LOU ANN BLAKE: Thank you all for being back with us in a timely manner. Just want to run quickly again through our housekeeping.
If you're not speaking, please remain muted. If you are actively speaking, or only people who are actively speaking, I should say, should have their video on so that we can have the ASL interpreter easy to find for those people who are using the ASL interpreter.
To kick off our next panel, Disability Identity and Intersectionality, I think it's going to be a terrific panel. We've all been looking forward to it. We have Silvia Yee, an attorney with Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. And she is also a member of the tenBroek law symposium steering committee.
So Silvia, thank you for joining us. The stage is yours.
SILVIA YEE: Thank you. My real job here is just to introduce Lydia X. Z. Brown. They are an advocate, educator, attorney who addresses state interpersonal violence targeting disabled people living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation.
Lydia does an incredible amount of work, just a few of their formal affiliations are as follows: Policy counsel for privacy and data at the Center for Democracy and Technology, focusing on discrimination in disability. Director of policy and advocacy and external affairs at the autistic women nonbinary network. Founding director for autistic people of color interdependence, survival, and empowerment. Adjunct lecturer core faculty at Georgetown University's disability studies program. Adjunct professor at American University's department of race, gender, and culture studies. Commissioner on the American Bar Association's commission on disability rights. Chairperson of the ABA civil rights and social justice sections. And board co-chair of the Disability Rights Bar Association, as well as working for the national lawyers' guild national executive committee.
But in their own words, a sentence that I like very much from them, often their most important work has no title, job description, or funding, and probably never will.
I appreciate their thoughts on that.
I am so excited to hear this panel. Who I am and who we are questions that society generally answers by paying attention to things like skin color, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, occupation, body shape, education, family ethnicity, and how these things are similar or different among groups.
These aspects all interact together as well as with our circumstances in complex ways that shape each of us individually and professionally, though some of us may like to pretend our professional lives are distinct.
A 90-minute session can't provide all the answers but can start us on the path of asking the right questions, so I will hand it over to Lydia now.
Thank you.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia X. Z. Brown. My pronouns are they/them. My sign name is L Brown. I'm a youngish east Asian person with short black hair and glasses. I am wearing a T-shirt that says "I am not a token." And I am sitting in a room with two windows with blinds behind me and a plant that really needs some love and some care. And I will say, to my credit, it is still alive. So I get some points for that.
Just as a reminder, you should be able to access captions in two ways. You can access them as subtitles by clicking the button that says CC at the bottom and choosing the option to "view subtitles." If you wish to do that and have the captions not covered by notifications by the chat, you will also need to open the chat into your right-hand side bar or in a separate window altogether.
You can also access the captions in a separate streaming window which the captioner has provided the link to in the chat box already.
I want to welcome you to our session today and open with a brief invitation to each of you to take a pause and a moment of grounding to tune in to your own body and minds and meet yourselves where you are at. Are you sitting somewhere that feels comfortable for you right now? Would you prefer to be on a couch, on a bed, or on a sofa? Would you prefer to be inside or outside, if outside is habitable right now? Would you prefer to be with partners, friends, children, or roommates that you like or to have your kitties and dogs with you and present? Or would you prefer to be alone if you have access to a private space, if you don't want to be interrupted or bothered right now?
This is a reminder to ask yourselves if you have not had something to eat or drink in the last couple of hours, you are welcome to grab something to eat or drink during this session. I encourage it.
I also invite you, if you do have kitties or dogs, send me pictures. I just dropped my cell phone number in the chat.
In addition, there's an unofficial cat app, so text me those pictures. I want them. Thank you.
And I want to also invite you to ask yourself what else you've carries into the space today. Have you carried into this space rage, anger, your righteous indignation? Have you carried into this space your grief, your sorrow, your mourning.
Somebody is not muted. I'm just going to mute you quickly.
This is an invitation for you to consider what else you have carried into the space with you. Your exhaustion, your devastation, your weariness, your annoyance, your frustration, your gratitude.
Let's all take a moment of pause and grounding together. Some people like to close their eyes and breathe deeply. You can do that if you like. But let's tune in.
Thank you for doing that with me. I give that invitation at the beginning of any facilitation or panel or presentation as a way of practicing disability justice in one very small way. And we're going to be talking in this panel discussion with three exciting guests about disability justice and intersectionality. If disability justice teaches us at its core that there is no wrong way to have a body or mind, our bodies and minds are not broken, defective, or wrong, that our body minds have needs and our needs deserve to be met, then it is incumbent on us to also make space for and honor our body-mind needs, to make space for and respect what our body-minds need to be present in this space at this time.
I invite you to move in the ways that feel comfortable and that make your body hurt as little as possible. This is a reminder that for those of you who have access to the resources and support necessary to meet your needs, that you are not wrong or bad for meeting those needs, that your needs deserve to be met, to be handled and witnessed and held with care. And that for those of you who are not currently in a place where you have access to the resources and support necessary to meet your needs, that that is not a reminder or a reflection on your value or worth, but rather a clarion call to action for all of us as advocates for justice, for equity, for freedom, that it is our responsibility to create, build, and sustain a world in which you are able to have all of your needs met, honored, and cared for.
So let me briefly introduce our three panelists. And you're welcome to turn on your videos now if you would like to do so. I'll walk you all through what we're planning to do with our time. I'm going to give you a basic grounding of what intersectionality and disability justice mean. And then I'm going to pose a series of questions about disability justice and intersectionality that Zainab, Sharon, and Gabe will respond to.
After each of them have shared all of their wonderful nuggets of brilliance and wisdom with you all, I will give a brief response to the discussion that we have had. And then I will open the conversation to you all if you have some additional questions. And I believe that I've designated time for about two questions most likely, but we'll see what that actually looks like by the time we get there.
So first I have with me Zainab Alkebsi. Zainab is policy counsel at the National Association of the Deaf. In that role, Zainab advocates for regulatory changes to improve the quality of life of Deaf, hard of hearing, late deafened, Deaf with mobile disabilities, and deafblind people in many areas including transportation, telecommunications, employment, technology, and more.
Zainab is also President of the Deaf and hard of hearing bar association. I am very proud and excited to have Zainab with me today. She is on screen with curly hair and glasses and really pretty earrings that I am now jealous of.
Next I have Sharon daVanport, the founding executive director of the autistic woman and nonbinary network. She is an educational speaker who hosts workshops on topics including health and wellness for women and nonbinary people with disabilities, violence against women and girls in vulnerable communities, and how to effectively use privilege when amplifying the work of disabled people who experience racial and gender inequality. They are also a person who has been invited to speak repeatedly to the United Nations and White House, not under the most recent administration, just to be clear. None of us probably were invited during the immediately prior presidential administration. I certainly was not.
Sharon is also an advisory board member for Felicity House and representative for AWN to the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities and a steering committee member of national alliance and board member of crushing colonialism.
And last but absolutely not least is Gabe Cazares, who is currently the director of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities in Houston, Texas. In that capacity, Gabe works with the mayor and collaborates with the city council, Houston's disability community, city agencies, and other stakeholders to build a more accessible and inclusive city for all people in Houston.
Prior to that, you all knew Gabe here at the NFB in Baltimore where he used to be manager of governmental affairs. So NFB lost you and Houston gained you. So you're no longer our neighbor, unfortunately. But that's okay.
And I'm very excited to have Zainab, Sharon, and Gabe with me today.
I want to explain briefly what disability justice is and intersectionality are because we have a long history of misusing and misunderstanding both of these terms. Disability justice and disability rights are not the same thing. So we have to be clear on that. And we need to have an understanding of what we're talking about to enter this conversation. If we don't, we're not going to be able to have an honest conversation. We're not going to be able to grapple with these issues. And we're going to speak in ways that will further alienate and marginalize the most marginalized members of our communities including people who are in the profession and law students coming up now.
So let's talk about what that is. Disability rights, as we all know hopefully, at least I presume so, given that you're present at this conference, is a theory of change and practices that seek to change the social and political situation of disabled people or people with disabilities through changing our laws and policies, whether through impact litigation, direct client representation, policy advocacy, regulatory and legislative change, strengthen our existing laws, get good jurisprudential precedent in our cases, repeal and abolish harmful laws or measures, and enforce our laws, which as we all know often does not happen, whether we're talking about 504 enforcement, the federal Air Carrier Access Act, etc. Maybe we should enforce our laws.
Disability rights is to change the social condition of disabled people.
Disability justice is much more broad and expansive. Disability justice recognizes that the work to change law and policy is necessary but insufficient. That the work of doing legal and policy reform and advocacy has to happen, and our movement require there's work to happen, but that work will not get us to liberation, which is the state of things in which marginalized people, including disabled people, actually are able to live authentically, self-determined lives with access to the resources, care, and support that we need to live and to thrive, and without and in the absence of violence, injustice, inequality, disparate outcome, and the fear of future violence, inequality, or injustice.
Disability justice recognizes that the law, in other words, is necessary but not sufficient. You cannot legislate morality. We already know that. ADA has been with us more than three decades. The Rehab Act and IDEA have been on the books now for more than half a century. And we all know that schools, government agencies, and other entities blatantly violate all of those laws in about a million different ways. Otherwise this conference wouldn't exist. So disability justice recognizes that is the failure of disability rights, is in believing that merely by changing the laws or advocating for legal work, that we will actually change the societal condition of people with disabilities. That's not to dismiss the important and powerful impact that those laws have had. And the changes that have actually occurred as a result of those laws. Disabled students now are more likely to be in school than we were prior to the ADA's passage, let alone the IDEA's passage, when it was first passed as the education for handicapped children act in 1973. But it is to recognize that disability rights is inherently limiting because the law itself has always been a tool rooted in violence. The violence of genocide, land theft, chattel enslavement and eugenics, and that the law is the tool that undergirds and perpetuates ableism until society. And likewise, the law will not get us to freedom. The rights-based framework is also limited because those who tend to hold the most power, resources, platform, access to visibility and recognition within disability rights work are always the most privileged and resourced of disabled people. That is, our organizations that focus on disability rights tend to be led by predominantly white boards of directors, senior or management level staff, they tend to represent the perspectives of white wealth privileged cisgender and straight stable disabled people, those with access to education and licensure and credentials, those who can be construed as contributing economically within capitalistic visions of success of achievement and personhood. Disabled people who are at the margins of the margins, disabled people who are queer and trans, disabled people of color, disabled people who are multiply disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, mad, deafblind, nonspeaking, who acquire disabilities later in life, and whose disabilities severely and intensely impact the ways in which we are viewed and understood in the world, that we do not hold those positions of power or recognition or access to resources, that our people are perpetually unemployed, underemployed, precariously employed, and even and especially in disability advocacy focused institutions and organizations that we occupy the junior level staff roles, the internships, the volunteerships, the advisory boards, but never the board of directors. Never the C-suite. Never the people with decision making roles.
So disability justice recognizes disability rights framework is useful and necessary but not sufficient. It is inadequate. Disability justice contemplates radically transforming our societal and cultural values away from ableism, which is a system that systemically devalues disabled people, that dehumanizes disabled people, and that undergirds and is necessary for every other form of systematic and structural oppression and discrimination, and that if we challenge ableism, then we can also challenge capitalism and white supremacy and misogyny and class-based oppression and caste-based oppression and colorism and all of the other ways that we experience oppression, violence, and discrimination. Ableism undergirds it all. And this is what intersectionality means. The term first entered into public discourse from the work of Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, a legal scholar of critical race theory. Professor Crenshaw introduced the term intersectionality in a paper discussing the failure of employment and labor laws to protect Black women from discrimination in the workplace, that Black people who tended to bring cases based on employment discrimination were unable to bring sex-based discrimination cases because the discrimination they experienced was clearly racial in nature as well as sex based but they were also unable to bring race-based discrimination cases successfully because the discrimination they faced was not just racial but also based on gender.
So the theory of intersectionality came of the need to be able to analyze our social, legal, and political structures, recognizing the overlapping, interplaying, and codependent ways that different forms of oppression operate. And the form of oppression that Black women in particular experience later came to be called by Dr. Moya Bailey as misogynoir. So intersectionality helps us understand the ways and different forms of oppression, how they manifest, collide, and interact with each other. Ableism is both necessary for every other form of oppression and arises out of every other form of oppression.
The sexist gender-based misogynistic oppression logic that says that women and feminine people are more emotional, irrational, not suitable for leader positions is the logic of ableism, logic about people's bodies and minds.
The white supremacist logic that people of color's existence is physically or intellectually inferior to white people, we're stupider, less responsible, our bodies are not as beautiful or strong as white people's, except if we're being exploited, this is also the logic of ableism. The logic that impoverished people are poor because they're irresponsible or immature is the logic of ableism, which itself depends upon ideas about only certain kinds ever people even and especially within disabled communities as being valuable or worthy. Ableist logic depends upon anti-blackness, class-based oppression, gender-based oppression, and others.
And so I wanted to give this introduction just to make sure that we are on the same page for this conversation, that when we talk about disability justice and intersectionality, we know what we mean. It is critical for us as practitioners of the law and as advocates within legal and policy structures to know what the words are that we are using and to know what our work supports.
I want to invite Gabe and Sharon and Zainab to join in this conversation now. My first question for each of you, building off of our bit of discussion, is how does intersectionality show up in your work?
And I'll start off with Zainab.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Okay. This is Zainab sharing. Thank you for having me serve on today's panel.
I am what's known as a triple whammy: I'm Deaf, I'm female, and I'm a person of color. I'm an Arab Muslim.
And all of these identities play an important role in my overall identity. People often think of intersectionality as a hierarchy, with a fixed primary identity and then secondary and tertiary identities. For instance, since I work for the NAD, the National Association of the Deaf, people may assume that being Deaf is my primary identity. But intersectionality is not layers of identities. We have to look at it holistically. These different identities make up the whole. Which identity is primary often depends on the specific situation. It's not static. For example, let's say that I am in a room full of hearing people. Clearly not during the pandemic of course, but otherwise. Then, in fact, my Deaf identity is likely to take precedence over my other identities. Although my female identity may also play a role.
And of course as well as my person of color identity.
Now let's say I'm in a room full of Deaf people. It may be my POC identity that stands out more, or my female identity. We can't just put aside other parts of our identity. Multiple identities are inextricable from each other. By the way, what happened in Atlanta is a perfect example of how intertwined things such as racism and misogyny are. You can't parse out where one stops and the other begins. They are intertwined. And this often comes up in my work. I have an anecdote to share to illustrate this.
A little bit over a year ago now, prior to the pandemic, I was at an in-person meeting. Like I said, this was pre-COVID. And the topic of intersectionality and disability came up at this meeting, actually quite similar to this panel. And who dominated that discussion at that meeting ironically, one person, older white guy, completely dominated the conversation. Just as he was proselytizing about how there should be more diverse voices in our field of work, he was simultaneously drowning out the other, in fact, more diverse voices at the table. And most of us at that meeting were female people of color with disabilities. The irony was not lost on me.
Another example, another story of how intersectionality shows up in my work and how intersectionality is not a hierarchy. This is another real-life example. I was at a table with two other individuals. There were three of us. Again, this was in the before times. The other two individuals I was meeting with were hearing white men. One of them asked the other hearing white man for help in finessing a document. He was asking clearly that one individual, not myself. He was asking for help with content, spelling, grammar, all of which both of us were well skilled in being able to assist, but he did not direct the question to myself, even though I have a law degree and I have an excellent grasp of the English language.
In that moment, I wondered, what had just happened. I was left with the question. Was it because I'm deaf? Or a person of color? Or a woman? Or all three? Was I just viewed as not intelligent enough?
This is just one example of an encounter that leaves you very uncomfortable in that moment, because you're left questioning yourself as to what has happened and what were the dynamics playing out in this situation. And of course it's intersectional. It's not one over the other in terms of identity.
And there are many moments like this with these microaggressions. People don't realize the bias they have. It's often not overt, in your face kind of bias, but rather it's a hidden bias with microaggressions like these that happen on a daily basis. It's not always just microaggressions, though. Sometimes it is overt. At Deaf people, or at women or at Arabs and Muslim people, especially in these charged times.
Interestingly, not many people realize that they have met a Muslim, because many Muslims, like myself, may not meet the stereotypical visualization of what a Muslim looks like. And that's an example of privilege that we have.
One more point I want to make. The overlap of the Deaf community and Black Lives Matter. Deaf people are often shot at by police because the officers assume they are ignoring instructions that have been verbally given. They don't stop to think that maybe this person can't hear their instructions. So imagine being a young Black Deaf man in that situation. It's very challenging.
As I mentioned, these are very charged times, with the events of last year, the George Floyd video, the summer of protests. These important discussions are finally happening. We are in a justice-centered profession, but only just now are people starting to take the time to do the work. And people need to realize that we're just at the beginning. By having these discussions, we are just starting to scratch the surface. We have a long way to go and a long journey to take.
So that's my comment of how intersectionality shows up in my work. Thank you.
LYDIA BROWN: Thank you, Zainab. This is Lydia.
Sharon, would you be able to address how intersectionality shows up in your work?
SHARON daVANPORT: Sure, hi, thank you, Lydia.
I thought I would approach this in my capacity as someone who founded a disability organization and discuss the importance of diverse representation within internal structures within organizations. We find so much, and all of us know, that most organizations, most businesses are white centric, that they are founded and led by corporate leaders, business leaders, nonprofits are led mostly by white people, white boards of directors: AWN was no different in our history. We had a few years back, we had to take a really hard good look at how we were measuring up to intersectional standards and seeing if we were measuring up to the ways that we wanted our representation to be.
One thing that we've tried really hard to make a conscious and deliberate effort to do is to ensure that our leadership within AWN is representative of racial diversity, gender diversity, and that translates into our board of directors, the contractors that we hire, our volunteers, and our paid staff.
It's not always easy. And when I have these conversations with people and they ask these kinds of questions about well, how do you do it, what if you don't know people outside of your race or your gender, it takes deliberate work to do these kinds of, to make these kinds of changes.
When you're looking to fill these roles, it's important to state that, whether you're seeking applicants that you let people know that you're seeking people of color, gender diversity, and to make sure you're making those kinds of connections that are going to be important and will build your organization, and even having to come in to make changes in your organization, to make sure those are reflective. So those are the points that I just wanted to touch on and say within the work that we're doing and trying to do over at AWN, that's what we're trying to do.
LYDIA BROWN: Thank you so much for sharing that, Sharon.
Silvia mentioned I met Sharon on a number of AWN's projects and I'm very excited about what AWN does to center the voices of multiply marginalized people in our communities.
Last but not least, Gabe, would you share with us how intersectionality shows up in your work?
GABE CAZARES: Thank you, Lydia. And first and foremost, I want to say how incredibly excited I am to be on this panel. It's not lost on me that I am the only person who is male identifying who is sitting on this panel. And the value that this group of people brings to the table is incredibly rich. So I want to take this moment to recognize that and, Lydia, particularly the work that you do to lift up people with disabilities who are multiply marginalized is incredible. So thank you for that.
To answer this question, I first have to acknowledge that I have privilege. And we all do. And I think it's important to unpack this a little bit, because when we start throwing around the word "privilege," people start getting defensive. And I'll give you a news flash: It's because they have privilege that they feel defensive.
But I am educated, I am in a job of influence, I am in a job that pays me well, and all of these components are points of privilege. So it's important that we recognize that out of the gate.
I hope I'm not myth busting here, but if I am, great. But recognizing that you have privilege in itself is not a bad or negative thing. In fact, it's important to recognize your privilege to understand how you can use the resources that you have to lift up those who don't have the same access monetarily, politically, resource wise that you may.
So how does intersectionality show up in my work. I almost recoil at the word "intersectionality" because I often feel like it's a buzz word that can be so overly used that it's almost meaningless, but as a gay disabled person of color, as a Latino, it's important to recognize that intersectionality is inexplicably linked to everything that I do.
And the way that I want to answer this question is by reflecting on a couple experiences that I've had in my professional career. I was part of the government affairs staff at the National Federation of the Blind, and I learned a lot there about policy development and legislation, and it was a great opportunity for us, for me to cut my teeth in government affairs.
It was also one of the first experiences that I had with marginalization. I for a long time was the only person who spoke Spanish, who was on the paid staff of the organization, and very frequently anything that was Spanish related fell on me to do. And that's I think part the nature of nonprofits, but the reason I tell this story is because it's important that we back up the words that we use around intersectionality with resources. It's not on the communities of color to pick up the work, and I think where the disability community falls short time and time again is that when we have these discussions around intersectionality, we often turn to people of color and say, hey, you do the work and let us know how you want us to fix this. And it's not on us to do the work. We don't have the resources or the influences. Like Lydia said, we're not in those C-suites. And it's important that leadership takes a look across the disability community and say, how many financial resources am I putting to translate my materials into different languages? How many resources am I putting to do targeted outreach to Muslim, Latino, Asian communities, first nation communities?
Intersectionality shows up in everything that I do because that's how I choose to approach my work. Largely because of, like I mentioned, my privilege, but largely because of my lived experience as a disabled Latino. There were no other people who looked like me outside of my family. There were no mentors. There were no guidance. And one of the things that I want to lift up about the National Federation of the Blind is I became a member in 2010 and here we are 11 years later and still a member. And part of the reason is because of the mentorship. It's important that the ladders that we climb to achieve success, however you choose to measure success, I think it's also problematic that we measure success by our careers but that's I think a discussion for another day, but that we use those experiences to lift up other people who live on the margins, who are queer, who are disabled, who are people of color, who are poor that don't have the experiences that very often we assume that everyone has had in the disability community.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. I would add to that just in thinking about how we talk about privilege, power, and oppression. One of the ways that oppression works is by deliberately rendering invisible and hidden the structures and mechanics of its own violence. So oppression works in large part by teaching all of us, no matter what positions of both marginality and privilege we individually occupy that these have to do with individual experiences, individual disadvantage, individual benefit, goodness or badness. So that lends itself readily to the feelings of defensiveness that come up from white class-privileged cis people. How dare you say I have privilege! I am a woman! How dare you say I experience any privilege! I'm also a person of color!
The reality is, we're calling attention to systemic and structural oppression, which works by hiding itself and by teaching us that all of these conversations just boil down to individual identity, individual experience.
And here's one reality. Just by virtue of being here at this conference today, we all hold at least some level of privilege, because we're all communicating either in American Sign Language or spoken English, and we all have an internet connection. That's a lot of privilege. Many impoverished disabled people of color do not have reliable internet connections or devices that can access the internet. Many multiply marginalized people in Deaf communities do not know ASL or spoken or written English. They may know a regional dialect of sign language. They may only know home sign. If they come from outside the U.S., they may be fluent in a sign language of a different area of the world but no very little ASL. And that's the language that we're communicating in right now, of people who are hearing and who communicate in written and spoken English. There's a lot of folks in the disabled community who do not understand written or spoken English. There are a lot of folks for whom this format, even if doing online work is technically accessible because they have an internet connection, where this is not accessible, where a day of panels is not accessible. It's cognitively overwhelming. They're going to come out of it with nothing and it's not useful.
There are so many ways in which all of us, just by virtue of being here, experience some forms of privilege, and it's not about our individual experience. It is about structures and systems of oppression that privilege certain modalities of communication, certain types of language, certain types of learning, certain types of labor, while marginalizing and subordinating others.
So my next question for each of you is: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected disabled people from multiply marginalized communities? And for this I'm going to go back to Gabe and lob it right back at your face, metaphorically, not literally.
GABE CAZARES: Look, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted what disabled, multiply marginalized people have been screaming about for years. Inequitable access to healthcare further exacerbated the experience of COVID-19 for people with disabilities. Food insecurity further exacerbated by COVID-19. Transportation access. Housing access. All of these issues were issues that came to the forefront immediately. Here in Houston but as well as around the country.
One of the things that the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities did right after the pandemic was declared a global pandemic was that overnight we stood up food distribution points where we worked with our transit agency to provide, to deliver food to people with disabilities' homes because the precarious -- the already precarious direct service provider system just fell apart. So people with disabilities were literally, and poor disabled people of color, were going hungry. So working with grocery partners. And this is what I mean by using your privilege. We were able to funnel resources so that we could provide those direct services to the community, to people that were at most risk of food insecurity.
So I think the pandemic highlighted the inequities and the disparities that have lived in this country from the very beginning.
LYDIA BROWN: Thanks, Gabe. This is Lydia.
Zainab, would you be able to speak to the ways in which COVID-19 has affected multiply marginalized disabled people?
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Certainly. This is Zainab speaking. As we all know, the pandemic has turned the world upside down. But even more so for disabled people from multiply marginalized communities. It's impacted us in our personal lives, our jobs, our access to healthcare, and more. For example, as was mentioned earlier, but whether or not you have internet privilege, the shift to telework, telehealth, and remote learning has had a disparate impact on Deaf people from multiply marginalized communities, because not everyone can afford internet access. And not everyone has access to sufficient internet speeds to permit several people in the same household who might be competing for internet use at the same time, especially for people who are working from home and kids who are involved in remote learning, especially for Deaf people for whom quality video is necessary for communication. Choppy video means communication is not happening.
The digital divide is also a big issue for access to government press briefings. Even when the government entity does the right thing and hires and provides an ASL interpreter, often the TV stations don't show the interpreter in their feed. And sometimes you can only see the interpreter on the online feed. Again, not everyone has internet access to see the interpreter. Again, a disparate impact.
They may not have access and understanding of what they are supposed to do and what they are supposed to not do in order to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic.
We see the same problem when it comes to access to information about vaccinations. Deaf and hard of hearing people from multiply marginalized communities tend to be front line workers and may be surrounded by people wearing masks. Well, we understand masks are necessary, very necessary at this time during the pandemic. And at the same time, we acknowledge that they hinder communication for Deaf and hard of hearing people. Obviously it blocks our ability to lipread or to see facial cues and expressions, all of which are important for communication.
At the NAD, with other advocacy organizations and subject matter experts, we developed position statements on mask communication, telework, telehealth, and remote learning for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals. You can read them at the website NAD.org/coronavirus. I'll put that link in the chat.
One last thing I'll add, this pandemic has really impacted the deafblind community who rely on touch, tactile communication. They have been really isolated during the pandemic.
So again, I will drop that link into the chat. Thank you.
LYDIA BROWN: Thanks, Zainab.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: I see it was already done by Anna in my office. Thanks so much, Anna.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. Sharon, can you speak to the ways in which you've seen COVID-19 affecting multiply marginalized disabled people?
SHARON daVANPORT: Sure. I really appreciate what Gabe and Zainab shared. They really touched on everything quite nicely. Something that I found interesting since the beginning of the pandemic is the ease with which businesses just transition to online meetings and work, and when the disability community has been asking for this for years as an accommodation. And I find that quite the conundrum, that we've had to experience and sit back and watch everything are go online and watch how, with ease, businesses transitioned.
But going back to what Gabe and Zainab said and what you brought out, Lydia, is when you don't have internet access, and now the whole world, everything is transitioned to online, then you're left out. There are even children who can't, who don't have access to education. Parents without daycare are unable to do their jobs even at home because they're having to take care of their children. So even parents who thought that they would be able to do their job at home have been able to do this. And we see that these kinds of issues, when you add on top of that disability and race and all these disparities that people face, it's going to hit twice as hard. So along with everything that Gabe and Zainab already brought out, I think if everyone, even if you're not disabled, if you have whatever privileges you have, if you look at what you've experienced, just typical hardships of a pandemic, and then you add on top of that the marginalizations that people experience in their communities, it’s going to be so much more harder on them. I think it's important for us to recognize these issues and find ways for us to be able to support our communities during this time.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. My next question is: What can people and organizations who have more privilege, power, and resources do to respond to white supremacy, misogyny, and other forms of harm and oppression within disabled communities?
For this question, I want to go back and start with Sharon.
SHARON daVANPORT: I really like this question. I was so glad that Zainab chose this one when we were going through the preliminary discussions for this panel.
Hold on a second. I'm going to cough again. I'm getting over bronchitis, you guys.
LYDIA BROWN: Sharon, we're glad you're alive.
SHARON daVANPORT: Thank you. I know. I tested negative for COVID, but this bronchitis is really kicking me.
I feel like the reason why I really like this question is because I see, and AWN tries to do this as well, tries to help smaller organizations by doing some fiscal sponsorship and uplifting and supporting communities that have less privilege than our organization. But ways that we can do this is pretty basic. When we see that organizations or initiatives are needing support, especially during the pandemic and COVID, and even without COVID, a lot of times, you know, it costs money to become a nonprofit. So a lot of organizations and grassroots efforts and initiatives are existing without that structure and support being able to file for grants.
So if you're a powerful and privileged organization to where you can give grants, look at the way that you're asking for someone to fill out a grant application, and recognize that a lot of people automatically, a lot of small organizations and grassroots efforts, don't qualify for even to just fill out an application because the way the questions are structured and the way things are asked automatically disqualify a very new organization or small organization. I've seen this over the last couple of years happen to where there have been funders who have reached out to small organizations, including AWN and changed their application process because of people that I know in the disability community. And Lydia, I believe you were one of the people who have sat on these panels and helped these funders and these powerful and privileged organizations and foundations to understand that to support marginalized communities and organizations, you have to start with the application process that doesn't disqualify people right from the beginning. And then be willing to let them use the money where they need it most and not govern when you're helping an organization have that general funding that's the upstart for their organization.
I also feel like we have to be willing to support smaller organizations and helping them in other areas. And that means in the past year with COVID, we've had smaller initiatives reach out to us and ask if they could use our Zoom platform. And we've offered it to events that didn't have Zoom because it can be quite expensive if you don't just get the basic free Zoom where you can't really hold a meeting or hold an event unless you have a paid platform. So just even offering our resources, whether that's something like Zoom or even ourselves in volunteering and helping these smaller initiatives, we need to help each other and actively look for places, marginalized communities that we can support.
LYDIA BROWN: Thank you, Sharon. Gabe?
GABE CAZARES: I think an important piece to this question is to take the time to be introspective. As a member of the National Federation of the Blind, I am grateful for the difficult work that Mark Riccobono and the leadership team has been doing to address our history, to recognize it, to validate people's experiences to begin the long road of recovery. It's not an easy process. It's not a pleasant process, but it's a necessary process. And I want to say and I want to lift up the incredible work that the organization has been doing around this space.
I also want to encourage folks to take a look at your financial resources. As nonprofits, we always hear about how money is tight and it's important to raise money. But money and your budget, your budget is a moral document. It tells us, it tells members, it tells staff what your priorities are. Are you putting enough of your treasure in systems that will uplift those in your community who you intend on representing? Are there voices at the table? Are you doing direct outreach in a way that's authentic in who are your contractors? Who are your subcontractors? Are they people of color? Are they queer people?
I think it's important that our monetary framework matches the language that we use. So that's what I think organizations can do.
LYDIA BROWN: Thanks so much, Gabe. Zainab?
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: This is Zainab speaking. People and organizations with more privilege, power, and resources first need to recognize that they have privilege. That's really the first step.
They also need to have diverse perspectives at the table. But it's even more important to have diverse voices in leadership roles. Not tokenism, but truly allowing opportunities for leadership to develop. And just like with individuals, organizations need to also put in the work. They need to allow for brave space for these discussions to happen. Not safe space. People think of safe spaces as reassuring, as comfortable. But this work shouldn't be comfortable. It should be uncomfortable. And it's hard. It's important. And it's about holding people accountable and organizations.
And there are unfortunately some organizations that talk the talk but don't walk the walk. And we need to look beyond the talk, beyond the words, and really look at what they're doing with the walk, with the work they're doing. We have to consider that deeply.
We also want to consider organizational responsibility on our end as well. Many nonprofit organizations seek corporate sponsorships for various events, and that's important and fine and makes it possible for us to host our events and so forth. But are we examining how these corporations are doing with diversity and inclusion before we accept their sponsorship?
And I'm not just talking about their working relationship with us. Not just how they're doing with accessibility. But also what are they doing vis-a-vis white supremacy, misogyny, and other harms.
That's what I believe organizations need to do and how organizations need to put in the work. Thank you.
GABE CAZARES: Lydia, this is Gabe. May I add something quickly?
LYDIA BROWN: Absolutely. Please go ahead.
GABE CAZARES: The other thing that came to mind as Zainab was talking, and thank you, Zainab, for those remarks, is that organizations, when looking in -- and now I'm talking to everybody, nonprofit and for profit, so lawyer friends, listen up. You need to take a look at the pay parity within your organization and see how you're paying your people. Are white folks, particularly white men, making more than the people of color on your staff? Why? I think that's an important question folks should look at.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. In the autistic community, one of my colleagues has raised the observation that in the D.C. disability policy world, you will pretty much never see developmentally disabled people in senior or leadership positions of disability-related organizations unless they are self-advocacy organizations in which by definition everybody who works there has the disability that that organization represents. But in other organizations that focus on disability policy and advocacy work, even those that focus on developmental disabilities but are not self-advocacy organizations, you don't see developmentally disabled people in any senior or leadership positions. And generally the developmentally disabled people you see in any position are white.
And it's made me even wonder in some of the spaces I've been in as a young professional openly developmentally disabled and a person of color, the ways I have access to privilege, my law degree, my object to use spoken English, and others, whether I will have career advancement.
And I honestly don't know the answer to that question. And just to be clear, this is not me asking people to hire me for a job. I do have a job and I like my job. But I think about my future. And I think about where I see other developmentally disabled people working in policy and advocacy. And I think about what that person said and about how I can't find, even in the disabled community, who are most likely to be in those positions, I see the people with the most privilege and resources.
And my last question for you all is: How do you build networks of care and support for yourselves? As multiply marginalized disabled people who are doing advocacy work and who are constantly dealing with racism, ableism, and other isms in the disability community, how do you build networks of care and support for yourselves?
Sharon, do you want to go ahead and start?
SHARON daVANPORT: I will try. I've been coughing pretty bad.
I think for myself personally, building a network of support, I've tried to -- and again, I'm going to go back to COVID because I think COVID has directed a lot of this over the past year on how we've needed to build even a stronger network of support because of the isolation and the changes we've had to make and adjust to.
The way I've tried to go about doing this is making for sure -- I don't even know. This may sound like an awkward thing to say. But know your audience. Kind of like know your friendships. Know the people who you can turn to. And there are a lot of different caveats to that, and one in particular is when COVID hit, I found out pretty quick that there are a certain group of my friends because of OCD and different things cannot really talk about the pandemic without being panicked, right? So when I needed to talk about it or I needed to discuss it and I needed to build that support system, I found that I had to pick and choose and make a very conscious and deliberate choice on who I reached out to. And making it clear also to others in a way of self-care when I am and am not available or if I'm done for the day. But also offer myself for another time when I'm rested.
So I think a part of caring for ourselves is setting good clear boundaries. But also I thyself care is cyclical. I think we need to be reaching out to others, where we carry a certain privilege, reaching out to others who don't have that privilege and who are differently marginalized and offering the support that we can.
I think this last year has caused me to really dig deep and look in to different ways that I can be more accessible to different people in different ways. If you can say that there's been any kind of silver lining to a pandemic, that was one for me. And I just encourage people to not forget about yourself and to set healthy boundaries too when it comes to setting up a support system, because you can be your own best support system by knowing what your limits are.
I'm going to stop right there. I'm not going to be able to talk much more.
LYDIA BROWN: Thank you so much, Sharon. I will turn to Zainab next.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Sure. Multiply marginalized disabled advocates in our field are often told by people with privilege that we need to be focused on the disability piece of our advocacy and sort of stay in that lane. By the very nature of their privilege, they're able to not think about the other aspects. They don't experience what we experience. And like Sharon said, we can't do it alone. It helps to seek out similarly situated advocates like those on this panel and those of you coming to this symposium and allies as well, and together try to break down these barriers. It does take a village to advocate for change.
And one last thing about the harms that appear in the system. And this is a quote from MLK and it's also on one of NAD's T-shirts. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." And that still holds true. Thank you.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. I also think about the oft cited phrase in our communities that liberation is a collective process and we do not get free until we are all free.
So last up, but again, not least, I promise, Gabe, would you share?
GABE CAZARES: You know, I've got to be honest. This question was difficult for me to sit with. And I'll tell you why. This has been a very challenging year for me mental health wise. As some of you are on the call who know me well know, I am a very sociable person. I am very shy and quiet. No, just kidding. I am no. I'm a very sociable person. So isolation has been very difficult for me. Having to deal with that in the same vein as trying to keep disabled people alive, fed, housed, with access to healthcare, transportation, in a city that is 671 square miles has been challenging.
Luckily because of the work, because of the time spent trying to lift up disabled folks who look like all of us who are on this panel, I have made very good friends in the National Federation of the Blind and across the disability community, a group of friends where there is no agenda, there is no what can I get out of you while I'm on the phone with you, friends that can see me completely undone and be nurturing and loving. And that group has been really important to me in my self-care during this year of COVID.
I get a lot of my support with surrounding myself with people who are affirming, and I have really leaned on that community. We, as advocates and activists, worry so much about building communities for people who don't look like us, and excuse me, I'm getting a little emotional because I'm thinking about my friend Rachel Alavero, a director of organizational technology at the National Federation of the Blind who many of us knew and really cared about, who was that for many of us and passed away in 2019, that experience taught me that it's also important for us to prioritize ourselves and build those networks of support and care for ourselves. Because if we're not healing, if we're not nourishing our body, our mind, and our spirit, then we cannot be equipped with the energy that is necessary to do this work.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. Thank you so much for all of you for sharing. I want to lift up a comment that came in the chat from Katharine who mentioned this their organization had HR explain that witnessing the Capitol insurrection was very difficult to witness as an immigration rights organization and told everybody to take the rest of the day off and take the time that they needed on Thursday morning.
I want to also offer that for many of us who are joining right now, as Gabe and Sharon and Zainab have all shared in different ways, we are all dealing with crisis, with violence, with oppression. This is real life and real world for us every day. And even just being here and being part of this conversation can feel surreal in some ways because I spent a lot of last week in kind of a dissociative haze after the very widely publicized attack targeting east Asian women who were or were believed to be sex workers. And as I often witness violence against people who are like me, who share my identities or experiences, or learn about the violence happening in my friends' lives, in the lives of people that I know, as so many of us often serve as one-person crisis support for whole communities, it can be hard to be in a space where just having a conversation about real issues, about things that each of us have been affected by, but where we're still having to show up and do work in ways that are not always sustainable and that are not always compassionate to and making space for ourselves and for each other.
So I wanted to open the space to any questions that folks who had them, but I also want to open the space to each of you too to take another moment of pause, of breathing, of grounding ourselves. Are we holding ourselves with care this week? This month? This year?
If you are in a position of supervisory authority, of policy setting in your firm or your organization, are you creating the space for the people who work there to be able to be held and witnessed with care, with compassion? What kind of environments are we creating for the disabled people especially from multiple marginalized communities who come in to this work wanting to change the world, or at least a few people's lives, for the better?
And I just carry with me the knowledge that we're here gathered as practitioners and professional workers within the disability rights legal world, and I could cite off the top of my head dozens and dozens of stories from my friends, my colleagues, and my partner of employment discrimination, of hostile work environments, of ableism, anti-trans oppression, misogyny, of classism happening in dozens and dozens of other organizations and firms. And that just saddens me, because we of all people, not just should know better, but should be committed to doing the work, to create environments, structures, conditions, and to build the infrastructure and resources necessary to be able to support our most marginalized community members. We of all people need to be committed to doing that work.
When we talk about what disability justice and intersectionality mean for ourselves, for each other, and the work that we do, we are talking about the demands that our movement makes politically. We are talking about the ways in which we structure our work, how we advocate for and argue our cases and our theories, and we are also talking about how we build our organizations and our relationships to one another, to ourselves.
We're talking about the ways in which we enable and support people showing up as their whole selves as work, and ways in which we enable our community members to feel supported, meaningfully, genuinely, by those who hold more power and more privilege.
I don't want it to be the case that year after year we keep talking about the things that our organizations refuse to do anything about, known abusive bosses, known abusive centers, known abusive practices, the things that we don't change, why the same white people are always in the same positions of power, and disabled young people of color are never invited into those same rooms, into those same spaces. Every year around tenBroek, I get a string of text messages from other young disabled people, especially young disabled people of color, who are upset, devastated, angry and frustrated that yet again the programming has been taken over by white fragility, by centering of white feelings, and by the continued leadership and deliberate obtuseness of white people. Every year! I want us to be in a place where in the years to come, that's not our reality anymore. In the years to come, our organizations are constantly working to do their best, to take accountability when we've done wrong or been complicit in doing wrong, to do our best to create conditions that shift the power structures so those who have always been disempowered and disenfranchised are no longer. I know how hard that is. Literally this month I have been engaged in what has become a public accountability process around the publication of race anthology that most of you know I've worked on for many years. We learned we had actually published a couple of white people in the anthology and at least one piece that included racist comments in it about a number of different communities of color. And we made the incredibly difficult heart-breaking decision to pull publication of the anthology, to let everybody are know what we were doing, and to take very concrete time line steps about what we're planning to do to address the harm that we already caused with the publication of the first edition and to prevent that harm from taking place again as we move toward plans for publishing a second revise edition instead. This was fucking hard. I braced myself before we released the public statement for being potentially attacked, screamed at, belittled, for receiving hate and vitriol for any number of reasons, not just for people who would be legitimately upset and hurt, but for people who might use that as an excuse to be horrible to me and perhaps others involved in the project. But we did it anyway. And we did it publicly because we knew that that was the right thing to do. No matter how hard, no matter how anxiety producing. No matter how saddening it was. We knew that we were moving in a direction that we never would have anticipated when we first launched that project.
So I wonder what it would look like if all of us could commit to taking accountability in the ways that are appropriate and responsive to the harm that we've caused when we find that we've caused harm. It doesn't mean it always has to be public. Sometimes it does. In this case, our accountability process has become public because the publication was by definition public.
In other cases it may be conversations. It may be behind closed doors. It may be in the context of individual and interpersonal relationships. But I want to know what it looks like for us as a whole community to be willing and able to take meaningful accountability, not empty words or platitudes or gestures or performative statements but meaningful real accountability when we realize that we've caused or been complicit in harm so that we can move toward future work, in which we've reduced our capacity to harm, minimized our capacity to harm, and we are doing our best to move our world toward justice.
My work is very informed by the Jewish value of tikkun olam, which means to repair the world. Our work is to repair the world, the world that is profoundly ableist, racist, and violent. Our work is to do what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exhorted us to do when he said the moral arc of the universe is long but bends towards justice. How can we be the ones to bend towards justice?
And I know that we just got a question in the chat box right as we were wrapping up. And that question came from Ken, who mentioned that when they have law clerk or externship positions open, they often get applications from students with disabilities who are rarely people of color. And they're wondering what our thoughts are on that. I don't think we have a lot of time to respond, but, Gabe, Zainab, or Sharon, would any of you like to offer some thoughts in response to that comment?
GABE CAZARES: Go ahead, Zainab.
ZAINAB ALKEBSI: Okay. This is Zainab sharing. It's I great point, Ken, and I agree with you very much. I think the issue goes back to really before people are getting to the point where they are applying to law school. Right? We need to think about the pipeline that gets us to that moment in time. So access to education. Giving disabled people of color opportunities. Who are we doing our outreach to? Who are we supporting and encouraging on that journey? Obviously it's a big issue but it's really about the pipeline prior to law school and the pipeline to clerkship opportunities and even then to careers beyond that.
Even when you're in law school, as was said already, there are few disabled people of color. And you can feel very isolated. I remember my own experience. I was the only Deaf student in law school. Not only the Deaf student, certainly the only Deaf student of color.
And when I graduated law school, the kinds of opportunity that's are offered to disabled people of color can be limited. So again, it's a pipeline issue. It's a much broader systemic issue, and we need to start thinking about earlier in the system and how we can advocate for change.
So we can give individuals opportunities, but that doesn't really combat the systemic issues that we really need to change. Thank you.
SHARON daVANPORT: And I just wanted to add something that I touched on a little bit earlier, is that it's also the targeted approach that we take. It is true that you have to do the way Zainab said, because you have to start where the issues really lie, right, because it's that ongoing effect that happens. And then you find yourself with just mostly white applicants. But you have to target your efforts as well. You have to go beyond just sending out a general application for people to see and maybe send it specifically to organizations and people that you know who might be able to pass these applications on to marginalized people and people of color. So I think it's the way you target your efforts that can make a huge difference as well.
LYDIA BROWN: And Gabe, you had a comment as well?
GABE CAZARES: No. Sharon got it. Thank you.
LYDIA BROWN: This is Lydia. Thank you all again for joining us. I hope that this time has been useful and informative for each of you. I will ask if you feel comfortable with doing so, before you leave, to share a head, heart, and body in the chat. I will type what that is. Head is something you've learned. Heart is something you're feeling. And body, which a lot of people use this as people say head, heart, foot, but I say head, heart, body to be a little more inclusive of different ways of moving. Body is an action you plan on taking from what you've learned.
Gist typed that in the chat for you all. Head is something you've learned. Heart, something you're feeling. Body, an action you plan on taking from what you've learned.
Thank you again to Silvia for introducing us, for Zainab for Sharon and Gabe for sharing your wisdom and your offerings on this panel. And thank you to the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium committee for inviting all of us to be present today.
LOU ANN BLAKE: Thank you very much, Lydia, Zainab, Gabe, and Sharon for this really thought-provoking panel. I think it really lived up to its billing. So we really appreciate you taking the time out from your busy days to join us and to share your thoughts on this really important topic.
Thank you all, to everybody who joined us today. We'll be starting back up again tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern with workshops. So please consult your agenda for the topics that are being offered tomorrow morning. And there will be links to join the Zoom room for each of those workshops in the agenda. And have a good evening.