Category Archives: disability

disability, public speaking, Women's Rights

Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March

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I spoke at the 2020 Sacramento Women’s March about disability justice.

Below is video (by Denice Ristau) and the transcript.

Disability Justice

Transcript:

Is there power in standing up?

That was a trick question.

Is there power in sitting down?

I’m disabled whether I’m standing or sitting. And I’m powerful both ways!

So, let’s change this phrasing: is there power in showing up?

Let me tell you about Rosa.

Rosa May Billinghurst would ram her wheelchair into police during protests in the early 1900s. She continued using her wheelchair to make a path for herself even after being violently thrown out of her chair intentionally damaged by police.

Rosa was called “the cripple suffragette.”

Rosa claimed her space and she made it known she would be counted as a disabled woman and nothing less.

So I’m here to tell you:

Continue reading Disability Justice: 2020 Sacramento Women’s March →

disability, poverty

The Privilege of Having Enough

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Black Friday, the day that foreshadows how the market will perform through the new year, was actually a dark day in history (in case you didn’t know) representing a large-scale financial crisis because of greedy Wall Street financers in the 1800s.

Gosh, sounds familiar.

Now we’ve reclaimed the meaning of that day, or rather, corporations have reclaimed it and turned it into a day of splurging and materialism. Cash flows from regular folks’ pockets into the wallets of billionaires and executives who source labor from the underemployed and materials from China. I mean, I am exaggerating a little.

A little.

Let’s Back Up a Bit

I used to spend the day after Thanksgiving going on hikes or long runs and enjoying how empty everything was that wasn’t a store. The outside world was my oyster for that quiet, quiet day.

I refused to utter the words “Black Friday” because I staunchly opposed what the day had come to mean: greed and a blatant disregard for the environmental destruction that comes with unfettered materialism.

Instead, I called it Buy Nothing Day along with millions of other environmentalists who human-cott the spending spree that is Black Friday.

On Buy Nothing Day, I distanced myself from over-stressed employees and screaming throngs of people breaking down doors, running people over, and fighting over highly discounted flat-screen televisions. I was horrified by this violence that resulted in mountains of plastic, cardboard, and Styrofoam and; inevitably, piles of broken electronics and discarded toys after mere months of use.

To me, Black Friday represented the worst humanity has to offer – a piling up of vices so-to-speak – and I stayed as far away as possible.

Then My Life Changed

In 2013 I was diagnosed with a disease that runs in my family (Ankylosing Spondylitis)  that upended my world and disabled me in a matter of a few years. Continue reading The Privilege of Having Enough →

disability, poverty

I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California.

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I moved to Sacramento in 2011 because it was one of the most affordable big cities in California. The cost of living was fairly similar to Raleigh, NC at the time (where I lived before moving to California). In recent years Sacramento has faced one of the fastest climbing housing booms in the nation as a result of Bay Area residents moving in. Rent has climbed at astronomical rates, and so has the price of homes. Low-income and affordable housing has not been a priority to the city and region, and homelessness has grown as a result.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with the same disease that killed my father, Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). My health deteriorated and I became disabled and impoverished as a result of not being able to work.

Ten days ago, on January 23rd, 2019, when I woke up I didn’t know I would be writing an offer on a house that night. I didn’t think it was even possible.

But when I saw a listing pop up in the MLS search that evening for a house I could afford, I told my real estate agent (who also has AS), “I want a house more than anything. I want to move on this.”

Continue reading I’m Impoverished & Disabled. I’m About to Be a Homeowner in California. →

disability, Women's Rights

Women’s March: Make Universal Accessibility a Cornerstone

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Millions, possibly billions, of people were devastated on election night in 2016.

I was one of them. I feared for my life.

I graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree, but I now try to survive on under $1,000 per month on Social Security Disability (SSDI) because of a disease I was born with. As a result of this incurable disease’s progression, I am fully disabled and impoverished. I am a living, breathing, pre-existing condition.

After the election sunk in, I desperately sought hope. I clung to the gleam of The Women’s March, craving for throngs of women to somehow save me from this new hell. I had dreams of attending the 2017 march in D.C. but wasn’t sure how I’d survive it. My inflammatory disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, causes debilitating pain and fatigue if I exert too much energy or stand longer than a few minutes. I would have to rely on my cane, pain medications, and a slim chance of places to sit and rest during a march where I wouldn’t know many people. In the end I settled for attending my local march in Sacramento, CA.

I borrowed a huge, clunky wheelchair from my church and asked friends to push me in it. I noticed people’s kindness – those who made room when I asked for it – and I called it accessibility, when in reality the march’s overarching inaccessibility made it such that I had to rely on the kindness of strangers in order to participate (I remain grateful for the kindness). I had to do what many with disabilities must do in order to survive: ask for help; rely on others; and say, ‘Thank you,’ for not being trampled.

If I could make it to the front, I was told, there was an area for people with disabilities, but I learned of it a hundred yards away – and about two thousand ambulatory people swarmed in a pink pussy-hatted mass between it and me. So, I settled for less and pretended it was sort of OK that my primary view was of people’s butts and shoulder bags. Continue reading Women’s March: Make Universal Accessibility a Cornerstone →