Organizer’s Forum: Developing Disability Pride & Identity
Please join us for the next Organizer’s Forum, where we’ll talk about how people with disabilities develop disability pride and identity, how disability fits in with other parts of each person’s identity, and what role we as community organizers play in this process.
Speakers
Mark Johnson, Advocacy Director, Shepherd Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Michael Agyin, Board Member, California State Independent Living Council, and Participant, Los Angeles Community Organizing Academy
We may have space for one additional speaker so let us know if you have suggestions.
TUESDAY, JULY 16, 1-2 pm Eastern time, 12-1 Central time, 11-12 Mountain time, 10-11 am Pacific time
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Background
The Organizing Workgroup of the National Disability Leadership Alliance hosts these calls the third Tuesday of every month as a resource for disability organizers, in an effort toward building the organizing capacity of the disability community across the country. They generally follow the format of a Welcome followed by 2-3 experts in a given area speaking for a few minutes on their experiences, advice and challenges. The calls include a 20-30 minute question and answer period.
To ask questions via CART: Sign-in to the Chat function on the right side of the transcript and type your question. One of the call facilitators will read out any questions posted there.
Because we want to maximize the generously donated CART services, we will begin the call promptly at 1pm and end the call promptly at 2pm (eastern time). A few other reminders about call etiquette:
- Say your name before each time you speak
- Speak one at a time
- Speak slowly and as clearly as possible
So you can mark your calendars now, Organizer’s Forums are held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. If you have suggestions for call topics or presenters for upcoming topics, please email them to jlehman7@gmail.com or dcoleman@cdrnys.org.
Looking forward to talking with you all!
Date: July 16, 2013
Client: NDLA
Topic: Developing Disability Pride & Identity
**This text is being provided in rough draft format. Communication Access Real time Translation [CART] is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.**
>> Hello.
>> Hi.
>> I am sorry accident I couldn’t remember how to switch to conversation mode.
>> This is Carlita Johnson.
>> Hi, I am Ann.
>> Hello.
>> I am Jessica, this is Diane, I am on.
>> Do we have Mark Johnson and Rebecca here?
>>Mark: This is Mark.
>> Hi Mark.
>>Mark: Hi.
>> Diane, are you on?
>>Diane: Yes, I am on.
>> Are you on chatroom. We have a speaker Michael having trouble getting on. But I got on with no problem.
>> It was slow for me too.
>> You said it was slow? I will give people a couple of minutes to get on.
>> Kristen is on, I am recording for you.
>> You are welcome.
>>
>> For people that are getting on, it is obviously hard to do introductions over the phone. But we have a spread sheet. And there is a link to that in the e mail that went out about the call. So if you can go there, put in your name and information, that would be great. Okay. So wins we have a lot of bang ground noise, what I will do, is put, actually, maybe we will do quick introductions. And then I will put it in presentation mode, and I will explain that at the time. So introductions. I am Jessica Lamas, and I work as executive director of senior disability action in San Francisco. And co chair of the national organizing work group, which is part of the National Disability Leadership Alliance. I will let my co chair Diane Coleman introduce herself and say something about NDLA.
>> I am Diane Coleman, head of one of 14 national organizations run by people with disabilities, ourselves. That operates a steering committee of the National Disability Leadership Alliance. And what is unique about us is that we are all disability led organizations. Who are active in public policy issues on the National Level.
>> Thank you Diane. So I realize that probably should have muted people before I had you say that. So give introductions and then I will mute people. So starting with start with this coast. Westcoast. Who do we have around here?
>> Allegra Stout.
>> Nobody from the westcoast, California, Washington, Oregon, further west? How about the midwest? Try it again.
>> There is a lot of background noise.
>> Is the noise is off. Is that all from the eastcoast.
>> I am from the midwest.
>> Go ahead and introduce yourself.
>> Harry [inaudible] Sherry from the center for disability environment from Columbus, Ohio.
>> Great.
>> Megan from Columbus. From CDE as well.
>> I am Jennifer Flynn and I am with CDE as well.
>> This is Kara airs from University of Cincinnati.
>> I am sorry, where?
>> From the University of Cincinnati Usted. Kara airs.
>> I am Ann Johansson in Boston. From BIL.
>> Eileen Feldman from Massachusetts.
>> Allegra stoke, from Independent living.
>> Hi Allegra.
>> Sue, from Binghamton New York. Independence center.
>> Steve from Virginia Beach.
>> That someone from Virginia Beach?
>> Yes. Anybody who hasn’t introduced themselves?
>> Carlita Johnson from Illinois. Access living.
>> Thank you Carlita.
>> This is Rebecca from Germany, [inaudible].
>> Mark Johnson from Georgia.
>> Okay, so I am going to go ahead and switch the mode. Switch it to presentation mode. And it is quiet. So now, everybody is muted but you can unmute yourself when you want to speak. So I would invite our speakers to make sure they know how to do that. So you hit star six on the phone to either unmute and then to go back on mute again is same. Star six. So I know we have Carlita and Mark, and hopefully Rebecca, soon, if you want to make sure that you can unmute yourself with star six.
>> This is Rebecca from Berlin, Germany, and I am here together with Talel, here from disability alliance here in Berlin. For the disability pride parade that happened last Saturday.
>> Great. Glad you are here. We will ask you to speak about it in a few minutes. So thank you for being here. So I want to say more about the Organizer’s Forum. Thank you to everyone for joining us today. The idea of this call is to really expand and support community organizing and disability community. And so for people that have not joined before we do different kinds of topics. We focus on the strategizing of organizing. So calls like today thinking about what we are doing to not only mobilize people with disabilities but to help develop a sense of disability pride and help people to identify as people with disabilities, and really thinking about how that process works. And what is our role as community organizers in that process.
And we also do a lot of calls that are about how are we working together with different communities and recognizing the diversity within our own community. And so really looking at well couple of months ago our call was about immigration and disability. We have talked about youth, we have talked about race. And always interested in those calls. So if you have ideas for future calls let us know. We have stayed away from kind of issue based calls like looking at some specific health care or housing issues, for example. What we have decided recently, we have been kind of playing around with the structure of the organizers forum and we are going to stick with the kinds of calls that I described. For every other month. And then for the in between months we will do issue based calls. And so we have the next couple of those lined up. And so I believe that our, what are we in July. I believe our August call is about the issue of sub minimum wage that a lot of advocacy groups have been fighting for awhile. There was some recent publicity about goodwill. That’s in August. Our calls are always the third Tuesday of the month. Same time, same call and number. And so please go ahead and Mark your calendars in advance. Couple of other housekeeping things. So this call is captioned. The website for that, is in the e mail that hopefully you all got. So if you would like to log on you can do that. There is a chatroom, you can log on and type questions, and Diane, is usually our designated reader to make sure that those questions get read out on the call.
Please remember to speak slowly and clearly. Which I am always guilty of not doing. And say your name before you speak. And in general we would ask you not to put us on hold since we can mute people that May not be an issue as much as before. But stay on mute when you are not speaking, and again, you can hit star six to unmute after our speakers talk, we will have time for dialogue. We also are working on encouraging ongoing discussions, so we have a lister, and it is Organizer’s Forum@Yahoo groups.com. You can go on the Yahoo group site and search for organizers forum all one word and join that group. And you will get notification of future groups. And our website that we mentioned. So we have a Organizer’s Forum page on the National Disability Leadership Alliance website. Thanks to Kristen at the center for disability rights in Rochester New York. So thank you Kristen for getting the Organizer’s Forum up there. You can go there for notification of our next call and transcripts and recordings of past calls. And please help us to get the word out about that.
I think that’s it. Facebook, is another way to kind of continue the discussion. We have an Organizer’s Forum on Facebook. We would really invite folks, either during or after this call, if a speaker said something, or you have some thought, that you want to share with others, or maybe a question or something that will spark some dialogue, please, go ahead and send that out on the list serve or put it on Facebook. So that we can really continue this topic. Obviously an hour is not enough to dig into these topics, but hopefully it is a start. So I think, I am done with the housekeeping thing. I don’t want to take much time away from the topic. And so, again, our topic is about disability pride and identity. And really talking about how people develop that. How disability fits in. With other parts of each person’s identity. And what role we as community organizers play in this process.
We have four speakers today. And I apologize, I had my e mail up to read them and I realized I was looking at the wrong version. So give me a second here. You know, I will ask Diane, do you have that handy? Do you want to read our speaker bios to get started? Don’t forget star six to unmute. Okay. I found it.
Sorry for the delay there. So first we will have Carlita Johnson independent living skills coordinator at access living in Chicago Illinois. Carlita will talk about how she trains youth and adults with disabilities in Independent living philosophy and through the group she runs. Youth advocacy and Independent group skills. And I will introduce them one at a time. So Carlita, go ahead.
>> Thank you. Like Jessica said I am Carlita Johnson from access living. Access living, I have been there five years now. I do identify as a person with a disability. I do a variety of roles here. Like many of you probably wear a lot of hats. But mainly I was hired to originally work with our youth group, which is called yield to power. And so this is a group that introduces young people to the disability community. And so through that group we go into the schools, we talk to youth with disabilities, in terms of just talking with them to get a feel of where they are. And so as many of you, especially if you have worked with students who are in high school, or younger, disability for them is something bad and shameful. And a lot of them do not want to know admit they have a disability. So going to the school and meeting them where they are at in terms of if you are in a class with a person with a disability, and talking with them, they say they do not have a disability. Kind of talking to them like why do you feel like that? Or what makes you feel like you don’t have a disability. A lot of times, in the disability community, we try to use people first language, and language that is really positive. So use a person with a disability versus disabled person or we do not use the word handicap or cripple. But I notice when I go into the schools a lot of the youth use those words. So meeting them where they are at and not getting angry about it. Giving them the history behind the words and why those terms are not used. So normally when it comes to access living they are very shocked to see that there are people here that work and have a job. People with disabilities that work here. Because we are center for Independent living, 60 percent of our staff have to have disabilities. So that right there is kind of, I think, ah ha moment for them to take away some of the hatred toward disability. And helping them to identify as a person with a disability. Like letting them know that disability looks different with all people. So you can be blind or visually impaired, or Deaf or hard of hearing or use a wheelchair, and you can still identify as a person with a disability and not necessarily is a bad thing. So when they come to the group, 11 week group. We kind of talk about disability as something that is neutral. Not necessarily good or bad. It is just something that is different. It happens. And it is not, again, not a bad thing but very neutral.
And a lot of our youth kind of talk about wanting to be normal, doing things in a normal sense. So we always have a interesting conversation in terms of what does normal look like. And one of the things I try to get them to think about is, the creativity and survival skills of all people. So what does that mean in terms of creativity and survival skills? So talking about when people do things it is not always going to be the same way. But as long as you get the same results. Always use the example, with our young people, that because I have a hard time bending I cannot put on my socks with my hands and bend down and put them on. So I have a sock aid. So that helps me to get my socks on in the same R my socks are on. And it is just about promoting independence. So after awhile, I think, since everybody at access living is so open about their disability, after awhile our youth become more open about talking about having a disability. So we like to go in terms of starting with them, advocating for themselves and admitting they have a disability. And identify that person with a disability. Because a lot of our youth are going to college or need different resources. You cannot get those resources unless you identify as a person with a disability. So letting them know in the beginning. You May not have the pride there, because, again, based on the family history, and culture there may be shame related to having a disability. And so taking that into account, thinking about, we talk about race, and culture and how to how that plays into developing disability pride. And youth are very open about that. And, I think, that’s kind of where it starts, in terms of developing that pride and thinking in terms of, you know, I am still a person and can do things and getting them to see that. Again, not everything looks the way you May want it to look or think or do the things how you feel like you should but as long as it is getting done in a way where you could be Independent and feel good about it. It helps to promote disability pride. And then also in terms of we talk about how disability kind of connects with other parts of their identity in terms of race and gender. So if you are a woman with a disability how do you feel about that? Do you feel less attractive? If you are a man, do you feel less manly? Seems to be a lot of things that come up in the work that we do. So just letting them know that every gender roles do not necessarily have to be the defined as terms. This is how women should look or be or this is how a man should look or be. And, again, anybody that worked with young people, or anybody that has, I think, new to their disability is hard to get them to look past what they feel like it should look like. And so we spent a lot of time on gender and how people feel like people without disabilities relate to them. But again it goes back to their identity in terms of trying to get them to be more comfortable at being a woman and especially maybe a woman with a disability. Or a black woman with a disability. Or African American man with a disability.
So we do a lot of work around that. I think, one of the main things that helps people to develop disability pride is when we really talk about the disability right movement. And they see that it was not just people without disabilities advocating. But it was people with disabilities really stepping up and advocating and rallying and protesting, and really out there and so, I think, there is a perception a lot of times that people with disabilities can be weak and need help. A lot of our youth feel like that. We have that conversation. Again, trying to create a safe space for them to say what they want to say. And if you work with young people you know they are honest and say a lot of interesting things. And so we always talk about, well, if you do feel like a person with a disability needs help, or you do not feel like they are strong in terms of personality or whatever, why do you feel like that? So watch we have a video that is called live force living. And it really shows the beginning of the disabilities right movement. All the way to present. And so that is a really big tool that we use to help adults and young people see you as a person with disability has power and control over your life. And, again, the disability pride comes from helping people identify that they do have control and power, and they are not just somebody that has to take whatever life gives them or whatever people give them and go with it.
And then, I think, big thing, for me, is to disclose what my disability is to my youth that I work with. People I work with. It really talk about it and be honest about struggles that came along with developing disability pride, and some type of identity. And always give the story of when I first started to work at access living, I really did not necessarily identify as a person with a disability. Even though I knew I had a disability. And there was definitely no pride attached to it at all. It was more like you need to go to college. You need to get a degree. You need to work, not just really accept this as a part of who you are. Because I don’t know at the time I thought it was bad or good, it was just something that we did not talk about in my family and it was not promoted in terms of accepting that piece. So talking with the youth about that, and they ask a lot of questions, good questions, about well how did that journey look for you? I always let them know that it is not an overnight kind of thing. I think, that really helps to develop their pride and, at least, gets them to think about accepting their disability. Knowing that every day will not be like a great thing. I have a disability. There are days where you feel like it sucks and you will not be happy and that is just being normal. Just a part of being a person with emotions. Every day you will not be happy. Every day will not be a good day and letting them know that disability is the same thing. Toward the end, I think, with all of those conversations, those real conversations, our youth get to a place where they definitely accept that they have a disability, and they are able to talk about it without all the shame and stigma attached to it.
So, I think, if I have to suggest something to organizers in terms of going out and into your own communities and fostering disability pride and identity. Kind of meet people where they are. Because I know the first time I went to a school visit and someone used the word crippled and handicapped. I was like oh, my God. What are you saying? That’s terrible. But that’s what they were used to hearing. And that was that’s a part of the culture they were used to that used those words. And once I kind of explained to them that’s not the language that we use, in the disability community. They got it. They understood that. And even for me, I think, those were words that I probably used initially, because I just didn’t know. So just meeting people where they are, and teach you can people how to advocate for themselves is the first part in building identity, and then eventually that disability pride comes. I think definitely comes, whenever you are organizing or doing anything with advocacy, you know that it is requiring a lot of patients, and time. But definitely, I think, one on one support is really good and those individual stories, they kind of help people, you know, connect with you and themselves on a deeper level. So that’s the work I do at access living.
>> Thank you so much Carlita, that was wonderful hearing about your experience, and you have brought up a lot of thought provoking ideas. Thank you for sharing that with us. I know you said you can be on for half an hour, does that mean you have to get off.
>> I can stay on another five to 10 minutes.
>> Okay. Well so we will have speakers. I know we will not have you with us for the dialogue at the end. But if you are able to join us on the Yahoo group, Facebook, maybe people can follow up with questions or comments with you that way.
>> Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
>> So Next, we will have Michael Agyin, from Independent Living Council. Participant with Organizing Academy, and he will talk today about the California Youth Leadership forum, and an event for high school students with disabilities, he has been involved in, first as a participant and volunteer staff, for eight years. And as well as serving as community outreach liaison with Los Angeles Deaf Festival. So Michael will ting with us through an interpreter. So go ahead, Michael.
>>Michael: [Pause].
>> I think, there is interpreting going on right now, but I am check in hang on. Sorry everyone, thank you for your patience. Michael is on G Chat with me. So I will read it.
While this is a fun educational five day awareness program for high school students with disabilities in California. And participants are selected among young people with disabilities who demonstrate leadership potential, academic success, involvement in extracurricular activities, community involvement and ability to intercourse act effectively with other students. As young people with disabilities grow into adulthood they must begin to plan for a life beyond school. Historically youth with disabilities have the highest unemployment rates, lowest participation, and post secondary training and education programs. And the highest likelihood of remaining Independent on public assistance programs following high school. By encouraging youth with disabilities to take an active role in planning and pursuing career goals, they can become positive contributing members of our society. While this is the ideal program to motivate youth with disabilities to overcome barriers and help address those of others in their community.
I am waiting for more, he is typing. I just lost my internet so that means I cannot hear from Michael. I hate to do this but I don’t know how long it will take to fix this problem and hear the rest of Michael. So I would like to go ahead and have Rebecca speak. Let me introduce Rebecca, scholar and activist. Was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Illinois in Chicago. And she is going to talk about her work organizing Germany’s first disability pride parade. So this might be our first International call and we are excited to have you here Rebecca and hear about your exciting work. Go ahead. If you hit star six to unmute yourself.
>>Becky: Hello. Great. Okay, we have some trouble here with muting and unmuting. So like I say, I am not here alone. I am here with my friend Terrelle. And key organizer of the disability pride parade. And I was rather like supporting the parade. So I thought it is a good idea if we did it together, because I was not really organizing team. But of course, I brought some ideas to the disability pride parade. In Berlin. Because I heard about a lot about the Chicago disability pride parade, and, yeah, which I always thought was a wonderful idea to confront disability shame. I am really happy that we now brought about the first parade in Germany. Just last Saturday. We were about way over 1000 people there. And almost 2500. We know that for sure. And we are amazed about the great success, and we are happy about that. And so we will talk about that more. And maybe I can say something about my own background. I am a person with a disability. And for me, the disability or getting achieving disability pride was really important. It came rather late in my life because I was very much in many ways main streamed. So going to main stream school. And as the only disabled child, basically. I only had few occasions where I met other disabled youth. And they were really important role models for me. But other than that, I had virtually no contact to other disabled people. Only later in life, starting in early 20s, when I had the first encounter with disability movement in Germany. That was really amazing turn toward my identity. And also what really soared of added up to what were my experiences in the U.S., and I was really happy about that. Yeah, how disability culture is celebrated in the U.S.. And I always missed that in Germany. We had a disability rights movement in Germany that was very active early 80s. So the key year was 1981. When there were a lot of really provocative actions. Groups of people calling themselves cripple group. And they did a lot of kind of well, not really militant actions, but chaining themselves to buildings or street cars, buses, or making sort of ramps putting ramps where they were not allowed. Stuff like that. I always thought, well where has this activism gone? Because Germany, since, I think, like way over 10, 15 years, the whole disability program is organized and sort of like a day to day lobbying business. Counseling politicians, and so and there is not a lot of disability action or culture, and it is only starting since a couple of years. And, I think, this is very necessary. Because I have a feeling we got a lot of we have a lot of access in the last 10, 15 years. So we have set up the foundation. But now, I think, this is like what Paul calls the second phase, we have this in Germany now. I of a feeling the disability pride parade sort of is a big step, in this second phase, if you will. And, yeah, so those are my first thoughts on that. And we did not really prepare a whole talk. We are very happy about your questions. But first want to give my telephone on to corolla and she will tell you about the parade organizing
>> Hi, I am corolla and I was part of the organizing team of the first disability pride parade in Berlin. I will talk very briefly about what we did. And, yeah, as Rebecca said happy to answer your questions later. So the idea to have that kind of parade came up about a year ago. Very small group. Group of like maybe 10 people. People with and without disability. I myself, I don’t identify as disabled. So just to make that clear. But we came up with we knew about the pride parade in Chicago. Rebecca told us about it. And I spent some time in Toronto, I knew about MAD pride there. And I don’t know, maybe nine months ago we isn’t out e mails to lots of groups that we knew, that organized around issues of disability and issues like survivor groups. And we all came together, and put up that parade. General idea Rebecca said, it was to have a big celebrations of our identities, disabled identities, survivor identities. And to be out there, be on the street, and Rebecca also already said that we had an idea of like getting together, like younger people who started organizing around issues of disabilities, and sort of like the people that did it, in the 80s. And I guess, when like thinking back, on last Saturday t sort of went very well. Like we had some people there that are doing this for like 30 years now. We had [Foreign Language] there, that had a short speech. She, I don’t know, I probably probably some of you know her. I hope so. And there were young people that are organizing for like five years only. And brought in like new ideas of celebrating their identities and our identities. And in terms of fusions. Seeing lots of feminist, queers, were there. And like anti fascist organizing people were there, and anti racist organizers were there, main groups that came together, and had a really great party. And now we are thinking about how we are going to continue with that. As a group. And as a network of people that got together, and thank you very much. I will hand back the phone to Rebecca, and we will be happy to answer your questions later.
>> Great it has been great to hear from both of you. This is Jessica, is it okay if I jump in? It has been exciting hearing about the parade that you did in Germany. Thank you for being here to share it. I do want to go ahead and move back to Michael. And then let Mark speak so we have at least few minutes for question and answers. So people can talk to you more. Is that okay?
>> Yes, that’s fine.
>> Michael is on the phone and I will turn it back to you. If you can take me four or five more minutes to talk about your view on disability pride and identity. The typing we hear is Michael. So he should be on momentarily. I thought he was there. Michael, are you on? We are waiting for Michael.
>> Can you hear me now, this is Michael.
>> Please, go ahead.
>>Michael: All right. I apologize, forgot to tell the interpreter to press star six. I was talking all of this time. Sorry about that. Oh, no, I was ranting about everything. Okay.
From the beginning. I forgot what I was saying. You know, us teaching people about people that are disabled and their culture. I feel that some people are, you know, people that are disabled are living in the world and at the same time they do not feel like they are because of their disability, depending on what it is. And it is hard for them to identify themselves, you know. And they have no idea of who they are. Sometimes they are blamed for things that they are not aware of. Or they do not realize why. And it is nice to give them some sort of a pride. And embrace the culture they are in. You know, to not feel shy or embarrassed of who they are. You know, give them empowerment. And for example, I myself am Deaf. And I didn’t start signing until I was 18. I had no idea who I was as a person, you know. I started to hang around Deaf. Embracing the culture, and being out in the community. And the Deaf helped me, and I helped them too. And you know, I started to become more active person in the community. And it gave me some sort of pride at the same time and more opportunities to teach others about what I learned. Of how to accept who you are, as a person. Even though you are disabled. And the same time, as a person of color, my background, you know, my nationality, and my disability all mixes into one and becomes beautiful. So, yeah, that’s my speech.
>> Thank you Mike foal what you had to say. And hopefully we will have time for some more discussion with you in a couple of minutes. So I am going to introduce our final speaker. Mark Johnson. Who is advocacy director at the shepherd center in Atlanta, Georgia. And Mark will talk about his work coordinating ADA Legacy project, celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with disability act. So go ahead Mark.
>>Mark: Well, first of all let me thank the other speakers for good content. I was fascinated by Rebecca’s comment about Germany being in second phase. I don’t know for sure what phase we’re in the states here. But, I think, we are in a phase of transition. You know, both Jessica and Diane sent speakers questions, so I will run through those and leave it at that for now. But, you first question is how do you think your project or your work helps people develop disability pride and or identity? You know, I know for me, you know, I am 62, and been involved since the 70s. You know, I look back at moments before I got involved, I look at moments that, fortunately, I have been able to participate in or knew about since then. Things like, you know, the section 504 sit ins in 77. Or International disabled persons in 81. Or the Deaf President now campaign in 88. Or the crawl up the steps and rest in the U.S. capital in 1990. Glad to hear Pat Wright on the phone because she was there. Before me. And there then. She has been there since. So I look back at our history, and our path, and realize that, you know, it is a great story. Powerful story accident story that not a lot of people know about. So people came together, and fortunate thing about this story, is that there is a great document called life worth living here in the states that documents the movement, really, focuses on from 1968 architectural bird act to signing of ADA in 1990. It is hard for me, to for anybody, with a disability, or family member, to sit through that without feeling real pride about, you know, activists and advocates, and leaders, in the past. So the focus of the project, obviously, like Jessica said, the 25th anniversary of ADA is in two years from now. And to do something big that actually also reaches out to the International community, is important to bring people together to have a conversation about that. And one of the things that ADA, I think, did was it did indeed bring our community together. It did help people like myself, and others, realize that there are others out there having a common experience. That we are a community. And a lot of that will be played out at the national center for pursuing Human Rights next Memorial Day weekend where there is a broad narrative about Human Rights and disability rights story will be part of that bigger narrative. I was involved in 2000 with 10th anniversary of ADA. And it was a couple of year planning effort. We traded the spirit of ADA torch relay. We went to 24 cities in two months. And each community had its story to tell. Whether it was, you know, Topeka, Kansas. Brown versus board of education. Separates never qualm. Or warm springs Georgia where FDR former President, had the White House. Or pettis bridge that activists crossed to make a point. So connect I did all of those things, and connecting, having a pledge and call to action were things we did for 10th anniversary. And we had the opportunity to do that for the 25th anniversary.
As far as how is disability connect to other parts of people’s identity. I thought Carlita from Illinois did a great job, so I will pass on that one. And as far as why do you think disability pride and identity are important to the disability movement? You know, I was injured when I was 19. Like I say, I am 62 now. And just like then, and just like now, you know, it is unfortunate but disability is still seen by the general public, who do not have it in their backyard, as something negative. So when a person is injured. Brain injury accident spinal cord. It is difficult to say hey I want to claim something historically negative. But what happens, is by people getting in touch with history and people beginning to meet peers that begin to identify. Then all of a sudden make disability positive. We begin to own our own power. Because we have it. Everybody has it. It is just how many people are afraid to claim it. Part of the claiming it is identifying with your difference. As far as what would you suggest? That organizers do in their own communities, to Foster disability pride and identity. First of all, realize it is a process. And fortunately the folks in Chicago, started the first disability pride, 10 years ago. This year is the 10th anniversary. If I am correct. Now it is in the westcoast. And now it is over in New Jersey. And now it is over in Germany.
so, I think, first thing any organizer has to, you know, acknowledge is that it is a process. And that you use vehicles like an anniversary to bring us together to remind us of how how much we have accomplished and how powerful we are. Once again, the opportunity to do this, not just nationally but globally. Is right here. Upon us now. And you know, once again, 25th anniversary of ADA is July 26, 2015. And Mark it on your calendar. Do not wait until July of that year to plan it. Do not wait until January to plan it. In fact, if you go to Facebook.com/ADA Legacy, that’s Facebook. You will see 800 plus people are having a conversation about what should that anniversary look like. Specifically I will encourage, whether it is up in Boston or in Chicago or whether it is in westcoast. Or whether it is in Virginia Beach. Or whether it is in Germany. Host a conversation of stakeholders. Ask the question about how are we preserving our past? How are we celebrating our past? And how are we educating folks about the future? So, you think of the 3 P’s. Past, present, future. We won a lot of hard fought battles but it is not overnight. CRPD has not been ratified by the senate. This week they May execute a gentleman here in Georgia with an intellectual disability. The sub minimum wage meaning it is already to pay people with disabilities sub minimum wage in this country. So we really need the youth, program that was highlighted on this call, we really need the youth to take that, make that transition, whatever phase it is. And use social media, get us more organized and kick some butt.
>> All right. Thank you Mark. That was a great call to action. So now we have just under 10 minutes, and I would like to open it up for question and answer. To avoid the background noise I will keep people muted but anybody can unmute yourself by hitting star six on your phone. If any of our speakers have questions for each other or would like to make another comment, go ahead as well. Nobody has a question or comment? Or are people having trouble unmuting their phones? It is star six.
Do we have others on the phone that would likes to something about either your own thoughts on the topic in general or specifically what are you doing in your own community, to help Foster disability pride, and identity?
>>Diane: This is Diane. I am thinking about the importance of, in my own development, the disability rag magazine. And then later mouse magazine in terms of sharing disability history. You know, some of the stories of activism with disabilities and how it impacted public policy. And, you know, changed lives. And the writing there that were really reflecting the growing disability pride movement. Now we do not have that publication. We do not have mouse or ragged edge, active at the moment. I think that really is having an impact. But, of course, you know, those were hard copies you got in the mail. Nowadays it is really an electronic age, for communication. But yet, I think, we are still not seeing something that had that orientation in the disability news media yet that much. I wonder if people have thoughts on that? Projects underway? Publications I may be missing? Things that we could share.
>>Mark: I do think there is a lot of noise out there. A lot of competing noise, whether it is e mails your own, or whether it is, you know, Facebook pages you check, or whether it is electronic newsletters. You know, I think the art of just carving out some time each day to do some reading, and breaking down of content and sharing content and art of phone trees, and the art of face to face times, or the art of real conversation. Not that electronic ones are not good, but, I mean, actual face to face conversations. Some of that has been lost. So, I think , that’s part of the challenge and transition is when you open up your I am guilty of it. I don’t answer my phone first now I go to e mails. Sometimes there will be quite a number of e mails there. So how do you who should who is the trusted source? Which ones do you read? Those things. It is all a challenging time. Clearly we have more communication now than we did back in the day of publications. But how to getting your arms around it and understanding trusted sources, and what is timely, is some of the stuff that we all have to sit down and figure out.
>> One more comment or question?
>> This is Michael. I wanted to add one more thing. You know, I strongly believe that the identity for People with Disabilities, is very important because I myself have noticed that when a person is aware of who they are, for example, the personality, the way they carry themselves, how they are in the community. With everybody. You know, they are aware of who they are, but maybe the other ones surrounding them aren’t. So they are the ones that need to teach others how to even, you know, carry themselves. So you know, I just thought it was a cool thought. That’s not always us teaching them but them teaching the community as well.
>> Great note to end on. Thank you Michael. So, again, this is jessica, I want to wrap up. I want to extend a huge thank you to our speakers. You all really had some excellent things to say and ideas to share. Carlita, Michael, Rebecca, Mark. Thank you to all of you. We would love to have more conversation on this topic. And it is the big month, being July. Hopefully some people will attend the disability pride parade in Chicago, or in mountain view California. And then we can have a discussion on the Facebook site. And on the Organizer’s Forum list serve on Yahoo groups. Join us there. And again Mark your calendar for next call, which is Tuesday August 20. And same time. And that call is going to be led by the National Federation of the Blind. They are kind of taking over responsibility for that call. And it will be about the issue of sub minimum wages for workers with disabilities. And then we are working on our topic for September call. If you have other topic ideas for the future. Let me know. And please, let others know that they can if they missed the call today they can look at the NDLA website at disability leadership.org. To get a transcript, and a recording of the call today. So, I think, we covered everything. Thank you for joining us. And we hope to talk to you all next month.
[concluded].
**This text is being provided in rough draft format. Communication Access Real time Translation [CART] is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.**