The Adjustable Table: International Disability Justice Transcripts

The Adjustable Table, Episode Four: International Disability Justice. Sponsored by Wells Fargo.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Hello everyone and welcome to The Adjustable Table, a four-part video series created to raise awareness and conduct conversations around disability rights and disability justice. My name is Ashley Inkumsah and I’ll be helping to moderate today’s discussion alongside my wonderful colleague here at The World Institute on Disability, Moya Shpuntoff. And in our work here at The World Institute on Disability, we hope to bring the real experiences of people with disabilities into conversations about what is necessary for people with disabilities on a global scale to truly be supported, included and celebrated. And on today’s episode, which is the last in our four-part series, we’re discussing international disability justice with an esteemed group of panelists who each have an expertise in international disability justice. And special guest, the amazing Mia Mingus.

Moya Shpuntoff:
Mia Mingus is a writer, educator and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice. She is a queer physically disabled Korean transracial and transnational adoptee raised in the Caribbean. Mia founded and currently leads SOIL: A Transformative Justice Project, which builds the conditions for transformative justice to grow and thrive.
Marcie Roth is The World Institute on Disability’s executive director and CEO. Marcie was recently named by Forbes Magazine to their inaugural 50 over 50 impact list and by Women’s eNews as one of their 21 leaders for the 21st century. Marcie has served in executive leadership roles for disability advocacy and public policy organizations since 1995, leading coalitions committed to intersectional disability inclusion. During Marcie’s appointment in the Obama administration, she represented the US in the development of global disaster risk reduction with the UN.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Angeline Akai-Lodi is a Kenyan disability rights advocate who participated in our community solutions program fellowship here at The World Institute on Disability. She is also a chairperson over at the Access Network of the Blind in Kenya. Due to technical issues, Angeline will be joining us with her camera turned off today.

Moya Shpuntoff:
And lastly, we have Susan Sygall, who is a disability rights activist and civil rights leader. She is the CEO of Mobility International USA, MIUSA, which advances disability rights and leadership globally, which she co-founded in 1981. Susan has received numerous awards and distinctions and recognition of her work, including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. We’re so excited to have all of you today.

Ashley Inkumsah:
So excited. Thank you for that awesome introduction, Moya. Now, being the World Institute on Disability, we feel that it’s our responsibility to approach the experiences of people with disabilities on an international scale using the disability justice framework. And on today’s episode, we’re excited to have a robust discourse with our panelists about why international disability justice is so important. And in many countries we know that being multiply marginalized, i.e., being a woman who’s also disabled, often means that you’re treated as a pariah and unable to participate in society.
On an episode of WID’s podcast, Angeline and I discussed how women and girls with disabilities are often shunned and unable to leave their homes and disproportionately experience abuse. And other guests have shared similar sentiments on how disabled women and girls, LGBTQIA+, and Black and brown people are so poorly treated in their respective countries on WID’s podcast. Why do you all think that it’s so important that we prioritize disability justice through an international lens? And we can start with Susan.

Susan Sygall:
Yes. Well, thank you so much for that question. We have been working with disabled women for over 40 years and what we are doing is to try to realize that the only people who are going to make the change this situation is disabled women and girls ourselves. And so to do that, we’ve been doing this training program, the Women’s Institute on Leadership and Disability, so the disabled women and girls grow up feeling that they’re loud, proud, and passionate. And so again, we know that disabled women and girls are so doubly discriminated, but the change has to come from disabled women and girls. So we as a disability justice movement have to work to do everything to give disabled women and girls in those countries the power, the resources, the strategies, and the camaraderie and support, so we as disabled women throughout the world can make the change that needs to happen because nobody else is going to do it for us. I’m so passionate about this topic, so thank you for leading off with this.

Angeline Akai-Lodi:
It is very important that we prioritize disability in an international justice lens. For one, persons with disabilities, I always say they live within the community and not in a separate community of persons with disabilities, so we live within the community. So even as we discuss issues or talk about international justice, we have to put issues of persons with disabilities at the center and not in the margins because we have a lot of conventions and treaties that really talk about people’s rights. But again, when persons with disabilities’ rights are left in only one convention, that is the UNCRPD, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So I feel that it is very important to bring the conversation in international justice level because persons with disabilities will be able to be part of the international community in all aspects, be it in all the treaties that they bring on board in all policies. Persons with disabilities will be not left behind and left within the one convention but will be included in all other aspects in the international arena.
I feel for me this is a great platform and international disability justice is a broad topic even for persons with disabilities to access to justice for example is something that really we can have conversations around because there are a lot of barriers that persons with disabilities face in accessing justice. Even for example in the police sector, I can give an example in Kenya where women and girls with disabilities face multiple violation of their rights and for them accessing justice is a problem. And I think also with this is not only Kenya, the country that I come from, and it’s many countries that have ratified this UN convention and the barriers in access to justice for persons with disabilities is really something that should really be looked at, not just at the policies or convention ways but also in the implementation. And for them being seen to access the justice they deserve on an equal basis with others.

Marcie Roth:
This is such an important piece of this discussion and my experience over many years and even very current as I watch women and girls and other multiply marginalized disabled people continually excluded. And despite all of our hard work over many, many years, the imperative that we move towards a disability justice commitment is one that will be a movement led by the people who are most disproportionately left behind.
In particular, earlier today I met with disability leaders and humanitarian actors dealing with a horrific flooding situation in Pakistan. And for women and girls with disabilities in Pakistan, in this incredibly difficult and prolonged climate-driven crisis, these disabled women and girls are being left behind. And this is a piece of the global crisis that disability leaders and disability-led organizations must drive towards a much more just approach. And so I will leave it at that for now because I’m excited to get into this conversation further.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Yeah, I think it’s so important to consider these things through a global lens and just recognizing the global impact of ableism in general. And Mia, I know you have some thoughts around this as well, so I’d love to hear what you think.

Mia Mingus:
Yes, definitely. I think so I think a couple of things. One, I think it’s so important because we can connect different struggles together, which I think could be incredible and also could provide so much rich solidarity work. But also as you said, Ashley, it allows us to see the global impact of ableism and abled supremacy and how deep it goes and that it’s not just a single country’s problem or a single people’s problem, that it actually permeates the entire world. I also think though that if we can connect these struggles, then we can support each other and help to embolden each other that maybe certain countries can inspire other folks, or certain cities inspire other folks, to push harder or to fight for more, ask for more and demand for more. I also think that part of it is that it will help us as well illuminate who is consistently on the bottom and who consistently gets the short end of the stick even within the disability community.
And that is not only disabled people like different types of disabilities, but also Black, Indigenous, people of color who are disabled, etc., etc. So many different communities. And the last thing I’ll say is that I think as well, one of the reasons why it’s so important on an international level to build disability justice is that it also allows us to not be so US centric. And it allows us to hopefully understand that disability justice will look different in different places. And I want to preface this with a caveat by saying, I also hope that we don’t fall into the same trap that feminism has, for example, in terms of trying to force our views of how we understand what feminism should be, largely driven by white feminism, let’s be real, onto other countries of how they should be fighting, what they should be fighting for. So I think the power of an international disability justice movement is that disabled people, where they live and in their own communities, can get to dictate what justice would look like, what freedom and liberation would look like for them.

Susan Sygall:
And actually, this is Susan again, one of the things that I’m seeing amongst disabled women leaders around the world is historically blind women have been separated from deaf women, from people with physical disabilities. And I think this cross-disability idea that disabled women and girls and others who identify in different ways are realizing that the power is going to be in all of us joining together even within our own movement, because historically that hasn’t happened. And I think that’s a positive sign, at least that I’m saying that that connection, which is so important, is happening, beginning to happen as it should because you’re right, the solidarity has to be from other movements but also within our own movement.

Marcie Roth:
Well, and I am convinced that what we know to be the root to transformation is if we do a good job of leading this transformation as people with disabilities, as women with disabilities, we are going to strengthen the whole community. This is not some sort of sidebar, make things better for disabled people. This is transforming communities everywhere and replacing what absolutely has failed with a true community justice for all.

Mia Mingus:
And I also think too that it’s so timely because climate change is something that doesn’t respect any borders, it’s beyond that, and the entire planet has to figure out how to come together to fight this. And so I also think that given that and given how not only climate change is leaving so many disabled people behind, but creating so many more disabled people, that there is such an opportunity for an international disability justice so that we can support each other as we know more and more of these climate disasters will continue happening. And I’m including pandemics in that because scientists have said this is the beginning of an era of pandemics that we could see over and over again. And COVID is just the beginning, and we know that COVID is also creating so many more disabled people around the world as well. So I think it’s also very timely, relevant. As it always has been, but particularly now.

Moya Shpuntoff:
Yeah, I think too, what you said earlier about our movements tending to be really US centric is something that really hurt us with COVID because in terms of policy, in terms of vaccines, all of that was really, it was not done with care and concern for anyone at all to be honest, but especially anyone outside of the borders of the US. And so I think many international disability organizations, including the World Institute on Disability, are US based. So what would it look like for international disability organizations to achieve this vision of global disability justice?

Mia Mingus:
I think to me it would mean that we would have to completely reorganize the world and how we do things in our society, our society, I say that in a global sense, but each and every society that exists. And I think it’s also about, to me, I mean, one, global capitalism has to be contended with head on. If we really are serious about this, that is key. But I also think that when we’re talking about what it would look like to achieve disability justice globally, a key part of disability justice says is one, intersectionality. But beyond that, it’s saying, and in addition to that, that disability and ableism and abled supremacy exists and are bound up with all other systems of oppression and all other systems of violence. And so we have to work to dismantle them all. It can’t just be that we only focus on ableism or abled supremacy, we have to also look at white supremacy, Anti-black racism, anti-Asian racism.
We have to look at heterosexism, and homophobia, and transphobia, and the gender binary. We have to look at settler colonialism, etc., etc., etc. And I think that when we talk about disability justice, I think many people just only think about, “Oh, then we’ll have an intersectional analysis about disability.” But disability justice is beyond that, it is saying, “We want liberation and freedom and justice for disabled people and our communities.” And we have to acknowledge that not only are there disabled people who live at the intersection of multiple oppressed identities, but also what it would mean just for example, for my myself to be free and to have liberation. It’s not only about, “Yes, as a disabled person I need ableism and abled supremacy to end, but I also need Korean people to be free, I also need BIPOC people, Black, Indigenous, people of color to be free and to have liberation. I also need queer and trans folks to have that, survivors of different forms of violence and I could go down the line. So I think that that’s the beginning.

Marcie Roth:
This is Marcie speaking. And I think from my perspective, when you asked how do we move to a global and away from a US-centric movement? And in the disability global community, I think we’re all sort of grappling with how the folks who are most excluded, the folks who are furthest left behind, how do we find the space for their wisdom and their leadership? Obviously, there are lots of complexities. And yet, if we’re going to make that commitment, we’ve got to figure it out. I’m not quite sure what the answer is, but I know that the World Institute on Disability, our leadership, the work that we do, we’re listening very carefully and wanting to have a better perspective on how we do in fact put these words into action.

Susan Sygall:
Yeah. Well, this is Susan. And Mia, thank you for everything that you said. And I’m so right there with you and so glad to have you articulating those whole intersectionality out the world. And Marcie, I agree with you too, to be a little bit more right down there in the weeds right now, as of today we are, I think, one of the ways immediately is to give the power to the disabled women’s organization globally, to the disabled people’s organization globally. So with the systems that we have in place now, the funding is so big that sometimes even organizations like MIUSA and WID can’t go after them, but sometimes we can be a subcontract or go after some of them. But then our role that we are feeling is then we need to get that money and pass it on and get the partnerships with the DPOs in other countries with the disabled women’s organization in other countries, so that they can create their own strategies and have the money, the resources, and the power, and to start being in the whole world of change because those are the voices that haven’t been heard.
So I think eventually the building up, and we know, as I know Marcie knows and I know, we know where the disabled women leaders, the disabled leaders are in all these different countries. So let’s give them the resources, the power to really make the changes that they know they need to make. So I feel like it’s all out there and we need to shift the power and the resources at least to them immediately as we can. And then Mia, I think you put out a world that then has to also happen. So it’s like, I know we talk about the twin track, I feel like there’s all these tracks and we need to be all be working on them simultaneously to make the change we want to see in the world, so I’m getting revved up now.

Mia Mingus:
This is Mia speaking. And I also think just continuing on this track is that this is also another place where I feel like building solidarity movements is so incredibly key because again, disabled people aren’t only disabled. And so disability justice, that needs to happen of course. And Susan, having disability organizations be able to have the resources and the support, etc., to be able to fight for disability justice. And both, I think we also need to do the work of helping to infuse disability justice into many, many, many other movements because I think also part of what is, when we talk about disability globally and internationally, I think we also need to acknowledge that disability as a category looks wildly different across the globe. And that there is no one central, there are some threads that yes, everybody can agree that is disability, but then there’s a huge gray space in terms of body minds, how people function, what people have access to.
All of these cultural influences, religious influences, so many different things and conditions that really impact how people think about disability and who gets named as disabled, who gets to claim that they are disabled and what that means. And so I think part of this is expanding the definition of disability and that that is such a big part of why we need solidarity movements because there are so many disabled people who don’t understand themselves as being disabled or who for them that is not their first primary identity that they would necessarily go to bat for. And so we have to build in movements of solidarity because there might be a community that has a ton of disabled people, but they’re really identifying with their cultural or ethnic identity for example. And that is the organization, those are the organizations they’re looking to and that they’re receiving support from. So I think it’s a bold end to me and the parallel checks that you’re talking about, Susan, times like 80 not to complicate things more.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Absolutely. And I think often, especially within people of color communities, that you’re often pressured to choose between one identity or the other. And I think that is the root of a lot of the problems. And yeah, I think the framework of disability justice, specifically the principle of cross-movement solidarity, I think it’s so important that we don’t see all of our marginalized identities as separate and recognize how white supremacy, ableism, all of these things are the cause of all of our problems, so this is why we need to mobilize together so that we can achieve collective liberation. And I think it’s just so important to keep that in mind at all times when we are talking about eradicating these issues.

Angeline Akai-Lodi:
I think coming up with strong movements, movement building is very important because we have seen, for example, the World Institute on Disability doing a lot of great work in America. How can this same work be replicated all over the world in the globe? How can this work be replicated in other organizations of persons with disabilities just to ensure that the work that we achieve what we want and ensuring that persons with disabilities rights are really upheld and being included in all policy formulation, in the implementation, and ensuring that the capacity of persons with disabilities in these other countries are built. I feel the movement building is very important and working with other best-practice organization in other countries, it’s very important for us to work as a team of disability rights organizations that is geared towards ensuring that the rights of persons with disabilities are respected and upheld in all aspects.

Ashley Inkumsah:
I want to shift a little bit to talk about the UNCRPD and it asserts disability rights, but it’s often criticized for its lack of enforcement. Does it matter that the US has still yet to ratify it? And are we better or worse off? And either way, how do you think that we can bridge that gap?

Angeline Akai-Lodi:
For me, I think the UNCRPD has played a very big role, especially here in Africa, in ensuring that persons with disabilities are put at the center. In the past, persons with disabilities’ issues were as an afterthought, but in the coming of the CRPD, it has really brought countries and state parties to ensure that they implement or ensure that they put persons with disabilities at the center of all discussions, even though the implementation of the enforcement is quite a challenge. But I can say that we have made strides in ensuring that persons with disabilities are both at the center and not in the margins.
So for me, I don’t know if the US has policies in place and they have implemented the same or enforced the same policies and ensuring the persons with disabilities’ issues are also put in these policies and that the enforcement is there. If there are policies that really does the same or that respects the rights of person with disability, I have no problem if they don’t ratify it, but if they have gaps that they feel that the CRPD can come in handy and ensure that persons with disabilities are given the dignity they deserve, I support them ratifying the CRPD.

Susan Sygall:
Yeah, I would just say from the work that we are doing, hearing from the people with disabilities, especially women with disabilities, is the complaint has been, yes, the UNCRPD has been a great tool, but it has not been enforced and having heard this over so many years, so I think we do need to ensure that I think that people, in addition to working on the UNCRPD are thinking about what are the laws or other strategies where things actually get enforced, because at least for me, if something doesn’t have teeth, if it doesn’t have consequences, it isn’t enforced, it’s not going to change the everyday lives of people with disabilities. And so just having pieces of paper is not good enough.
And definitely, I understand and having spoken to Marcie and Mia’s comments about, yes, perhaps the US needs to pass the UNCRPD to be at the table in solidarity with all the other people with disabilities, but I do think, I’m hoping that people don’t put all their eggs, so to speak, in that basket. It’s one tool and whether it’s laws or strategies, but whatever’s working in other countries and other countries, that’s really enforced because I think we have waited too long for enforcement. So I’ll stop at that, I’m seeing a lot of nodding of heads, so I’m sure there’s lots of other comments. And Angeline, again, thank you for your comments.

Marcie Roth:
This is Marcie and I feel very strongly that the failure of the US and eight other countries to ratify the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, the CRPD, has been an absolute dismissal of the voices, the leadership, the input, the participation of disabled people who are most definitely being left behind in very important conversations. And I agree with you, Susan, wholeheartedly that the CRPD, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, has no teeth, we have a much bigger problem globally around enforcement. And I think I would love to continue that part of this discussion in a few minutes, but I think the damage that’s being done by excluding or failing to have everyone at the table who is a disabled stakeholder in this global conversation is extremely harmful.

Mia Mingus:
I mean, my thought is both of you, I feel like both are important. I think it’s another both. And I think that, I know it’s only symbolic, but I do think that joining and being able to sign off is an important symbol. And both and though if we’re not going to enforce policies and laws, then what is the point? They’re just performative and they don’t, like you said, Susan, they don’t actually change the material conditions of disabled people’s lives. But I will say though, in addition to that, that I think that what we need and the way we bridge that gap is to build movements, to organize, to build movements that can apply pressure to governments to not only sign on, but to the enforcement in particular, and that are able to push governments and those in power to do the things that could actually make a difference in disabled people’s everyday lives. And that also can help us in the symbolism.
I mean, when we were preparing for this, we talked about how I likened it to the Paris Accords. That yes, the fact that the US was not part of signing on to them in the beginning, that is important, that matters. And yes, it’s only symbolism. And yes, in this country in particular, we do a terrible job at anything to combat climate change. And so we need the enforcement too and both and, it matters though. And it also is such a huge symbol in and of itself when we don’t sign on because it indicates that we don’t care and that we are not aligned with the world on this climate change, like I said before, which is a global problem that we have to globally solve together. And I think it’s very similar with this.

Moya Shpuntoff:
Yeah, I think something with how we’ve been talking about the US centrism of a lot of international work in a lot of US-based organizations, I think this really points to that too, of this idea that what we already have is enough and better than what everybody else has, which is not only just not true, but it gets in the way of us actually being able to work in solidarity. And I think something else we talked about was that performative actions like signing this unenforceable agreement, they are very much how in the US we approach these problems. And we think that performance is enough when it hasn’t changed the material conditions.

Marcie Roth:
Angeline, this is Marcie. And I’m wondering as a country that has led in the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and I know you all still struggle with enforcement, but you’ve been such a strong leader, does it affect you that not every country has ratified it?

Angeline Akai-Lodi:
It does affect me to some extent. It does affect me because I keep on wondering how other countries, to some scale or to some percentage, I wonder how some countries are more inclusive, are inclusive of persons with disabilities, their policies, how they ensure, for example, persons with disabilities issues are being included in their policies. But again, I feel that maybe these countries have the same, their policies are tailored towards the persons or people’s rights as a whole and not really categorically thinking of only persons with disabilities, but all persons, just the people’s rights in general. So I’m left, I’m torn in between wondering, but at the same time hoping that they are doing something and ensuring that every right is upheld and equality is therefore in their policy implementations or policy formulations.

Moya Shpuntoff:
We know that the UN has already said disability legislation, only 45 countries have anti-discrimination and other disability-specific laws, which to me underscores how internationally we can’t rely on disability rights alone. How does the disability justice framework address this problem?

Mia Mingus:
So I think one of the ways that a disability justice framework addresses this problem is again, that I think from a disability perspective, we would never solely just rely on disability or solely fight for disability because again, the disability justice framework is intersectional. And that was how it was created from the very beginning, and as somebody who was there, that was one of the reasons why we created the disability justice framework because we wanted something that was more holistic, that was more intersectional, that really spoke to our full humanity so that we didn’t have to leave our gender, or our race, or etc., at the door and only be disabled people. And I think to me, this is part of the power of the disability justice framework in general, because justice frameworks, by their nature, they go much deeper than rights frameworks do.
And the whole point of justice frameworks is to get to the root of the problem. They are much more radical frameworks. And because of that, they are also they, and it’s long-term work. It’s not necessarily just show up one day to fight for this one campaign win or vote somebody into office or vote for this bill or this amendment. We’re saying, “Well, our goal is to end white supremacy or to end the patriarchy.” And that is going to take a long time. I think a piece of justice frameworks that is so important is that we are also saying, “Look, we don’t want to just expand the ranks of the privilege and the status quo and just add a couple more people in there.” And we know that whenever we work on rights-based work, oftentimes it’s the people who are already up towards the top anyways who end up benefiting and who end up getting added into that next level of privilege. We want to dismantle that whole thing and also question why some people are consistently always at the bottom. And again, why some people are always consistently at the top.
And I think given that we are talking about a more intersectional and holistic framework, we’re also saying that part of what we want is we want the leadership of the most impacted people to be the people who are leading the fight. And then lastly, I just want to say that part of the fundamental change that we want is we want to fundamentally change the society, we want to fundamentally change the world. And that might mean that we are doing things in a different way, that might mean that our priorities necessarily have to shift. And I think part of what disability, one of the biggest power or opportunities and one of the most powerful things that the disability justice framework offers us is to say that disabled people and our communities all need to be free in order for disability to not be treated as an oppressed group or as a second tier group with second class citizen rights.
That it’s not enough just to say, “Oh, well now we have this extra bill or this extra law that’s going to help disabled people,” but if you’re a disabled person living in poverty and the same status quo exists for around capitalism and class and socioeconomic status, how is that necessarily helping you if you are still not receiving the kind of support that you need because you are somebody who is poor or because you’re somebody who is Black, Indigenous or a person of color, for example? And so we have to look at these problems in a much more holistic way.

Susan Sygall:
Mia, thank you so much. This is Susan. I agree with you. And I think that the challenge is if there were anti-discrimination laws in every countries, why wouldn’t they of course include people with disabilities? And yet there always seems to be a need to make other laws that are specific to people with disabilities, so I think this idea of transformative justice is we’re not there obviously yet. So the question is in the meantime, again, how do we have these layers of parallel tracks that we’re working on? And so while we work for that, as we would say, creating a world as it should be, which it is not, why is it so difficult that some of the other movements like the women’s movements are not embracing the disability movement in the way that you would think, like why are they not seeing the intersectionality?
Because what we’re hearing is there’s still so much fight sometimes just to get with those movements, to see disability as part, even when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s so difficult to have disability sometimes included. So Mia, I agree with you and I appreciate your words and Angeline and Marcie and I think the question we probably can’t answer in the next few minutes is then what’s the work that we need to do immediately to get this to be actualized? Because that’s the world that I’m in. What do I do today to make that change?

Angeline Akai-Lodi:
What we need to do really is to ensure that we, as persons with disability rights, let’s say advocates, we really need to ensure that we get into the discussions, we get to the policy makers, we are at the forefront. Because most of the times, like for example, the women organization, women-led organizations, and the disability persons’ organization, I’ll just give an example. Women with disabilities are left in the margins in the fact that we are women first, for example. And we have a disability, we are left at the margins because disability persons’ organization feel that we are women and we go to the mainstream women, we are told, “No, you should go to the disability persons’ organization. That’s where your issues are handled.” So accessing justice and just championing for the rights of these women, we have to infiltrate, we have to get into these women-led organizations and go work, be with them hand in hand.
We go to the men’s movement for example, and get inside there, infiltrate and ensure that our issues are, we are part of the discussions around disability within the mainstream organizations just to ensure that we are not just living a life of, we are sort of segregated, put in one basket of disability, but instead we are left, we are within the community because honestly speaking, we live within the community, so there’s no need of us being isolated as persons with disabilities and accessing say justice or other relevant support. We need to be part of the community because we’re part of the community. So we really need to get in there and our disability should come after and we should be treated with dignity just like any other person. So I think disability rights advocate should not just talk about us being included, but we should just get in there and ensure that our issues are therefore within the mainstream movements.

Marcie Roth:
I’ve spent my whole life focusing on disability rights. That’s been my life’s work. And it was only thanks to the leadership of people like Mia and other BIPO disability leaders who helped me to start to shift my thinking that a disability rights agenda is one that means we are fighting for what everybody else has and it’s somebody else’s responsibility to enforce our right to have what everybody else has. And hard as we’ve worked over a very, very long time, we’re still focusing on that failure of enforcement. And so it’s become very obvious that while we don’t want to give up our rights, we certainly don’t want to back away from what we’ve achieved, but we need to shift from just focusing on a rights-based approach to one that is truly transformational and that totally shifts away from a legal framework to one that dismantles the way business happens in every community in the world, to one in which there is true fairness, true equity, that everyone has what they need and not simply the opportunity if somebody grants them the rights that they have on the books.

Mia Mingus:
Yeah. And I love, Susan, what you’re saying. And I just want to continue on that path because I think, and with what Angeline offered as well, that so much of what… So first of all, fighting for other movements helps to uplift disabled people. I’m like a broken record, I’ll say it forever. Fighting for the rights of women of color or women as a whole helps all the women of all the different identities in different ways, obviously, but I think that part of what we’re talking about to me, I mean again, it’s solidarity, but solidarity really boils down to relationship and how do we build relationships, and how do we show up for other communities and other movements and other justice fights that maybe we don’t have a deep stake in, that won’t impact us as much, but we know that their justice and their oppression is bound up with ours and that their liberation is bound up with our liberation. And so that is key.
And I think sometimes we can get so singular focused that we forget that, I mean, in this country, for example, most recently showing up for protests against police violence and police brutality of murder like with the summer of 2020 with the murder of George Floyd. That is an everyone issue, because the rates of disabled people and the violence that they experience at the hands of police, the rates of mass incarceration, I mean, we could go on and on and on, that that is a disability issue as well, even though it’s not always thought of as that. And I think there’s so many struggles and fights that are like that, that are absolutely disability justice work and disability justice issues and disability issues, but we don’t think about them like that. And so I think part of this to me is how do we as disabled people start building those deep relationships?
And that might mean showing up for fights, or for campaigns, or for other communities maybe for a long time before you even get to the place where you can start to have those conversations because you have to build trust. And not for nothing. I mean, the disability rights movement has done a ton of helpful things, but also it was also very heavily white-dominated and that many BIPOC disabled people did not see themselves reflected, or the BIPOC disabled people that were part of it, were never given the power, decision making power, were never put in positions of power. And so there’s a lot of trust to be built and a lot of repair work that has to happen as well. And so I just wanted to say that I think we have to show up externally for other communities and internally inside of the disability community, and the disability political community in particular.
We have to have conversations about white supremacy, we have to have conversations about homophobia, and heterosexism, and how it shows up inside of disabled communities and how we are excluding oftentimes or not supporting disabled folks who sit at the intersection of multiple oppressed identities. So I think both of those things are key when we talk about how are we actually going to get more anti-discrimination policies, or what have you, passed, or how are we actually going to address disability oppression and discrimination? We have to build mass movement. And the way that we can do that, I feel like is to also build cross-movement with other folks who are doing the same thing.

Moya Shpuntoff:
Absolutely. I think especially when we’re talking about the ways that oppression intersects, and specifically with disability, wherever there’s oppression, there is violence and disability is often what happens from that violence. Like if your city is bombed, you very well might come away from that because if you survive it with a disability. And so when we look at how do we get to that intersection and really support at that place where people are surviving so much violence in so many different directions, I think that has to become a key part of what we think about when we think about being in solidarity with disabled people on a larger scale.

Ashley Inkumsah:
And I would also add to that, and I don’t know if this is too radical to say, but a lot of that violence is sanctioned by the State, which is the very reason why we can’t rely on the State and the laws that they create to protect us because it’s just not going to happen, it’s not in their best interest. So yeah, I think the disability justice framework is what we need to have that liberation that we so desperately need within our community.

Mia Mingus:
And on that same tip, Ashley, Moya and Ashley, everything you’re saying, I’m like, “Absolutely.” Because anytime we have a conversation about violence, I’m like, “How can you talk about violence without talking about disability? I don’t understand it.” Yet it happens all the time. But also we need to move beyond the State too, we need to stop letting our radical imaginations be so limited by what exists now. And understand that. I mean, again, if we’re talking about intersectionality, then a community that’s included in that I would hope would be First Nations and Indigenous peoples. And that would mean that we would have to have an analysis around colonization and settler colonialism. We would have to. And given that, we would have to also then from that question, the Nation State and the State at large, and governments at large, and why is that always only seen as the only route towards freedom and liberation, changing laws, going through the courts? When oftentimes those entities, oftentimes they are actively harming so many oppressed communities and disabled communities included in that.
And that those communities are like, We don’t need better laws and policies. We actually need protection from the government. We don’t look to the government as an entity that’s going to,” like you said, Ashley, “Have our best interests at heart.” And so how do we also look beyond the State? And also I think internationally as well, look at all the work that’s happening that’s not necessarily in a 501(c)(3) or in a proper organization, look at collective care work, look at mutual aid work, look at the ways that people are caring for each other across difference as well. And I think there’s tons that we can learn from that and there’s ways that we can also support all of that work, that all of our resources don’t only have to go towards changing policy and paying for a bigger nonprofit. They can also go directly to people and individuals in community who are actively taking care of their community and building community, practicing care work, etc.
But thank you so much for having me, it was so great to be with all of you all. Angeline, Susan, Marcie, Ashley, Moya, it was so great to meet you all virtually. And also I loved hearing everything that you all had to say. Thank you again for having me.

Susan Sygall:
Yeah, I just really want to just appreciate and thank and just have a lot of gratitude of just being on this podcast, hopefully to share some views, but much more importantly to learn. And Mia, it’s just been a real honor to meet you and thank you for all you said. And Angeline, I hope that our paths cross again. And Marcie, as always, thank you for all the work. So just thank you to Moya and to Ashley, and I’m looking forward. Hopefully, there’ll be more conversations. So thank you.

Moya Shpuntoff:
Thank you so much to our panelists and to you all at home for joining us for today’s episode of The Adjustable Table. You can find links for all of our previous episodes in the description box below. Each video has a link to the transcript as well. It has been a pleasure to have these incredible thought-provoking conversations throughout this whole series. And for more conversations like this, you can check out our What’s Up WID podcast at www.wid.org/whats-up-wid.

Ashley Inkumsah:
Thank you to panelists, Marcie Roth, Susan Sygall, Angeline Akai-Lodi, and Mia Mungus. Moderators and producers, Ashley Inkumsah and Moya Shpuntoff. Editing: Ashley Inkumsah. Special thanks to Carrie Griffin Basas, Carmen Daniels Jones, Deborah Dagit, Janni Lehrer-Stein, Karen Tamley, Kathy Martinez, Katherine Seelman, Megan Mauney, Megan Kennedy, Sarah Helm, Sarah Pashe, Sevana Massih, Susan Mazrui, Tali Bray, Michelle Lantini, and Reggie Johnson. And thank you to Wells Fargo for your generous support of the series and your longstanding partnership with WID.