This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
SANHO STEELE-LOUCHART: We look so forward to your presentation today.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: Thank you. And so to start, my name is Sarah Blahovec. For a visual description I am a white woman with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail I'm wearing glasses and I have a blurred background behind me.
I'm going to be moderating and I'm going to introduce myself more a little bit briefly and I will ask both of my copanelists to introduce themselves.
I am the co-founder and co-director of Disability Victory which is a 501(c)(4) dedicated to getting more disabled leaders in elected office and working on campaigns and other forms of disabled leadership.
In addition to that, I've been working in the disability voting rights space for 10 years. So I work with a number of organizations, I've worked with -- currently working with the Carter Center on disability voting access. So I have kind of a broad background around disability civic engagement and I am really excited to be here for this discussion, because obviously civic engagement, own the past couple of years, has been interesting and it's going to continue to be interesting.
I'll say that in the most nonpartisan way possible right now as we kind of watch rapid changes happening to our government right now. So I am going to ask Monica, can you introduce yourself?
MONICA WILEY: Sure. Thank you so much, Sarah. And thank you to everyone that is here today.
We are delighted to have you.
I am Monica Wiley, I am the voter engagement specialist at the national Disability Rights Network, so I have the great privilege of doing a lot of work with coalition building and engagement.
Just to give a brief background description of myself before I continue on, I am a Black woman with some lovely, lovely blonde, honey blonde locks that are flowing on the side of my face to go with my lovely glasses. You can see I'm a fashion nifty with some cute red nails which you anyway see from time to time.
I also have a blurred background as well as I am at the office as we speak.
Going back to my background, my background is a pretty wide range as I've done a lot of work in the partisan world of politics and nonpartisan. I've had the great pleasure of working for the former governor of Virginia as his disability community integration advisor, and I have done a lot of work on voting engagement and voting advocacy.
I'm one of the individuals responsible for curbside voting in Virginia and currently in the process of getting curbside voting passed in the state of Maryland since I now live in Maryland.
So I'm excited about this legislation and looking forward to all the great work that's going to come from this, making sure that people with disabilities have full access to the voter ballot. So it is truly, truly a privilege to be with you today. Just to speak more about the importance of grassroots advocacy, disability rights and racial justice and social justice. And with that being said, I now yield to my colleague here and panelist come Kelly.
DOM KELLY: Thank you Monica. I have no idea how to follow up that intro. I now wish I had amazing red lipstick.
My name is Dom, I am -- I use he/him and they/them pronouns. I'm a white man with brown curly hair wearing a light blue button-up shirt and I'm sitting in front of a book shelf with some books and some pictures and a fake plant and a church fan that says disability justice is spiritual.
And I am the co-founder and CEO of New Disabled South I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia. I have a very varied background career-wise.
I've been organizing in some capacity since like 2009, and have been coming up in the South and building community in the South and have been disabled since birth and just come to this work for many reasons, but through the -- my politicization at 18 years old when my mom became disabled and denied healthcare.
That made me realize I needed to do something. And I've been kind of like bit by the bug ever since. So anyway, I'm really happy to be in this conversation with two people that I really admire and really adore.
So thanks.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: Thank you for sharing that. And Monica I did not know that you were behind Maryland's curbside voting. I just wrote about that yesterday in my disability voting policy newsletter because there's amazing policy coming out of Maryland right now on voting rights. So that is wonderful news. So to start in with the questions.
What does an engaged disability community look like to you, and how can we empower people with disabilities to fully participate in the democratic process?
MONICA WILEY: Dom, if I can proceed?
DOM KELLY: Please.
MONICA WILEY: Thank you for the question, Sarah. I think this is a very important question. Because when we talk about engaged and have the community be engaged, that means also two things, in my opinion.
One is engage is recognizing the various voices within the disability community. And that will build engagement in the disability community.
And I say that because everybody in the disability community comes to the disability community in various ways. I'll use my story real quickly for example.
I'm a person with an incomplete spinal injury it was caused by a drunk driver that killed my entire family at the age of 9. So I was raised by my aunt who was a single parent and raised two children along with myself and did an amazing job. So I come to the disability movement from a person that is injured. Not from a person that was born with a disability.
But that doesn't mean that I cannot connect with other voices and with other socioeconomic classes and individuals from the disability community because it takes a collective voice. It takes all of us to come together to be engaged and really to make sure that the disability voice and the disability community is everywhere.
And in order for it to create those pipelines where we're at tables and we're having seats at other places that we typically don't seat us, that is how we're able to do that when we bring the collective voices together. And then secondly, and then I'll yield to my great colleague Dom here and anyone else that may want to crime in.
I think the second thing that we can do to make sure we are engaged as a disability community is also try to eliminate some of the biases and the micro aggressions that take place within our own community. And I see that more often than not.
And that is something that we need to do, the shoulders of so many great giants that I can speak about later on that we need to eliminate these microaggressions and these biases that we have about each other in our own community. So now I'm going to yield to anyone else that would like to chime in and add to that question.
DOM KELLY: I think that was like plus-one to everything. The only thing I'll add is that I think that since the pandemic started, we have seen -- just across the board much more opportunity for folks to be able to get engaged in spaces where they don't need to be in person -- and unfortunately the last few years I think that's sort of started to backslide a bit.
But I think like if we're really talking about building an engaged base of disabled folks, democracy disabled folks are a part of, and also are engaged in the work not only to improve our democracy, but right now save our democracy, whatever we have left.
I think we as a community have to continue to create opportunities where folks can organize or be a part of organizing like wherever they are. It is perfectly valid to organize from your bed.
That is a completely valid way to get engaged. And I think if we can create as a community more of those opportunities and then make we can bring that to other movement spaces.
Like I think that we can see more disabled folks continue to be a part of this work that we're all doing together.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: That's great.
What both of you said was perfect, but I would also add we need to be working on cross-movement solidarity a lot more. I think we have seen instances where this has been a challenge already this year with discussions of how section 504, how that some disability organizations' language around that lawsuit was framed, particularly with regard to how trans people were being harmed.
I think it's easy for us to get stuck in a disability silo, first thing because there are so many systematic barriers to us being in other spaces, but because there are so many fires that we have to fight within the disability community right now, with the disability rights laws, Medicare, Medicaid.
But we can't lose sight of our role even if we're not the most impacted in it, but our role in pushing back on the attempts to deport people for exercising their free speech.
The attempts to just, you know, harm the immigrant community.
Harm the trans community.
There's so much going on, and so an engaged disability community for me means that we immediate to be showing up for those fights as well. And that doesn't, as Dom said, that doesn't mean necessarily having to show up in person, but speaking out on it, because I feel like there have been times where it is just challenging to get out of the bubble of we need to focus on disability rights and to show these other communities that we're engaged and involved in advocating for their issues as well, and the disabled people in those communities showing solidarity with them.
Amy put in the chat can you give examples of micro aggressions and biases within the disability community. There are certainly a lot.
So.
MONICA WILEY: Thank you for that question. When I talk about some of the disability micro aggressions coming from outside of our community, they're typically statements such as oh, I can't believe that you have a disability, whatever your disability is, or that you're married and have kids. Or everybody has a disability.
Like those types of, you know, implicit biases that take place. And sometimes they're unconscious biases, but there are some forms of micro aggressions to take place outside of our community.
Within our community, it's more of a oh, again, I come from a place of being injured. So I typically say when I am giving speeches or serving on a panel, I will say that disability can happen at any given time.
It can happen to anyone.
Because for myself, it can happen to anyone. And so there have been times I hear people in the disability community say oh, well, she can't identify because I've been dealing with this all my life since I was a kid or since I was born. And you know, hers is just injury.
It doesn't matter how the disability came. It is the fact of the matter is that the common denominator is disability. And then from that, we have some shared -- some lived experiences and some shared experiences that we both have as individuals with physical disabilities.
But then there are some disabilities that I may not necessarily be able to connect with, but can also lend a voice and lend some experiences and some knowledge to what we need to do to strengthen our voice in policy, in engagement, in our communities, in the workforce, et cetera.
So that's what I mean by the microaggressions and the stereotypes in the implicit and the explicit biases that take place in the community and outside of our community. And I hope that answered your question.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: I would add I've been in the disability space for 10 years in a variety of different roles, and we've got a lot of problems to work on in the disability advocacy space. The racism, there's a lot. It's not been adequately addressed.
It has been -- I have seen just -- I can't even call them microaggressions, they're just flat-out aggressions. And they need to be handled appropriately.
Whenever -- I can say an experience was seeing a Black woman have her name mispronounced repeatedly, and whenever she brought it up, she experienced a backlash from the person who was doing it who said why don't you get a name that's easier to pronounce. Her name was one syllable.
I reported this at the time to my boss who did nothing about it. This is a problem, because we have made these spaces.
They are hostile to people who are multiply marginalized, and it's drowning people in just the amount of hostility they have to deal with day to day, it's burning them out and it is not creating a disability space that is reflective of our entire community. And we have to address that.
DOM KELLY: I really don't have like a lot to add other than I think you're absolutely right, and it says a lot about the community at large, because I don't think we're a disability community is a community with shared values. And like there are -- I mean, Greg Abbott is the governor nor of Texas. The challenge is how do we create spaces that are, you know, safe for especially multiply marginalized disabled people. And yeah. Just plus-one to everything.
And it's bringing back a lot of things that I've also seen and heard and that I think is such a big problem for our movement to be able to grow. And also to, like your point about cross-moving solidarity, Sarah, how do we do that when folks in our community are not even aware of their racism, their transphobia, their homophobia. So all of that, plus-one to all of that.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: So kind of switching gears here. We kind of touched on this a little bit with talking about the ways that the movement has been at times made more accessible or just political organizing has been made more accessible and also ways that it's been kind of rolled back. So what are some strategies that you found effective in bringing people with disabilities into the political process, particularly those who have been historically marginalized or left out.
DOM KELLY: I can start. I think I can I guess talk a little about what we've done and are working on -- I'll actually just share one example. I think right now we've been building out a faith organizing program. And that is primarily and heavily focused on faith organizing in the rural South, where oftentimes disabled people in those communities, and also like in their own religious communities, they hear narratives around disability that are -- they're harmful, that are painful to hear. You know, religious text that others and demonizes and dehumanizes disabled people.
And there is pervasive narratives across religions and faith backgrounds that disability is something to be healed or fixed or cured. And so like a big part of what we're doing is not just like going into those communities and talking about disability the way we want like to talk, we want them to talk about it is like we're both going in community, and reaching disabled people, understanding hey what are some of the barriers you faced to being a part of faith communities.
Like from physical access to language used and also talking to and training up faith leaders, just with sort of like baseline basic to us like education and knowledge around disabled. And that has -- that is a strategy for us to be able to like bring folks in to this community into our -- the work that we're doing to bring more disabled people into the political process.
So it's both like one of our strategies to like build a bigger and more engaged base of disabled people who aren't being reached in particular parts of our region where organizers, especially in other movement spaces don't typically go, and who may not, you know, they can't get to, for instance, like the capital here in Atlanta, Georgia, get engaged in a legislative session because they live four hours away and there is no access to public transportation.
So you know, like going in, finding ways to bring them into the process, and also like building the knowledge and capacity of the folks around them in their community that have influence, like the faith leaders, to help like widen that base.
That's like one thing that we've done in other areas that we're now like really focusing on with this particular faith-specific strategy.
MONICA WILEY: I'll go. Dom, I like that. I especially like that talking about how we can do a better job of just being inclusive and embracing those that come from different religious backgrounds and how we are embraced in the religious spaces.
I am a person that grew up as a Baptist, in a Christian home. And while if I can be unprofessional for a second, when I graduated from high school and went to college I became a bit of a Heathen and lost those beliefs, but then when I got it together after I graduated and stopped going to the clubs and all of that, then I was reminded of how to carry myself.
But I appreciate that, Dom. So I just wanted to say that and I think what I have used as some strategies of this to be more effective in bringing our community together, people with disabilities in the political process, I think of what I use as the LLE, learn, listen, and engage.
And in order for us to be more effective as a community with our voice and advocacy and activism, is we have to learn how to learn from one another, and these are solutions that are established when we learn from others' historical backgrounds, from religious backgrounds. Pretty much just assessing the data of the current systems that have always affected our community and our way of life.
Secondly I think listening. Listening is very key and critical when using a strategy to bring together people with disabilities more in the political process.
So we have to recognize what are the current policies, laws and practices we are currently aware of in this current political climate. What those practices are and how they're impacting our community.
How those current systems are used to marginalize and disenfranchise and minimize the voice of people with disabilities and intersectional communities in voting. And lastly, from that once you have learned, and you have listened from others, then you engage.
And that's when you create the community leaders and teams and you establish allyships and other civic engagement and thought partners so we are more intentional about community engagement and empowerment. And so that's how I think of -- those are the strategies that I use to make sure that we are more visible and more effective in our advocacy in the political process.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: I will add from the perspective of Disability Victory, we just recently completed a survey of around a hundred people, so fairly small sample size, but when we're talking about bringing people with disabilities into the political process I think what comes to mind is voting, running for office and working on campaigns. Things that we think of immediately electoral politics. And there are many reasons why our data from this year shows that people were feeling kind of turned off by that.
There's frustration with the election, frustration with ableism, they've experienced in political organizing spaces, feelings of well, political organizing, electoral organizing isn't making change or isn't making change quickly enough or we're up against too many obstacles. I want people to see it's a tool that can be utilized, I think we need to have a more expansive view of political engagement, beyond just electoral politics.
It's not just about votes.
It's about taking care of your community.
It's about joining library boards and fighting back against attempts to sensor books at the library. It's about getting involved in unionization efforts to fight for better conditions. Which unionization has been showed to benefit disabled workers.
There are so many ways that we can get involved, and not all of them have to lead to getting involved in the political and voting process, and some of them can.
If you get involved in those that does make you eventually a stronger leader to be able to take your issues that you have been advocating on and be able to work on them from the inside as opposed to the outside, if that is something that you want to do.
Again, I'm not going to be the type of person that says that voting is going to save us and elected officials are going to save us because that's not how this country was set up to operate, but it is something where we still need to be able to wield our power to protect our rights and fight for our rights. It is just one of the tools in the toolbox.
I see another question here how do you support individuals with disabilities who have been exposed to and may have internalized biases and stereotypes?
One thing I'll say. I think we all come from kind of disability backgrounds.
Monica talked about how she experienced an injury.
Dom talked about being born with a disability and I was someone who was diagnosed with a chronic illness at 15. And chronic illness, it can be a weird community.
It's very medicalized. There's all of these chronic illness warriors and we're fighting against this illness. It was a very medicalized diagnosis where I did not have disability background or connection for several years, even though I was using accommodations in college, it still didn't click for me that I was part of the disability community until after college.
So I think it's really challenging because we come from just different backgrounds and treatments of disability whether cultural or how that's you acquired v. were you born with your disability. Different faith backgrounds that might treat it differently.
Where it is where it can be challenging the stories that you've been told about this. And in my case it was you're supposed to overcome this, go into remission, have a quote unquote normal life, which is a nondisabled life.
A lot of it is about seeing -- I don't want to say the beauty in disability, because I can't say that having a chronic illness has been a positive experience where I have like really positive attitudes about some of the worst things that I've gone through.
But it has molded who I am as a person and it's shaped who I am as a person and I would be very different without that.
And so I think it's about having understanding and meeting people where they are with their thoughts on disability, with their thoughts on their own lived experience and not really trying to force a narrative on them. I've had trouble -- there's a lot of talk about social model of disability and there's a lot of discussion about what that really means. And a lot of people like myself have at times felt like the message of -- the barriers are the disability doesn't really resonate whenever you have something like a chronic illness.
Paw it doesn't matter how much I'm accommodated sometimes; it's just like I'm not feeling well and that is what I'm dealing with. So like having room for those kind of like -- I don't want to say critiques, but different interpretations of disability and knowing that people don't have to have like the same attitude about it, I think is really helpful in kind of breaking down the stereotypes and getting people to understand more how they can experience disability pride, even if they're not always feeling proud of their disability or being disabled. I hope that made sense.
Anyone else?
MONICA WILEY: I echo everything that you're saying and I'm not going to take up too much time because I want to make sure I be respectful and give Dom the opportunity to speak if he wants to add something. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that I too was the type of person or even my family did not treat me as a person with disability after my accident.
I knew I had a disability but I wasn't treated as a person with a disability.
It was even when I was in college like I said I was in the clubs, I did my thing while I was in college.
It wasn't until I graduated from college and applied for jobs was where I couldn't believe that societal attitudes of people and the micro aggressions that was experienced. So in order for us to Sarah's point like she just said, you there isn't one specific narrative and we don't force one specific narrative on anyone in the disability community and outside the disability community.
What we do do is we bring our narratives and our lived experiences together to show, one, that yes we encounter these barriers, but two we are beyond our disability and that we are a part of your community even outside the disability community and that we welcome you to be a part of what we're doing because if it affects one, it affects all. And so that's all that I have to add to that and I want to give some time yield to Dom to see if there's anything he wants to add additionally.
DOM KELLY: I have nothing to adhere. I think y'all hit the nail on the head.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: I kind of want to switch gears here. How do you see disability rights as a movement or disability justice as a movement of the let's face it they are different frameworks and they have different meanings. How do you see them intersecting with other social justice movements such as racial justice, gender justice and economic justice? And what can they learn from one another?
We touched on this a little briefly, but it would be great to go into more detail.
DOM KELLY: I think first disability justice it is not disability justice if it is not cross-movement. So I think that's maybe the answer to the question that if it's DJ it has to be cross-movement, it has to be intersectional. I think if I'm thinking about disability rights as a movement disability rights was born out of a need for a new framework because disability rights movement had historically been white, cis, some hierarchy of disability led and centered.
And so I think the disability rights movement has made some gains, and has done better in that regard. And I think like as a movement we have seen more cross-movement work happening over the years.
And in part the lack of cross-movement work was not just the fault, I think, of folks in disability rights spaces, but very much other social movement spaces that just are inaccessible and does have a very basic lack of understanding of disability community and that like disabled folks are already a part of their communities. So I think that's a big part of it.
And I think you know, we have to -- you said this already, Sarah. We have to in this moment in how we move forward in this moment and how we like do whatever we can to fight fascism, we have to be we have to have cross movement solidarity, we have to have cross movement work. And that has to be on the policy front, it has to be on the organizing front.
It has to be on any of the work around data that we do, because we really need data to make our policy case.
And like it has to be intersectional in order for us to protect any of the things that we have to protect right now, let alone make any more advancements and I'm glad that you brought up the 504 fight that we're in right now.
It is disappointing that -- I mean disappointing is not even the right word to use, but that trans folks are scapegoated and that they're left behind and that the entirety of the disability community could very well lose basic rights because in large part of transphobia that I think we have a responsibility as a movement to firmly say is not okay.
That trans people are a part of our community, and that we are with the trans community in solidarity no matter what. And that is -- that's the kind of energy we need to bring to all of these fights that we have ahead. We have to talk about the impact of Medicaid cuts on Black and Brown communities. We have to talk about how rollbacks impact queer communities.
We have to talk about how these you know mass deportations are going to impact disabled immigrants.
Like -- this is absolutely a, in my view, nonnegotiable must for us to be able to not just work with other movements, but ensure that we have that cross-movement lens in focus in our work.
MONICA WILEY: Thank you for that, Dom. I agree with you 100%. And Sarah, thank you for bringing up the 504 because that is part of my response to your question. And before we can do or before we are even in the position to do this type of work, and advocacy in policy, in organizing, I think it's important to just talk about how this came about.
The foundation of the disability rights movement, and what a lot of people fail to realize is that the civil rights era played a rather instrumental role in the disability rights movement. So you know the civil rights of 1964.
Of course that is the landmark civil rights legislation labor law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
However, it did not include the protection of people with disabilities to participate and/or pen bit from programs and activities receiving federal assistance. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 504, did give us the benefit to be able to be involved in programs and activities that receive federal assistance.
However, there was a 504 sit-in that took place, I think it was in the late 1970s, April -- I know it was April 5th, but somewhere in the late 1970s. I apologize if I don't have the specific year.
But it took place in San Francisco. And there was some disability rights activists, Judy Heumann who we all know, may she rest in power.
They had this sit-in, but they were joined by some Black disabled Civil Rights activists of the 1960s, which were Jany Lacey, and chuck Jackson. And they were instrumental in helping this protest become what it was, because they successfully forced the federal buildings in the U.S. to enforce the issuance of the regulation of the section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
And in order for Judith Heumann and others who were involved in this protest to make sure they had some essentials, food, water, it was the Brad Lomax and Chuck Jackson and these individuals that were also disabled, that helped Judith Heumann with this sit-in. And so the support of these prominent civil rights leaders, they add a lot of power and justice to that movement.
And so I think it's very important to recognize that the foundation or part of the foundation of disability rights movement also comes from individuals that was in the civil rights era, and that these individuals, because they were a part of this, this was important to them because they too were disabled. And disability rights was not something that was talked about during the civil rights era.
Another example would be Fanny Lou Hamer, who was a person with polio.
But that was not a part of the work that she was doing to advance voting rights for the Black community. So I think it's very important to recognize and know that the civil rights played an instrumental role in disability rights and why we are able to do what we're able to do today because we stand on the shoulders of these individuals.
And lastly, I just want to say that, you know, when we talk about racial equity, racial equity, it lends a net to benefit the vast majority of our communities. And you know our govern nor has a role to play or that they should play, and stewarding what we all share, and making sure that everything is more equitable. And I will stop there, because I can see myself veering off into a different direction that may not be good for this particular panel and conversation.
But I just want to recognize and say that racial equity should definitely play a role in this and how we look at the intersection of disability justice and social justice.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: The only thing I have to add is, since we've seen the attempts -- not the attempts, some of them successful to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion. I've sometimes heard people say disability isn't DEI, disability isn't controversial. Instead of -- it's trying to kind of we're not like the other marginalized groups.
We're over here and if you just make an exception for us, you know, we'll kind of sit down and behave. Disability has always been political.
Disability has always been controversial.
We are a marginalized community that has had to fight for our rights, and we are parts of all of these other communities.
We are people of marginalized genders, queer and trans people, indigenous people. You can't kind of sanitize the disability community of that history to make it you know, these groups who are trying to erase history, are trying to erase diversity are going to be okay with us. They're never going to do it, first of all.
They have very clearly, on multiple occasions, they have specifically targeted accessibility initiatives within the government.
They're rolling back the ADA.
We saw guidelines be rolled back for businesses yesterday. There's no way you're going to make the disability community, the white, cis-gender disability community, respectable enough to the people who want to erase diversity. So it does us a disservice, but it also does these other groups a disservice to play into othering marginalized communities to try to save ourselves.
That's not going to work, and it is really -- you know, it's not what we should be doing, because it's the wrong thing to do. So how did we bridge the gap between disability activism between disability and other community-based movements.
We've kind of covered what common ground exists between these groups.
But how can we start to kind of heel these divides both in terms of what's going on in the disability community that causes us to disconnect or the disability spaces, I would say, that cause us to disconnects, but also in these other spaces that have not been accessible to people with disabilities?
MONICA WILEY: I'll start and I'll be very brief. I feel like how we bridge that gap is that we recognize that race and multicultural communities, the intersectionality of our community is key. It is the key.
It is the founding principle, the founding element that is needed to create a pipeline between disability activism and community-based movement.
When we recognize -- and this is for individuals outside of our community, when we recognize that people with disabilities are part of these other communities, that we have some commonalities, just because I'm disabled does not mean that I am not a social justice reformer or that I don't love music because music tends to bring people together as a form of art and it's a form of joy.
When we recognize that we have more in common than we have not in common, there's more of us that have commonalities than what divides us. So when we recognize, one, the race and multiculturalism of the disability community and even outside the disability community, the intersectionality of that, that's the nucleus.
That is the key, and that is how we definitely, definitely eliminate some of these barriers and challenges within our community and even outside of our community to strengthen our voices in these areas. And that is how we're able to build stronger movements. And so that's what -- I feel like that is the number one key. It is the number one founding principle and element.
And if we can just recognize and see that, and then also I want to say to -- I call us foot soldiers in the disability army, if we can also reframe and restructure the way we think too as well in terms of oh, others are not going to understand us, or they're not going to embrace us when we try to enter these different spaces, we can't all have that type of -- a way of thinking.
So when we come into these spaces that typically don't see us, we have to be open-minded and that goes back to my principles that I mentioned before. The LLE, the learn, listen, and then engage. And that's where the empowerment comes in. And that is because we see beyond the race. We see how we are again, have more in common than we do differences, and the intersectionality of us, because we're not one-dimensional.
There's more things about us than what we are commonly known for or what we see. So when we recognize intersectionality of that, that is the key to definitely bridging that gap and creating that pipeline for more of some community-based movements. And I hope that answers the question, and I want to give some time to my colleague and panelist here, Dom.
DOM KELLY: Sure. Yeah I think the first thing that actually came to mind, I'm Jewish and the first thing that come to mind is we hear all the time that my oppression is -- if my oppression is tied to your oppression then my liberation is tied to your liberation. So collective liberation is the goal. And I think that, like, what it requires of us, it requires of us in our disability rights and disability justice movements to use our platforms to -- and say what needs to be said and be courageous in how we say it.
I think that if we -- I think that we can't talk about disability justice without talking about the -- even in disability justice here in the U.S., without talking about the genocide in Gaza and how thousands and thousands of children have been left amputees and I mean, just the unfathomable list goes on. We can't talk about disability justice if we're not saying that bills to ban gender-affirming care for kids are wrong. Not just because they -- the language in those bills weaponizes disability as justification for those bills, but just claim it is wrong.
I think -- we have to be true to the values that we as a movement claim to uphold, and if we can be vocal about, and consistent in those values, I think that that helps us bridge gaps with other movements.
It helps other movements see our move, take our movement seriously. And it can help us get, you know -- for lack of a better term because my brain's not working great at the moment, like a foot in the door to other movements where we can then come in and talk to them about what it takes to make sure that their spaces, their events, their whatever are accessible, that folks are a part of and included.
And so I think it is like really about being consistent and firm in our values as a movement and not wavering on those values no matter what.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: Thank you both for that.
For me one thing we have to think about is how we show up to these other groups. I've worked in formal disability advocacy spaces. And there are times where -- it's very easy in these spaces, we're the experts, we the people with lived experience on disability, we're the experts on organizations on disability, to go in and think that there's no one on the other side who is impacted or we're the subject matter experts and we're looking at groups that aren't. That first thing isn't the case.
Just statistically for any number of groups.
There's disabled people in these organizations organizing structures.
They might not be, you know, working on disability-specific work, but that doesn't mean they're not there. And I feel like there are times where I've seen our movement kind of talk down to other groups, and I will bring up kind of a specific battle and it was around legislation a couple of years ago around I think it was the Freedom to Vote Act. And the Freedom to Vote Act was very expansive on talking about defending our access to the vote.
But there were some provisions in there that would have kind of curtailed remote accessible vote by mail, which is a problem for a community, because that's what we need to be accessible for on vote-by-mail to be accessible.
And obviously these are conflicting needs. This is a big piece of legislation.
This has a big impact on parts of the disability community.
But it was the way that this debate was handled at times that was really frustrating.
Because it was we want to go in guns blazing and oppose this bill to kind of like try to force people's hand and to try to, you know, get a strong response to get that out of the bill. And this, you know, seeing a mostly white disability organizations potentially talk about having a really negative and active attempt to lobby against a major civil rights bill is not good.
Like you don't have to support the bill, you don't have to go out there and say we 100% are behind this whenever there are problems that need to be fixed.
But to go in and be like well, we want to kind of essentially sabotage this effort to get this legislation passed based on these provisions, let's just -- looking at the relationship there, that was going to damage the relationship. And I'm glad to say that I don't think too many organizations ended up going that route in the disability space, but you know, it's just something where we need to think about when we're dealing with these issues, sometimes we might have conflicting opinions. We might have criticisms of how this organization is handling disability.
But we have to come at those conversations in a way that is respectful, especially whenever you're dealing with other marginalized communities. And to be able to build that trust I think is really important.
So going on here, looking ahead, what do you think are the most critical actions or changes that need to take place to ensure that disability grassroots movements continue to advance democracy, justice, and the rule of law for people with disabilities.
MONICA WILEY: Dom, if you want to go first, it doesn't matter.
DOM KELLY: Yeah, sure. Happy to. So I think that like this question is hard, because I think I feel like every day there's something that happens that like changes how like our strategy or how we're approaching this work or what we have to respond to in the moment two days ago it was Medicaid today it's still Medicaid but we're going to scale back some ADA guidance for businesses, which is probably like the first step in doing away with the ADA altogether. So one in this moment it's really hard to say like there is a specific set of changes that need to take place because I just don't know what's going to happen in the next week, let alone the next year or two. Or beyond.
But I do think that like, you know, first and foremost, we as a movement and broadly as a community need to -- I'll just say as a movement, we need to really, really get clear and aligned on on our values and what we're fighting for. Who we're fighting for. And that I think goes back to what we talked about with 504 as an example.
Like we can't effectively fight back against these attacks on 504 if we're throwing away folks who are also being targeted directly in the process. So like that's just an example of number one, I think we need to get like really clear and aligned as a movement on, like, how we do this work and our shared values and our agreements. And then I think, you know, there are tangible things, like specific things that we need to be doing.
Like we need to be screaming from the rooftops about Medicaid. We need to be very clear about how we talk about Medicaid.
How we talk about these programs that are like life-saving and life-sustaining for our community. You know, we need to think in this moment about how we how we react to all of the myriad things that are like getting thrown at us every single day. And, you know, can we throw together rallies at our state capitals or in DC in a couple weeks' time. Is this the kind of political environment that we can even do some of the things that we did in the past without risking so much harm to especially multiply marginalized disabled folks in ways that we may not have seen in recent history.
So I think we have to be very thoughtful and strategic about how we move and act in this moment. And, you know, I think if we're talking about rule of law for people with disabilities, that feels like a, you know, a tough question because the law is like not set up to protect or it doesn't value disabled people, frankly. I mean, you know, how many disabled people are represented in our prison system?
I think if we're in a moment where we are finding ourselves being in the cross hairs and are the laws that protect us that are supposed to protect us are being dismantled are on their way to being dismantled, and I would love for us to take a page out of every abolitionist organizer's playbook for lack of a better term, and dream about what a new world and a new system looks like and figure out how we build that together where disabled people aren't institutionalized and aren't incarcerated and et cetera, et cetera.
And how do we ensure there's access for everybody in our society. So I think this is a moment to be on the defense, and the offense, but also to be thinking about the long arc, and what we want a world, what we want policy, what we want legal.
Like all of those things to look like a decade, 20, 30, 40, 50, even generations from now, I think we have to start doing that as well, and starting to think about what that world looks like and what we can start doing now in the face of this fascism, to start to build that.
MONICA WILEY: Dom, I agree with you 100% and I just want to add that I think when we're talking about Medicaid and Medicare and the rollback of the ADA with businesses, I think a great way for us to show up as well is how we think about our stories.
How we think about our lived experiences and our shared experiences and some of the dominant narratives about race, justice, and inclusivity. And then I think that the narratives that we should you know try to evoke, it's interconnectedness. And unity. And collective responsibility to change these systems.
The role of governance and repair.
And I think the final key takeaway that I want to say here is that the narratives that we create is our messages, is our stories. And it's because these narratives, it's what can bring about a lot of common sense and common sense pragmatic solutions, especially as we think about what's going on in this current political climate. And so it takes all of our voices to be able to do this.
And so we must just continue to push for parity and fairness and disability justice and racial justice, because we have a voice. And our voice will not be silent, just like I'm a firm believer and I wear this with a badge of honor, is good trouble.
Like John Lewis.
When I sometimes call elected officials, oh, boy Monica what trouble are we getting into.
I wear that as a badge of honor. I'm getting ready to get into some good trouble and I want you to join me as we continue to fight and advancing the rights of people with disabilities. And so we have a lot to contribute. We are strong change-makers and we definitely can just make a better society for us to just to live, to work, and to thrive. And that's pretty much all I have to say, Sarah.
And I yield to you for your final thoughts on this question.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: I think a crow just flew into my door, so that's fun.
I think that one of the things we're focused on these major national battles, 504, Medicaid, social security. I think we really need to also -- I know it's hard to add more to the plate, really look at the state levels right now.
I can speak from kind of the context of a few different things. One big issue is mask bans.
New York they're trying to put a subway mask ban in now.
Maryland they're discussing a mask ban.
This is a major issue for disability for people who are compromised. To be ban the tools that we need to be able to protect ourselves and protect our communities. As someone who works very much in voting rights, this is like such an important year, and I'm seeing it be so neglected, all of the changes that are happening at the state level with voting laws. So 18 states right now are, as my last count, are considering documentary proof of citizenship laws.
There's been a long kind of history since I think 2002 of trying to get these documentary proof of citizenship laws in place.
They're like voter ID laws on steroids, where you will have to proof your citizenship to be able to vote. And of course there is a safeguarding the American voter, the save act at the federal level getting proof of citizenship law.
This has been going on at the state level, again, for several years.
Arizona had one pass in 2022. It's been going through a lot of court battles right now.
But it has resulted in a system where tens of thousands of voters in Arizona, because they have not provided these citizenship documents, are only allowed to vote in federal elections. I've heard people say other states aren't going to replicate that, well, Texas just last week introduced one, a bill that has unanimous public support that was based on Arizona's model which would only allow voters to vote -- if they do not provide this documentary proof of citizenship, only vote for Senate and House candidates.
Not President, not state and local not ballot referenda. And so that would apply in Texas, it would apply to all voters, all 18.6 voters in Texas. There are 18 states trying to do this right now and this is a huge issue for so many people because you would have to have your passport or your birth certificate. There's certain states some tell you what those documents are, some states do not. And a lot of people don't have access to those.
It would particularly impact people who have changed their names. So queer and trans people, people who change their last name after they got married.
It would impact lower income people because, you know, getting a passport is expensive. Right now we don't even know if queer and trans people can get a passport, because we're seeing cases where their identity documents are being taken.
Just getting to the -- getting those, financial barrier, it might be a transportation barrier for people with disabilities. We know that after voter ID laws were put in states in some places they started closing down the DMVs so people had fewer hours that they could actually go and get the documentation they need to vote. So we can't lose sight, I think, of these state battles that are happening. Whether that's on voting rights, weather that's on mask bans, whether that is on protecting queer and trans rights.
I know that's -- there's so much that's going on.
But I think that our states are increasingly going to become battlegrounds as the federal government is dismantled. So I wanted to ask, I know we're kind of getting to the end, what advice would you give to younger advocates who are beginning their work in disability civic engagement or broader than that, disability rights and disability justice?
DOM KELLY: I just want to say very simply pace yourself. Pace yourself. This work is not easy.
It is tied for so many of us to our identities.
It is not -- it was not built to be -- it was not built for disabled people.
And I believe we can make this work of organizing and movement work more sustainable and resilient, but it's going to take us setting really clear boundaries, having really clear and defined practices for taking care of ourselves, like asking for what we need giving folks what they need, like interdependence being really crucial. Like pace yourself.
And you know, find your people in the movement who are going to remind you to slow down sometimes. Because that's been really critical for me. And then I in turn could give that to others.
That's what's top of mind for me right now because I'm so afraid we're all going to burn out because it's only March of 2025 and we're already like burning out.
So yeah. That's what I've got right now.
MONICA WILEY: Dom, I appreciate you saying that, because to your point it's already March and just to give an example, I was at another conference and was speaking, was scheduled to speak and when they were introducing, going over my bio and introducing me I was like Monica Wiley, you know what? I mean, I was like oh, me. Monica.
I said all that to say because you there's so much going on.
You feel like you have to be in every fight because every fight is connected to the disability community in some sort of way.
And while others outside our community may not recognize that it is the segue to my point, is that one, making sure aside from Dom saying yes, make sure you spend time doing things for you, because if you're not at your 100% and what you consider to be your 100%, you can't lend 100% to the work that needs to be done and for others that are relying on you to be the voice of them for those who cannot speak for themselves.
So that's number one. Number two, recognizing who you are. And the values that you bring. And the talent that you bring. And your story and that your lived experience and it's impactful and it is a policy and that it is a rule and it is an element that can be beneficial to the work that needs to be done to not only protect the disability community and disability justice, but that it also advances our rights and where we are in society.
And so recognizing that you have something to bring to the table.
For instance, we all came to these questions with different answers and all of our answers were very relative to the questions and they were very meaningful and they were very valuable.
But we each came to it from a different lens in some sort of way. So recognize that you have something to bring. And once you recognize that you have something to bring to what needs to be done, then you bring in a partner that allyship that is outside of the disability community that notion the work, knows you, knows your passion, and knows that they can also lend a voice and be a apparatus and a support system for the work that needs to be done, so they too can then go back to their other networks and respective communities and say we need to join in in this, because again what affects one affects all. And I'm a firm believer in Martin Luther King junior one of his infamous quotes and that is the time is always right to do what is right.
And so recognize that, know that, and go out there and do it.
SARAH BLAHOVEC: Wonderful. I would say for me my advice is you're not defined by your relationship to the nonprofit industrial complex. I think it's really, really hard for those of us who are working in these spaces, and I've been in disability spaces for a decade now, because we come into this work and we think this is our way that we're going to solve these big issues. And then we get in these spaces and we see how constrained we are. We're constrained by who the leadership is, and what their perspectives are.
And if you're seen as going against that, that's a challenge.
You're constrained by the funding relationship between the organization that you're in and whoever they're working with in terms of who's funding that work. We're seeing that of course right now with attempts to pull federal funding from different organizations that are working on immigrant rights, organizations that are addressing diversity, equities, and inclusion.
And I think it's really challenging, I feel like most of my heartache over this work over the past 10 years has come from whenever I felt like my values have not been aligned in the space that I'm working in, and that has been a lot of times and it is really frustrating.
Because of course we're dependent on this as well as a career as a way to be able to provide for ourselves.
I don't want to say it so much in terms of accomplishments or things like that, but our ability to afford healthcare and housing is often tied to this work.
And I would say that the work that I have done that has the most meaning to me is not, and will never be profitable. There are many ways in which I'm kind of moving outside, moving a lot of my work outside of the space of nonprofit industrial complex or working within political parties to doing things completely outside of it, and having paid work that's completely unrelated, because I felt like that gave me more ability to stay true to my values. And I know it can be really hard because we see people who are doing amazing work.
Like I'll look at Dom and the amazing work that he's doing with New Disabled South and sometimes compare myself to that it's like what am I doing wrong? It's like so challenging to do that. And there are so few spaces that allow you to be able to be yourself, and I'm hoping that with things like New Disabled South and Disability Culture Lab, we're starting to create healthier spaces.
But again, our work and our activism should not be defined by what our paid work is. And if you feel like you're failing because you're not getting the right paid opportunities or you feel like you're being constrained in your activism, it's not -- it shouldn't be about your relationship to the paycheck. You still have to earn your money. You still have to be able to support yourself.
But find ways to be able to stay true to that regardless of what you are doing for your day job. Because in the end I think that is really one of the keys to sustainability for me is being able to feel like I'm not essentially being corrupted by the capitalist forces of the country and how that seeps into all of our work that we do.
So I hope that's not too bleak of a thing to say.
But there are so many ways to engage in disability activist work that have absolutely nothing to do or advocacy that have absolutely nothing to do with our jobs and what we do during the day. And so if you're not like a career advocate for the disability community, even if that's something you kind of striving to do, that does not define your worth and your value and your commitment to justice and equity. So just to kind of wrap up, is there anything else you want to share in terms of your call to action?
I know we have just 5 minutes left, so a minute or two of what you would like people to really take away from this.
DOM KELLY: I can just start and say I think I don't want to -- I want to end on some kind of positive note, and you know, I did think before we started like I want to say like you know, you should stay hopeful because like hope is so important in this moment.
And I do think it is, but I also think -- it is a privilege to be able to have an expressed hope. And so I think beyond that like we -- I want us all to stay focused in this moment on what is so critical, try to tune out the noise and all the stuff that is being thrown at us that is to distract us and to get everybody outraged and not paying attention to what's happening when we're outraged about the Tesla at the White House.
Like let's try to avoid that stuff and let's stay focused and really, really I think most importantly figure out how we can be in solidarity not just within our community and with each other, but with other communities and other movements, so that we can effectively not just fight for what we have and to protect what we have, but to actually get more for our community.
MONICA WILEY: I have to go after you, Dom? That's a tough one to follow.
I echo what you said, Dom.
I think what I would want everyone to take away from this is that although we're in this battle. We're on the battlefield for democracy, for fairness, for justice, don't forget who you are before this even happened.
Don't forget the joy that you possess, and the joy that you can spread to others because we're all in this together, and we're all in this trying to make sure that we stay sane, and that we are protecting ourselves and our families.
In order for us to do that, we have to protect ourselves and recognize the joy that we have within ourselves. And so that we can spread that joy and peace to others. And not forget that we are all here, made for a purpose, for a reason, and let us meet this moment.
This is a defining moment. And that through this moment and this defining moment, that the joy that we exude from us will eliminate all of these noises and everything that is trying to take us back to a place and to a time in our history that we are not going back to.
We are moving forward, we're moving forward with all that we have, and with the joy that we have, and that with the peace within us to make sure that we continue to do the great work and be the great individuals that we are.
Sarah?
SARAH BLAHOVEC: I really just want to end it on that note of joy there, because that's something that we need to just kind of keep in mind right now whenever it is a time that is just so bleak and concerning, being able to find moments of joy is something that we need to do and find community and find our people.
So I want to say thank you to the ABA commission on disability rights for hosting this panel. I was as always an honor to speak alongside Dom and Monica. And thank you everyone for participating today. And I also wanted to just share out of this comment someone had plugged in the chat the autistic self-advocacy network's plain language tool for joining the fight to protect Medicaid.
There is also a proxy caller project, which is really cool having volunteers call legislators on behalf of folks who need that as an accommodation. So we're seeing innovative projects coming out of disability community to fight back. And so, it's hard to figure out a good note to end on here, but we're staying in the fight. And there's a long road ahead. And it's just good to know that there are so many good people to fight alongside, like the folks in the room there, and Dom and Monica as well.
Thank you everyone and have a good rest of the day!
(Applause)