{"id":472614,"date":"2020-07-19T21:34:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T04:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=472614"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:19:23","slug":"the-future-liberation-of-disability-movements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/07\/19\/the-future-liberation-of-disability-movements\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future Liberation of Disability Movements"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Future Liberation of Disability Movements<\/b><\/h4>\n

Valerie Novack<\/b><\/p>\n

Plain language summary<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/disability_visibility\/content.blubrry.com\/disability_visibility\/Valerie_Novack-The_Future_Liberation_of_Disability_Movements.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

The room is full of young nursing students eager to learn more about disability. I have sat through this presentation before. The one where the speaker tells the audience about how the <\/span>504 Sit-Ins<\/span><\/a> were their communities\u2019 March on Washington, how prisons are the new asylums, how community integration is necessary for freedom. It isn\u2019t always the same speaker, but it is always the same message. That the fight for disability rights is the <\/span>new <\/span><\/i>civil rights. Like the \u2018old\u2019 one that my Black and Brown parents and grandparents fought for was won and left behind. The analogy is made like we don\u2019t still march, now we say \u2018hands up, don\u2019t shoot\u2019 and we are in both prisons <\/span>and <\/span><\/i>asylums, both still full of Black and Brown bodies, and I have still been refused service in the middle of some of our most progressive urban spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first found the disability community, I called it home. I had found this wonderful world I didn\u2019t know about, that told me it was okay that my bodymind functioned outside of the norm. That my queerness, sadness, confusion, and fragility were part of what made me who I am, and that it was okay to be proud of that. I didn\u2019t need to pray it away, it wasn\u2019t a reason to be ashamed. That provided an intoxicating freedom to be proud of who I was. I didn\u2019t expect that over time, they\u2019d also say that my fight as a Black disabled person was secondary, that it was somehow separate from my fight as a Black woman. That my Blackness, my Latina side, somehow didn\u2019t factor into my fight as a disabled person.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It came as a surprise but shouldn\u2019t have. I remember my first time reading Audre Lorde, and the arguments that followed with fellow disability studies undergrads on whether or not the autobiography, <\/span>My Name is Zami<\/span><\/i><\/a> was a story about disability. I debated with my (largely white) peers whether or not Audre was writing explicitly about her disability, she was Black and she was disabled, therefore any biography is a disability narrative. I tried to explain that neither Blackness nor disability can be removed from my experience. I am not either\/or, and people don\u2019t notice one or the other, but both aspects of who I am. It didn\u2019t seem to land. Still I didn\u2019t realize until several years later, after being fully immersed in the disability rights world, that while many advocated for identity first language, and claimed their disability central to all they did, somehow my Blackness couldn\u2019t be similarly central. That somehow I could be a Disabled Person or a Black Person but only one needed to take precedent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This became more evident as my career in disability advocacy began to take shape and I realized that my disabled peers weren\u2019t fighting for <\/span>my <\/span><\/i>inclusion, <\/span>my <\/span><\/i>access, <\/span>my <\/span><\/i>liberation. My peers were fighting to be part of the status quo, to be part of the norm. To have access to all the privilege they felt denied as white disabled people. Largely, they didn\u2019t want to fight for something new, better, and just, they wanted to fight for access to the systems we have and know were built on the bodies of our ancestors and that these systems thrive on continued oppression of BIPOC people (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). I learned that the disability rights movement wasn\u2019t a push for equity, but for equality in the hierarchy of structures offered to other people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overtime, I began to feel like this community I thought of as home, only wanted to co-opt my anger and passion and fight to prop up white supremacy within the disability community. This community wasn’t a place for healing, it was just another version of the same world I once found solace from.<\/span><\/p>\n

I watch as we cry, \u2018free our people\u2019 but we mean nursing homes and institutions, and don\u2019t touch the prisons where Black and Brown people are housed. We demand an end to sub-minimum wage but remain silent on prison slavery. We protest ABA (applied behavioral analysis) and <\/span>shock therapy<\/span><\/a> but are quiet on issues of conversion therapy. We demand community services and supports but can\u2019t be found on discussions of <\/span>public charge rules for immigrants<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 We want access to nondiscriminatory healthcare, but don\u2019t fight for Black mothers and neighborhoods of color with no healthcare at all. We fight for medication access but don\u2019t fight the war on drugs. Disability Rights does not fight for liberation of all, it fights for some, and despite my dedication to it, I\u2019ve learned I am not included in that group. By liberation, I mean the freedom\u2014<\/em><\/span>no, the <\/span>encouragement <\/span><\/i>to exist. To be wholly, and authentically me in a society in which that is safe and valued.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can imagine my peers reading this, shifting in their seats, ready to object, because I\u2019ve heard it before. But we can\u2019t get better if we can\u2019t be honest about where we fall short.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this, I do see a future of liberation with our disability movement spaces. 2020 has been a year of taking hold of the interdependence of Ed Roberts and the cross movement solidarity of <\/span>Bradley Lomax<\/span><\/a>. Of applying lessons taught by BIPOC and queer disabled people via efforts like <\/span>Sins Invalid<\/span><\/a>. There is potential to grasp that freeing our people cannot happen without <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>of our people. Now is time that has shown clearly why we need to make a shift from rights to justice, not just in the language we use, or the images we share, but in the fight we partake in by existing. This is time to center BIPOC, to uplift trans disabled people, to listen to our siblings in the intellectual and developmental disability communities, and to protect those with chemical and electro-sensitivities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 30th year of the ADA, I hope my community can reimagine a future that is nothing about me, without my people. That honors the BIPOC and other disabled people that have long stood beside white peers, cis peers, more easily accommodated or understood peers, fighting for rights that would be denied them. Even and especially when those are different than what is expected. Particularly when they are hard and uncomfortable. That the disability community would become the home I once thought it was.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABOUT<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"Biracial
Biracial woman with curly black hair is smiling for the camera. She has black-rimmed glasses and is wearing a blue, flowered romper. She is seated in a coffee shop, backs of patrons visible behind her.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Valerie Novack<\/strong> (she\/her) is a Black and Latina disability policy researcher focusing on inclusive infrastructure and emergency management practices. She focuses on integrating the expertise of lived experience and grassroots efforts of marginalized peoples into policymaking at the local, state, and federal levels. Valerie was a 2019 Portlight Fellow focusing on legislative solutions to inaccessible emergency response practices in the United States. Currently Valerie teaches a college course on disability policy and justice and works as a disability policy fellow. Novack has a bachelor\u2019s degree in disability studies and urban planning from the University of Toledo and a master\u2019s degree in disaster preparedness and emergency management from Arkansas State University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Valerie is a proud, queer and MAD woman who loves to travel, make music, and spend time with her husband, Chase, and her dog, Mac.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read all 13 essays from the #ADA3oInColor series<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Support Disability Media and Culture<\/b><\/p>\n

DONATE<\/b><\/a>\u00a0to the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Future Liberation of Disability Movements Valerie Novack Plain language summary https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/disability_visibility\/content.blubrry.com\/disability_visibility\/Valerie_Novack-The_Future_Liberation_of_Disability_Movements.mp3<\/a> The room is full of young nursing students eager to learn more about disability. I have sat through … Continue Reading The Future Liberation of Disability Movements<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":472668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6701202],"tags":[66130,587152916,587152770,587152415,184861754,10941,478682789,10372239,2185238,125414435,587152854,73809,11798,194292,13443,2282,587152882],"class_list":["post-472614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-blog-posts","tag-ada","tag-ada-30-in-color","tag-afro-latinx-disabled-people","tag-black-disability-history","tag-black-lives-matter","tag-civil-rights","tag-cross-movement-building","tag-disability-community","tag-disability-history","tag-disabled-people-of-color","tag-futures","tag-liberation","tag-race","tag-racial-justice","tag-racism","tag-social-justice","tag-white-supremacy","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Valerie-Novak-copy.jpg?fit=690%2C526&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1YWO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}