethyst
06:02
pendant
06:03
and a black and white patterned head
06:05
wrap i am
06:06
in a room full of a ridiculous amount of
06:10
books
06:11
as well as a guitar case and a small dog
06:14
that you may see
06:15
come in and out of the shot or here
06:19
uh doing various puppy things um
06:22
today i was asked to chat a little bit
06:26
about intersectionality
06:30
um and some other sort of things so
06:33
i some ways that we can make this
06:36
somewhat interactive because
06:38
to be completely honest i had a
06:41
powerpoint a good talk about
06:42
intersectionality equality equity and
06:45
justice
06:46
and what it means to be in solidarity or
06:48
an accomplice
06:49
however i guess because of this tuesday
06:53
um it decided to update and so now all
06:55
of my
06:56
microsoft office is being a thing so i
06:59
will just
06:59
talk a little bit if you have any
07:02
questions or responses
07:04
um like i said like with questions you
07:06
put in a q a that'd be great and we
07:08
could talk
07:09
about it i would love to answer any
07:11
questions that you have
07:12
no bad questions or if there's anything
07:16
that resonates with you or any personal
07:17
stories around this too
07:19
um please put that in the chat i have
07:22
the chat open
07:23
so if it's something that you'd like to
07:25
share i would love to hear about it
07:26
so let's first talk about
07:29
intersectionality
07:31
um i'm unsure how many of y'all
07:36
have heard of the term intersectionality
07:38
this is one of those terms that's been
07:40
pretty um popular in the media a lot of
07:44
people have talked about it or maybe a
07:45
buzzword a buzzword being
07:48
a term that people use a lot that
07:51
the difficulty with buzzwords is that
07:54
you
07:54
use it so often that sometimes the
07:57
meaning changes
07:58
so let's talk a little bit about where
08:00
intersectionality came from
08:03
so intersectionality is a term that was
08:06
coined originally in the
08:08
in the 80s though it's a conversation
08:10
that people have been having for a very
08:12
long time
08:14
there was a legal scholar who
08:17
named kimberly crenshaw and in the 80s
08:21
she was doing a research
08:25
of she was doing some research
08:28
on a case that was happening with a
08:31
manufacturing plant and the people who
08:34
are working at the manufacturing plants
08:37
there were black folks and there were
08:39
women and this manufacturing plant said
08:41
no we're not
08:42
um disqualifying people based on
08:45
their appearance they uh you know black
08:49
folks and women work here
08:50
so there there must be some issue a
08:52
mistake
08:53
if people are saying that however
08:58
black marginalized genders particularly
09:01
as it's
09:02
shared in the documents from criminally
09:04
credentialed black women
09:06
um were saying that they weren't able to
09:09
get jobs
09:10
so when kimberly crenshaw investigated
09:14
she did find that they were
09:17
hiring black folks at the at the
09:20
manufacturing plant
09:22
but they are primarily hiring black
09:24
cis-head
09:25
men and they were hiring them for back
09:28
of
09:28
house work so working on the
09:32
working on the assembly line of
09:35
you know and all of that sort of hard
09:37
labor based on this idea
09:38
the sexist idea that only cis-head
09:41
men can do that sort of work and they
09:44
were
09:45
hiring women but they were primarily
09:48
hiring white
09:48
women for that front of the house
09:51
administrative work like secretarial
09:53
work or filing work or management work
09:56
or lay management because still sexism
10:00
but also in this case racism or
10:03
particularly anti-blackness
10:05
and that they didn't want the you know
10:07
sort of the face of the company as
10:08
people came in
10:09
to be a black uh
10:13
person so when kimberly crenshaw
10:16
asked you know sort of where this
10:18
pattern came from and whether they would
10:21
um take the time to actually
10:24
um you know make sure that there was
10:27
equity which we'll get to in a second
10:30
there uh they said that they were
10:32
concerned around holding
10:34
you know both of those identities at
10:36
once not because of the compounding
10:39
intersectional impact of oppression
10:43
marginalization or exploitation
10:46
but more they thought that it would give
10:48
them some sort of advantage
10:51
to hold both of them this was during a
10:54
time
10:57
after the civil rights act after the
11:00
black power movement
11:02
moving into a conversation about
11:06
affirmative action in the 80s
11:09
affirmative action is a term that was
11:12
originally
11:14
um brought out by
11:18
president kennedy jfk and it was
11:21
supposed to be
11:22
sort of a product of the civil rights
11:25
act which was passed in 1964
11:28
so 57 years ago
11:31
to make sure that the systems and
11:34
institutions and policies that were not
11:37
created for folks
11:41
pre-1964 uh were actually
11:44
had those uh catchment or those
11:47
those pieces to make sure that they were
11:50
really
11:50
uh allowing folks to have a
11:53
fair shot at things like jobs education
11:58
housing things like that it's very
12:01
contentious
12:02
in that people felt that in providing
12:06
a measure that would essentially
12:10
hold a historical and um
12:14
systemic uh oppression
12:17
historical meaning that it has happened
12:19
for a very long time
12:21
systemic meaning that is just sort of
12:22
baked into the way things are done every
12:25
day
12:26
um would give people an unfair advantage
12:29
and so
12:30
it has it it continues to be a very
12:34
contentious topic with only a few
12:36
states and very uh uh
12:40
specific situations primarily around
12:43
qualitative missions
12:44
where uh affirmative action is used
12:48
so let's talk about um the other thing
12:52
i'll say about intersectionality
12:53
the original term so i say this story
12:56
because the original term of
12:57
intersectionality
12:59
was created to mean precisely
13:03
what kimberly crenshaw was studying
13:06
which is what does it mean when racism
13:09
or in particular anti-blackness
13:12
and sexism or misogyny come together
13:16
and create a compounding or
13:18
intersectional
13:20
impact in someone's lived experience
13:24
another term that you may hear someone
13:26
say to be super wonky is misogynois
13:31
misogyn being like misogyny or a form of
13:34
sexism specifically
13:36
to um the folks of marginalized gender
13:40
and uh noir which is
13:44
a french term for black so black
13:47
misogyny
13:49
um since that time
13:52
primarily in the spaces of academia
13:55
because
13:56
before we had like the internet which
13:59
has
14:00
really revolutionized a lot of things
14:02
i'm in this interesting
14:04
age group where i remember um the
14:07
internet coming on
14:08
and computers coming on but the internet
14:10
being kind of limited
14:12
and so you still had to rely rely on
14:15
things
14:16
like um cd-rom services
14:20
or uh uh old sort of
14:23
uh search engines like ask jeeves or
14:26
something like that
14:28
so um if you didn't know what to search
14:31
for
14:32
you didn't really know very much and
14:34
even then
14:35
the internet did not have as much
14:38
information as it used to
14:40
so um a lot of the conversation
14:44
up until the 21st century around
14:47
the early 2000s has really
14:50
been kept inside of spaces like
14:54
colleges or what they call academia and
14:56
so of course as you can
14:58
see um in terms of class
15:01
that if you or your parents or your
15:04
grandparents etc
15:06
were not able to go to college they may
15:09
not have been
15:10
able to have these sort of conversations
15:12
and unlike today
15:14
they were just not conversations that
15:16
people were having
15:17
as a matter of fact um and to this day
15:21
still i think
15:22
um it was considered rude to have a
15:25
conversation around
15:26
politics which this would be considered
15:29
politics
15:31
but especially as we got
15:35
into the 2010s
15:38
some of those conversations are to come
15:41
out of the university and academic
15:43
system
15:44
and into sort of the general
15:46
conversation
15:48
so we started to hear more uh
15:51
terms like equity intersectionality
15:55
and critical race theory things that
15:58
usually would you know be um
16:01
very inaccessible to to most people and
16:04
in a lot of ways still is because we're
16:06
only really talking about 10
16:08
15 years since this has been
16:11
a conversation in the general public and
16:13
and in terms of conversations that would
16:16
be
16:17
you know on the internet on social media
16:19
which is
16:20
also fairly new for a lot of people i'm
16:23
in a scheme of things
16:25
um in things like uh you know the videos
16:29
that we watch or or things like that the
16:31
news using these sort of things and you
16:33
know we're coming from a space
16:35
especially with the news
16:37
um where a lot of the older generations
16:40
including my own
16:42
uh were kind of brought up to believe
16:45
the news
16:45
as it came on the evening so there used
16:48
to be folks like
16:49
walter cronkite which everyone would
16:51
after dinner go at eight o'clock and
16:54
watch them
16:54
you know watch the the evening news with
16:57
walter cronkite
16:58
um and if the news said it it was
17:02
doctrine
17:03
now people can go online and they can
17:06
um learn things for themselves and i and
17:08
i share this because
17:10
what happens in in those moments is when
17:14
it becomes disaggregated
17:15
is number one more people have access to
17:17
it which is the positive
17:19
but then also more people are
17:22
interpreting it and then
17:23
kind of creating their own sort of
17:25
understandings or interpretations of
17:27
what
17:28
certain things mean which can be a
17:30
negative because then when people talk
17:32
about certain things
17:33
then they don't really know which of the
17:36
definitions they're supposed to use
17:40
so now when we have a conversation on
17:42
intersectionality it is a little bit
17:45
there's some people who kind of argue
17:47
over it
17:48
uh some people say uh you know we should
17:52
keep it to the original uh understanding
17:55
that kimberly crenshaw
17:57
meant which is um you know
18:00
black marginalized gender you know and
18:03
that
18:04
is the intersectionality that's what it
18:06
means
18:07
and then on the other side there is
18:10
people who say intersectionality
18:12
in a more contemporary uh understanding
18:15
of it
18:16
should mean when people have
18:19
two or more lived experiences that come
18:22
together
18:24
and into like a singular moment so
18:27
whether that's your race or your gender
18:30
or your sexual orientation or your class
18:33
or your nationality or your language
18:37
whatever that may be that they whenever
18:39
two or more of them come together and
18:41
experience
18:42
that should matter whether it's a
18:44
privileged identity
18:46
or or not and i think that where
18:50
uh perhaps a compromise is right now is
18:54
in the middle where it doesn't have to
18:56
be about being
18:57
black no marginalized gender and it
19:00
doesn't have to be just
19:02
any uh to a two or more lived
19:05
experiences
19:06
but perhaps two or more lived
19:07
experiences that are traditionally
19:10
marginalized oppressed or exploited
19:14
i would also share when i say privileged
19:17
identity
19:18
some people kind of hear that and think
19:20
that it means
19:23
that they are actively receiving
19:26
something but i think what's important
19:28
here is to think about ways that we
19:30
passively receive
19:31
something so essentially when i say
19:35
privilege what i'm saying is that people
19:37
have a choice
19:39
whether it seems like a choice or not is
19:42
a different conversation
19:44
but when i say that if a person has a
19:46
choice it means that when you wake up
19:49
or you go outside or you get dress
19:52
that there are certain things that you
19:54
still have to think about
19:56
in terms of how not only would it
19:59
affect you in general but how it may
20:02
um deeply impact your ability to move
20:06
through an access space
20:08
so if you you know for example
20:12
i think one of the things that's been
20:13
great about the pandemic is is
20:15
that there's a lot of folks for example
20:17
who wear head wraps like i did
20:20
and before the pandemic i used to have
20:23
a lot of folks tell me about how my hair
20:26
was quote unquote
20:27
unprofessional just the way that it was
20:31
growing out of my head because it's very
20:33
kinky coily
20:35
um and so the difficulty about that
20:38
would mean if i was going into a space
20:41
and i wanted to make sure someone saw me
20:43
as professional
20:44
i would be required to chemically
20:48
alter or straighten my hair this
20:51
is an issue that people have talked
20:53
about um
20:54
and they have taken it all the way up to
20:56
the supreme court of the united states
20:59
and said you know it's not fair for
21:02
folks
21:02
to be asked to leave a job
21:06
or to be dismissed from school
21:09
simply because their hair is does not
21:13
reflect
21:15
this what they call eurocentric point of
21:18
view
21:19
which eurocentric is a is a term that
21:22
means um anything that is sort of
21:25
um uh it is
21:28
anything that is sort of centered around
21:31
what
21:32
a a european aesthetic look like
21:35
so um in this case hair being
21:39
neurocentric would mean
21:41
that the the bar for what it means to be
21:44
a professional would mean that your hair
21:47
should look like someone who is european
21:49
and as you can tell that's very
21:51
problematic
21:53
so let's talk really quick about justice
21:55
equity and
21:56
um equality we
22:00
have a lot of language in our country
22:02
around
22:03
equality uh equality
22:07
essentially means that everyone
22:10
has the same exact shot
22:13
the same exact resources and they are
22:17
supposed to
22:18
use those same resources and
22:21
opportunities to reach a goal that
22:24
everyone
22:26
theoretically can attain but let's talk
22:29
about that
22:30
one of the main documents that we think
22:33
about that says
22:34
talks a lot about equality is the
22:37
constitution in the bill of rights
22:40
however what people don't know or don't
22:43
like to think about
22:44
is that both the constitution and the
22:45
bill of rights were written during a
22:47
time
22:48
where there were still enslaved people
22:51
in this country
22:52
and those people would not be freed for
22:55
almost another century
22:57
not to mention that even once the
22:59
emancipation proclamation was passed
23:03
um that proclamation um
23:06
as well as the constitution and the uh
23:09
civil war
23:10
were not intended for um black folks to
23:14
remain
23:15
in the united states yeah you know when
23:18
the civil war was happening um abraham
23:22
lincoln
23:23
uh called the council of some black
23:27
scholars
23:28
who was talking about what it would mean
23:30
for black liberation
23:32
and lincoln at that point
23:36
told them that he had no intention
23:39
of freeing enslaved people and then
23:42
having them integrate into america but
23:44
instead
23:45
um wish to send them away either back to
23:49
the african continent or um elsewhere
23:53
it's where the country of liberia was
23:56
created and why
23:58
the um capital of liberia is is
24:01
monroeville after
24:02
former united states president james
24:04
monroe it was a place where they
24:07
planned to send all of the enslaved
24:10
black folks united states back to africa
24:14
but it was a
24:15
plan that was ended so
24:18
in a lot of ways the difficulty about
24:21
this conversation is that it
24:23
you know equality as we understand it
24:26
was never
24:26
really about being equal
24:30
equity is also a
24:33
space in in this way where you're
24:35
holding the fact
24:36
that people are not starting from the
24:39
same place
24:41
they um there are these sort of barriers
24:44
and bottlenecks so to
24:46
speak of of how
24:49
people may need to start this you know
24:52
when i was in kentucky
24:54
um i lived in kentucky for six years and
24:57
they have this
24:58
yearly uh pageant
25:02
essentially is what it's called what it
25:03
is um called the kentucky derby
25:06
and it's a month-long celebration but it
25:09
culminates in this horse race that lasts
25:11
about 90 seconds and
25:14
um these and folks will spend their
25:16
entire life
25:18
to train and um and learn how to ride
25:22
race horses and um the way that it
25:25
always starts if they bring all the
25:27
horses around
25:28
the track and then they get them into
25:30
these starting gates
25:32
and then they play this this the sound
25:35
on the horn
25:36
that you that you probably have heard
25:38
before in the cartoon
25:40
and then they say and they're off and
25:42
they open up the gates and then they run
25:44
around the truck
25:46
in a lot of ways equality is
25:49
saying that everyone has a horse that
25:52
first of all everyone has a horse that's
25:54
the first thing everyone has a horse
25:56
and then everyone has a race course
25:59
and then everyone has a racehorse that
26:02
has been trained
26:03
for race that everyone has a racehorse
26:06
that's been trained for a race that is
26:08
able
26:08
that is ready to race on that day on
26:10
that track with that jockey or the
26:12
person who rides the horse
26:15
it's even assuming that everyone is in
26:17
the starting gate that everyone's
26:19
starting gate opens at the bell
26:21
and that everyone is even at the venue
26:24
if you think about it equality is
26:28
assuming that we are all born with the
26:29
same rights and privileges but as we
26:31
have seen
26:33
and continue to see especially even if
26:35
we just take
26:36
what has happened this year in terms of
26:38
the pandemic
26:40
in terms of the housing crisis in terms
26:42
of the
26:43
climate disaster and we haven't even
26:46
gotten to race yet
26:48
um our disability which we've seen with
26:51
the privatization of care
26:54
oh there is a lot of of
26:58
those barriers and bottlenecks for
26:59
people to even get to the starting gate
27:02
let alone
27:03
for them to race um within
27:06
the derby without you know other people
27:10
having advantages or things like that or
27:12
people specifically having obstacles put
27:14
in their way some
27:15
horses need to use you know needing to
27:17
go over actual
27:19
hurdles whereas some horses just get to
27:22
a
27:24
race on flat ground
27:27
and so essentially the difference so
27:30
essentially the difference between
27:31
equality and equity is that equity is
27:34
acknowledging
27:35
that we have historical and systemic
27:39
barriers for certain people than certain
27:41
communities of people
27:43
and a lot of them is based on a really
27:46
really big
27:47
ten thousand dollar term called social
27:50
construction
27:52
social construction um as you see from
27:55
aries in the chat
27:57
is essentially the act of
28:00
people humans coming together
28:03
and saying this is what this means
28:06
and then based on those people coming
28:08
together and saying this is what this
28:10
means either
28:11
explicitly so they're sitting around the
28:13
table saying talking about it
28:15
or implicitly they all just kind of come
28:18
to believe something
28:19
um is it leads to these expectations and
28:24
assumptions and biases that people then
28:27
use
28:28
to make judgment or to classify or to
28:31
characterize
28:33
and then that is how people either do or
28:36
do not have access to certain spaces or
28:38
resources
28:40
if you think about it one of the ways
28:44
that we think about
28:45
construct or at least i've been talking
28:47
about with people in my community about
28:49
construct
28:50
is that i come from a
28:53
heritage called the evil or the ob
28:57
the ob was a priest class in the igbo
29:00
tribe
29:00
the igbo tribe was um from nigeria
29:04
and the ob were specifically bought and
29:07
sold in the transatlantic slave trade
29:09
into jamaica
29:10
to into britain britain occupied jamaica
29:14
the ob for the priest class and so they
29:17
were sold as what they were then
29:20
re-constructed um
29:22
as witch doctors or practicing black
29:26
magic
29:27
um and um
29:34
it took it to this day um obese
29:41
are are people or the obeah uh what they
29:44
might be called
29:45
obia um are still
29:48
outlawed um in a lot of ways
29:52
and so um it's it's
29:55
the it's it took a space from
29:59
this is how we have a a spiritual
30:03
practice
30:04
um that is normalized to
30:08
today where it's seen as devil worship
30:11
or
30:12
or voodoo or some other sort of word and
30:15
it's because of this sort of
30:17
classification of characterization of
30:19
people
30:20
another example is that you may have
30:22
heard about the stimulus payments the
30:24
1200
30:25
stimulus payments um
30:28
i think as they said it was an
30:30
individual who is making up to 75 000
30:33
a year could also get the 1200 stimulus
30:36
payment
30:38
so if you think about say someone who's
30:39
on ssdi
30:42
uh versus someone who
30:46
um who
30:49
is who someone else is making seventy
30:52
five hundred dollars versus someone
30:54
who's making seventy five thousand
30:55
dollars twelve hundred dollars is gonna
30:58
not very go very far right um
31:02
and so uh they're gonna have different
31:05
impacts
31:06
and so it's that's a that's what it
31:08
means to have equality
31:10
so um no matter when you make seven
31:12
hundred seventy five hundred dollars a
31:14
year versus seventy five thousand
31:15
dollars a year you both get twelve
31:16
hundred dollars
31:18
as opposed to perhaps an equity model
31:22
where if you have seventy five hundred
31:24
dollars you would have more
31:26
you will receive more money than seventy
31:28
five thousand
31:29
and the last thing i will say is justice
31:32
um just to explain what it means to have
31:35
equity equality and justice also i just
31:37
realized i didn't finish my google story
31:38
the reason why i brought the evil story
31:40
in the obeya story
31:42
is because the conversation we've been
31:44
having is about
31:46
what you've been classified to this
31:48
point of being black magic of voodoo
31:50
right um we also talk about what it
31:54
means
31:55
in at least in the cult in obeya and
31:59
evil culture where it needs to be
32:00
disabled
32:02
pre-christianity so when
32:04
the british came to nigeria and jamaica
32:07
and judas christianity
32:08
what did it mean before that well for
32:11
folks
32:12
before then um people who
32:16
would now be considered to be
32:18
psychiatrically disabled
32:19
were not considered to be disabled
32:21
actually they were considered they were
32:23
the ones who were amplified
32:25
to be the leaders of the practice
32:29
because they were lauded as folks who
32:32
were able to have conversations with
32:34
their ancestors or receive those visions
32:37
to to be able to practice at a higher
32:40
level and people would come to them
32:43
for support and for for um
32:47
for guidance and that continued
32:50
into jamaica now there are folks who
32:54
say okay not saying that you know
32:57
perhaps there isn't something i can
32:58
receive help with but to what extent
33:01
um is this a disability in sort of a
33:03
more capitalistic
33:05
mindset of capitalistic meaning that
33:08
your
33:09
worth is based on how much
33:12
you can work or how productive
33:15
you can be how much work you can get
33:16
done in a certain amount of time
33:19
so what it means to have equity is is
33:22
important
33:23
it is sort of the lifeblood of what it
33:26
means
33:26
to have a society that holds each other
33:30
in positive regard i always say if you
33:31
think about
33:32
a car that's sort of on its way out it's
33:35
it's making sure that you are
33:37
fixing the engine or the transmission of
33:39
the car
33:40
and not getting too focused on the way a
33:42
car looks on the outside it feels on the
33:45
inside
33:47
whereas justice would mean that we are
33:50
coming to an understanding
33:52
um and an awareness of those different
33:55
constructs those
33:56
ways in which we come together and stay
33:58
as humans this is what this means
34:00
um you know and how can we
34:04
move in a way where we can
34:08
treat folks based on how they show up in
34:13
the world and
34:14
what they mean by meeting people where
34:15
they are
34:17
while also having an impact over intense
34:21
mindset so they always say you know the
34:24
old
34:24
adage is that the road to heck is paid
34:26
with good intentions
34:28
um so if you just focus on
34:31
what your intention was in the moment
34:33
and not what your impact was
34:35
um it kind of falls flat but
34:38
if we focus on how our impact has been
34:41
and what people are sharing with us in
34:44
this moment
34:45
of hey there's a yikes or an ounce from
34:47
the room
34:48
then you know we can do some good work
34:52
and justice would be that we would move
34:54
to a place where
34:56
that would be less of a conversation we
34:58
wouldn't have as much
34:59
we i think that what i will say is that
35:02
to construct is neither a good nor a bad
35:04
thing it's a human thing
35:06
um we just do this as
35:09
as humans and so whether it's race or
35:12
back in the day whether it's piety
35:14
though one of the favorite stories i
35:16
like to share about this is that
35:18
um there used to be a period of time in
35:21
europe where there was like three popes
35:23
i think there was a pope in france a
35:25
pope in spain and a pope in
35:27
italy or something like that and so
35:29
they're all
35:30
trying to see which is going to be the
35:32
pope the the pope
35:33
um which obviously the vatican won out
35:36
but in this
35:36
in this time period it was before that
35:39
and so the
35:40
the difference of the clergy from
35:42
different areas would come
35:44
and they wanted to show how pious they
35:46
were or
35:47
how um how religious and how strong a
35:51
relationship with god that they had
35:53
and so the best way of to show piety was
35:57
stoicism
35:58
or this sort of belief that you could
36:00
just
36:01
stay in your truth and hold your space
36:03
without
36:04
allowing too much human emotion and
36:07
interact and
36:08
interaction to happen so they would open
36:10
up their robes and
36:12
town square in front of the other clergy
36:14
and show the extent to which their body
36:16
was covered in body lice
36:18
um because the people who had more body
36:20
lice on their body
36:22
they were seen to be more stoic because
36:24
they were able to
36:26
withstand that level of irritant without
36:29
having any sort of uh changes in their
36:31
behavior
36:33
we just do this um i hope that we don't
36:36
go back to a period where
36:39
we are constructing uh who is say a
36:43
patient person based on how much body
36:45
life they can accumulate on their body
36:46
but it has happened
36:48
um and so i think what's important is to
36:50
be aware of the fact that we do this and
36:52
so
36:52
finally um moving towards justice and
36:55
being an accomplice or someone in
36:56
solidarity
36:58
i was thinking about like i said with
37:00
privilege that there's a choice when you
37:02
wake up in the morning
37:04
do you have to think about the way your
37:06
hair looks or the way that you talk
37:08
if you if you think about
37:10
professionalism or politeness or manners
37:13
then think like but why is this what we
37:16
see as mannerly
37:17
why is this language what we consider
37:20
professional
37:21
why do you know is this sort of hair
37:24
texture or
37:25
clothing style the way that we have to
37:28
do things
37:29
and really really asking those core
37:31
questions is why
37:33
but there was one time i did a training
37:35
with youth and it was one of the most uh
37:38
astute ways that i have heard about how
37:41
to be an accomplice and so
37:43
we talked about when there was a
37:45
framework of all different sort of
37:47
um well a lot of different sort of live
37:49
experiences
37:51
and um there was a group of a group of
37:54
youth leaders and i and i went around to
37:57
these different groups
37:58
and before times we could be in person i
38:00
went to this group of youth leaders
38:02
there at a table
38:03
and i asked them you know sort of what
38:06
uh
38:06
i lived experiences that they found that
38:08
were privileged versus not
38:10
and i said well the only identity that
38:12
we had that was not privileged was that
38:15
they were
38:15
youth and that they were marginalized
38:18
genders
38:20
and i said okay well um what does it
38:22
mean for you to be
38:24
an accomplice and they said well because
38:27
of
38:28
all the things these are the only two
38:30
because it was also private school so
38:31
they said hey we have class privilege
38:34
um we have you know uh tone privilege or
38:37
they were white so
38:39
race and skin tone privilege all these
38:41
other sort of things
38:42
they're like so all of those different
38:43
privileges that we have
38:46
all those lived experiences that we
38:47
don't have to be constantly
38:50
thinking about all the time those
38:53
are ones that we have more energy and
38:56
time
38:57
and effort to put towards equity work
39:01
then someone who does have to think
39:03
about that all the time
39:04
thinking about equity work and then on
39:06
top of that equity work say
39:08
as a black indigenous person of color
39:10
equity work as a person of size equity
39:13
work
39:13
as a marginalized gender equity work as
39:16
a person who's under resource or
39:17
unresourced and so they're like if
39:19
we are have the privilege of time and
39:23
energy here then
39:24
that um that that uh time and energy
39:28
that we are afforded
39:29
should go towards doing more work and so
39:32
i would say at this space if you
39:35
are finding spaces where you're like oh
39:39
wow
39:39
like i may be facing this as a disabled
39:42
person for example and they have to
39:43
think about
39:45
ableism but perhaps not think about
39:47
racism
39:49
then think about ways in which a say a
39:51
black indigenous person of color who
39:53
also is disabled
39:55
would have to think about both and in
39:58
that
39:58
find ways to uh be a in solidarity
40:02
and uh provide some of that excess
40:06
or that extra afforded time and energy
40:10
to helping that person find equity
40:13
so i will pause there so we have time
40:16
for questions
40:17
but yeah and i i can hear you talk about
40:20
this forever and i love
40:22
every time i hear you speak it is i
40:25
learned something new about history as
40:27
well as
40:28
all of the uh social justice issues that
40:31
you are here to speak about so thank you
40:33
for that
40:34
um so we do have a question in the q a
40:38
and um just as a like just as a trend
40:41
that i have noticed i have seen quite
40:43
not exactly this question but questions
40:46
like this continue to pop up
40:48
and throughout the conference um
40:52
i do want to say there are no easy
40:53
answers uh two big questions
40:56
um and that's uh just for the audience
41:00
but we have um
41:01
um how do you or would you address an
41:04
older person in the disability rights
41:06
movement
41:07
that is particularly against black lives
41:09
matter is saying all lives matter
41:11
promoting trump um is it connected
41:15
or is it separate is the question that
41:17
we have it's very
41:19
connected and there's so many pieces i'm
41:22
just gonna like
41:24
i'm gonna i'm gonna make it i'm gonna
41:26
make a
41:27
a deal with myself right now to keep it
41:29
to two pieces
41:30
so i think i'm gonna keep it to the
41:32
piece of like
41:34
intergenerational organizing what it
41:36
means
41:37
and i think also how it it it folds into
41:41
disability rights versus disability
41:43
justice and what that so
41:45
let's go to the first piece so remember
41:47
i said how the civil rights act was
41:48
passed in 1964
41:51
and that was 57 years ago um
41:54
one of the fun things about social
41:56
psychology
41:58
which is my background by the way if
41:59
you're wondering why i'm talking like a
42:01
psychologist
42:02
it's it's just i just want to know why
42:05
humans human
42:06
um i don't understand it i don't
42:08
understand people um i think it's being
42:10
autistic and being told this is the
42:12
right way to do things and i'm like wow
42:14
um so anyway uh so
42:17
um so what they said is that the age
42:21
of sentience which essentially means the
42:24
age that you start to become aware of
42:27
the world around you
42:28
and start to track how like other people
42:31
and how
42:31
and create memories and stuff like that
42:33
is fine so five years ago
42:36
um five
42:40
plus 57 would be 62
42:44
right so i would say anyone who is 62
42:49
years old and
42:50
older would likely remember
42:53
in america before the civil rights act
42:56
which means in america and especially
42:59
during a time where it was highly
43:00
contentious
43:01
meaning that people were fighting a lot
43:04
about whether or not
43:05
there should be civil rights so
43:08
um if you think back to when you were
43:12
five so kindergarten and up
43:15
uh you know you probably are thinking
43:18
about some parts of your life that were
43:20
very um instrumental in
43:23
who you are today how you understand the
43:26
world
43:27
what you know social constructs or rules
43:30
of
43:30
the way things are supposed to be are
43:33
how you talk to people
43:34
the way that you access information all
43:36
those different sort of things are all
43:38
things you've probably started to learn
43:40
from the time you're five up how you
43:42
know what how you interact with
43:43
strangers
43:44
all these sort of things right well
43:47
imagine that
43:49
before martin luther king's i had a
43:51
dream speech before
43:53
the civil rights act so for example our
43:56
president right now
43:57
was 19 years old when the civil rights
44:00
act was passed
44:02
19 years old so he was very much like a
44:05
full
44:06
grown adult right and he's um
44:09
74. so you know we have people who are
44:12
older than that
44:14
that's happening then on top of that
44:17
the americans with disabilities act or
44:19
the ada wasn't even
44:21
passed until 1990 that was only 30 years
44:25
ago
44:26
so again ages sentience 35
44:29
anyone 35 years old or older would
44:33
probably
44:33
remember and would have started school
44:36
without of americans with disabilities
44:38
act which means there was no
44:40
protection for them to actually get
44:43
uh to actually go to school or to have
44:45
any accommodations in school to get on
44:47
the bus
44:48
to have a ramp for their house anything
44:50
like that
44:52
the reason why i say this is because
44:54
some of these issues we
44:56
talk about them as if they are hundreds
44:58
of years old
45:00
right but they're not they're not only
45:03
not old in a historical sense they're
45:06
within living memory which means there
45:08
are people not just alive today but
45:10
in power making decisions allocating
45:14
resources
45:15
making policy that come from a time
45:19
before some of the the the protections
45:22
or the or the declarations like policies
45:25
that we take for granted now were even
45:28
in place
45:29
and on top of that the really
45:31
frustrating thing about policy change is
45:34
simply because you write a law and you
45:36
put that law into place and then you
45:38
make the shortest month of the year the
45:40
holiday to talk about that law
45:42
doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is
45:45
actually
45:46
putting implementing the law they're
45:48
actually taking the law and
45:49
putting it into practice but that
45:51
they're just sort of talking about it a
45:53
lot
45:55
the other thing about disability rights
45:57
versus disability justice which
45:58
disability justice was a framework that
46:00
didn't even come on
46:01
until the early aughts the early 2000s
46:05
is that disability rights was primarily
46:08
brought forth through a legal rights
46:12
framework a right framework means that
46:15
you're
46:16
going to court you're creating what they
46:18
call a case
46:19
case study or case law precedent cases
46:23
which means that you are getting these
46:25
small sort of wins through
46:26
court and then those all those different
46:29
wins add up to
46:31
a larger sort of consideration of what's
46:33
supposed to happen
46:34
um and so if you think about this going
46:37
back to kimberly crenshaw talking about
46:39
black marginalized genders being um
46:45
disqualified for work simply for being
46:47
black women in the 80s
46:50
and we're talking about the 504 sit-in
46:53
that was the precursors of the ada
46:54
happening in 1977
46:57
um you see that people are just coming
47:00
from a time
47:02
and it's a time within their lifetime
47:05
where
47:05
a lot of this is not so much
47:08
uh it's not that it's you know like i
47:12
said it
47:12
is a super old thing it's that they they
47:15
are
47:15
dealing with the way that they were
47:17
brought up in space now
47:19
there has been a lot of you know ever
47:21
since at least in my lifetime i i was
47:24
born in 86 i'm an
47:25
old old hat old old millennial
47:29
but even but especially in the beginning
47:31
of my life
47:32
you know there was a lot of what they
47:34
call uh um
47:36
sort of uh oh i don't see color sort of
47:39
stuff you know
47:40
post-racial society myth right where
47:43
they're like oh well
47:45
marlon the king had a dream and this
47:47
woman sat on a bus
47:48
and now we have this law and
47:50
everything's fine just don't talk about
47:52
it
47:52
um and we've had to come to the space
47:56
was like no
47:56
no we have to talk about it and and
48:00
to be to be completely honest that sort
48:02
of conversation around
48:04
actually we may have or continue to have
48:07
a racism issue in america
48:09
wasn't even brought back up until
48:12
barack obama was elected president in
48:14
2008
48:17
2008 we're talking 12 years ago
48:21
so i'm answering this and and it may not
48:24
be as
48:25
as there isn't really a lot of
48:28
we're not yet in a space to have a lot
48:31
of solutions
48:32
for what it means for people who have
48:35
been brought up
48:36
in time and space um
48:39
where this was just not a
48:43
thing and now these folks are
48:47
grappling with what it means to live in
48:49
a world
48:51
where the construct
48:55
of what it means to be in society with
48:57
each other
48:58
equitably and and justly
49:02
is changing it's changing from how they
49:04
were conditioned to see the world
49:06
how they were conditioned to see
49:07
themselves what they have you know when
49:10
we go back to things like what is polite
49:12
it was not polite to talk about race
49:15
explicitly like this
49:16
um it was seen actually as a act of
49:19
aggression
49:20
and people would say hey you're playing
49:23
the race
49:24
card as if it was a way to
49:27
purposely shame someone in the moment so
49:31
um the only real thing that can happen
49:35
is to model the the
49:38
sort of uh way that we need to be in
49:42
this world
49:43
to continue to advocate and push against
49:46
status quo or any ti status quo as any
49:49
time someone's like well that's the way
49:50
it's always been
49:52
or well this is how i and this is this
49:54
is what it was i don't know why y'all
49:56
want to change it that's
49:57
usually a status quo situation um
50:00
and if people are open to
50:04
change um i think it it's it's
50:07
could be important to um
50:10
to send them to places uh get them
50:13
started on self learning and education
50:16
um to certain spaces uh and
50:20
and and information that they could
50:22
start um i say it's important to start
50:24
people on
50:25
self-education because google
50:28
and its algorithms are specifically
50:31
designed
50:32
to keep folks within a certain
50:34
ideological mindset and so if you tell
50:37
someone to go and google it themselves
50:39
they could land on a page or
50:42
or um information that could be based on
50:45
how they used to think and not how we
50:48
would like them to
50:49
consider um in moving forward
50:56
thank you uh we have about six minutes
50:58
left we have two
50:59
questions in the queue let's see if we
51:01
can get to them but um the first one um
51:04
kind of going in a different direction
51:05
but um in what way does
51:08
media play in the disability movement um
51:12
and it goes further would you say that
51:14
the societal desirability phenomenon
51:17
and is the main contributor of why the
51:19
general public
51:20
can't accept disability in society
51:25
yes sand i um i think media plays a huge
51:29
uh space this is especially true i think
51:32
for
51:33
like older gen z and millennials but
51:36
and and older but i would even challenge
51:39
you all to think about
51:40
a cartoon that you perhaps used to watch
51:43
a couple years ago used to
51:45
um and and and watch some old episodes
51:48
if you haven't
51:49
for a while and think about the ways in
51:52
which
51:52
it is sending narratives um and and to
51:56
youth
51:56
who are not thinking critically about
51:58
these things right
52:00
sending narratives to them one of my
52:02
favorite movies when i was growing up if
52:04
you want to watch it like
52:05
content warning galore but one of my
52:08
favorite movies to watch when i was
52:10
younger
52:10
before i started thinking critically
52:12
about it was good burger good burger was
52:14
this movie
52:15
it used to come from the original
52:18
iteration of all that on nickelodeon
52:20
it was and all that was like it was kind
52:22
of like a saturday night live skit for
52:24
kids
52:25
and there was a skit that um
52:29
that had ken thompson before keenan
52:32
thompson was keenan thompson on snl and
52:35
um
52:36
kel mitchell who was the a person who
52:39
i always thought kell was supposed to be
52:41
a black autistic person because it just
52:44
recognized a lot of myself in that and i
52:46
went back to watch the movie for
52:48
nostalgia
52:54
and so there was a lot of like ableism
52:57
and sane ism
52:59
i mean there were some good
53:00
anti-capitalistic messages in there but
53:02
it was very
53:04
it was a lot and so it made me think as
53:07
this was a movie i watched a lot because
53:09
it was one of the only real
53:11
characters on television um in the media
53:15
that i could relate to
53:16
that had a job and had friends
53:20
and was sort of in the community living
53:23
independently but also
53:25
you know stimmed and act the way i did
53:28
and you know
53:29
sort of things like that you know he um
53:31
[Music]
53:33
it was a you know kind of this this
53:34
narrative around people taking him for
53:36
granted and thinking that he was not
53:38
um you know aware or whatever because of
53:41
his
53:42
uh the way that he showed up but um
53:45
i think that the media continues this
53:47
and even if it's not for
53:49
kids i think just the way that the news
53:51
report certain things
53:52
um is also important the way that we
53:56
teach history in school we don't teach
53:59
um disability history we see you know i
54:02
see
54:03
for example uh offerings for
54:06
uh on on noggin or sprout or whatever
54:10
the kids shows are now
54:12
um the channels where it's having more
54:15
diversity of
54:16
race and nationality and ethnicity um or
54:19
perhaps disability but i'm not seeing
54:21
both
54:21
for example and so even then i'm not
54:23
really seeing like what it looks like to
54:25
be a black
54:26
disabled child in a way that isn't also
54:29
seen as a
54:30
tragic sort of thing and so i think all
54:32
of that really comes in together
54:34
and i think to loop that into the second
54:36
question
54:38
the way that we can start to have
54:39
conversations with younger generations i
54:41
think first is to
54:43
is to have representation i think to
54:45
normalize that
54:47
you know that first of all sort of as i
54:50
was sharing with my um
54:52
heritage that um to ask why again
54:55
you know to challenge the status quo and
54:58
social constructs
55:00
of what it means to be um a disabled
55:02
person or especially
55:04
with intersectionality like when i was
55:06
coming up there's a program
55:07
called the dare program and it was
55:09
supposed to be anti-drugs
55:12
and they would have a police officer
55:14
with this colorful uniform because
55:16
kids love color i guess um who would
55:19
patrol the school
55:20
but when i was stimming or
55:24
um with my psychiatric disability if uh
55:27
or what they
55:28
said was my psychiatric disability what
55:30
my family community said was
55:31
part of my spirituality which that's a
55:33
whole i feel like we have a whole
55:34
conversation about that
55:36
um you know and they said oh well
55:39
no you're not talking to your ancestors
55:41
you're hallucinating and so the their
55:43
officer will pull me out of class and
55:45
take me to a hospital in the middle of
55:47
the school
55:48
day to test me for whether or not i use
55:51
drugs
55:53
and when i saw other students in my
55:56
classroom
55:57
other students who had iep plans
56:00
or was in iep classes they who were
56:02
white
56:04
they and they would stim or dissociate
56:07
they were not pulled out of class by the
56:09
dare officer so
56:10
it was already a a way that i saw
56:13
that i was being treated inequitably or
56:16
unfairly
56:17
and so having conversations i think
56:20
around the rights one of the things i
56:22
wish that i had i think is important
56:24
around
56:25
the rights of your bodily autonomy the
56:28
rights
56:28
of of being taken out of class or
56:33
being forced to take uh drug talk
56:36
screens or anything like that
56:38
i think could be really great if i had
56:40
known perhaps like
56:41
the language or who to call or what to
56:44
do in those moments
56:45
um that could have helped and i i've
56:48
seen
56:48
recent reports of like six-year-olds
56:51
being
56:52
taken out of classes uh and and given
56:55
psych evaluations and i
56:56
i think that having conversations around
57:00
this uh equity and construct early
57:03
could really help all right
57:07
well thank you so much christian i wish
57:08
we could have hours to talk
57:11
um everybody um who's
57:14
um been part of the conference we do
57:16
have the discord
57:17
the discord chat will be up in a bit
57:20
and uh we can continue conversations
57:23
there and
57:24
just once again cristiano thank you so
57:26
much for coming
57:27
um and i hope everybody enjoys the rest
57:30
of the conference um
57:32
have a great day i hope you come to the
57:33
social this um evening
57:37
thank you