The other day I was told by someone in the disability rights movement that there is “a new focus on intersectionality” in the work! I had to laugh out loud! It was one of the funniest things I have heard in quite a while. I thought it was a joke! But this person was serious! HA HA HA HA HA!
I had to set this person as they say ALL THE WAY RIGHT! (meaning correct – in this case give them a READ) So I decided to blog about this.
There has never been nor will there ever be a focus on Intersectionality (spelled with a capital I not a lower case i) in this all-white led disability rights movement. There are so many reasons as to why this is the case. One large and lingering reason is that part “white-led” disability rights movement. Until this particular fact has changed infusing Intersectionality into the work is damn near impossible.
It is no longer a part of my policy work to interact with many of the white-led (oh that’s all we have here in DC) disability rights groups in “the Beltway”, something I did not chose – it was done for me! (So much more on this to come – keep reading my blogs)
But I remain an active policy and change maker working with multiple social justice and civil rights coalitions in DC, around the nation and even internationally – who have been welcoming and continue to create space for the work I engage in every day. In fact I kept many of my leadership positions in those groups and push forward and infuse disability issues on a regular basis.
I continue to receive information about the other disability rights groups and the work they are doing because that’s information sharing which is a way of life in policy work. This document came my way the other day. It’s titled: Evaluation Framework for Hospital Visitor Policies – set to be used in the COVID19 pandemic times we are living.
Yet again the DC beltway disability rights organizations create a document that is an issue of concern for and intended to assist all people; and they leave out the voices of those who are most marginalized by the problem. The groups who created this document are Bazelon, DREDF, The Arc, Communication First, ASAN and CPR – the usual suspects when it comes to leaving out the voices of those oppressed.
(I don’t know Communication First so….)
*Let us not forget these are the same groups who organized and did a webinar on April 14, 2020 titled Disability Discrimination in the Rationing of Life Saving COVID Treatment: Who Gets Left Behind? – In the time of COVID19. The entire panel and moderator were all white people – and to be clear all but two of the panelists are able bodied. Go here to see: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/events_cle/program-archive/disability-discrimination-in-the-rationing-of-life-saving-covid-/ They thought that this was ok do to in the work – that there is nothing wrong with having an all white panel discussing discrimination in healthcare during the pandemic that every data analysis has proven Black people are being killed and infected at a higher rate than any other community in the country.
This document is a legal framework for hospital visiting policies during COVID19. It is clear that these policies were written by all white people who did not seek out the voices of people of color or multi-marginalized communities – again their usual mode of operandi.
This is a document about Healthcare in the United States and the words equity, Black, Latino/Latinx, LGBTQ are NOT in the document. Just go to FIND and put in these words in and you will get 0/0.
There is no statement on equity and no discussion of the fact that hospital visitation, just like all systems in this country are based in racism and are set forth to create discriminatory barriers for families and communities of color. A document of such caliber should include at the least an equity statement or the acknowledgement that these issues affect people of color and other multi-marginalized communities at a higher rate. It should have just one thing that acknowledges multi-marginalized communities exists and that their discriminations are of importance in this work.
There is NO Intersectionality in this Evaluation for Framework for Hospital Visitor Policies and definitely no collective liberation.
I continuously advocate and push as a change maker and in that work, I tell people who are doing social justice/civil rights work (and those who claim to do this work) that when you are planning a program, policy, legislation, writings etc. and you do not have people with lived experience or who are directly impacted by the issues you are discussing; and when you have homogeneous groups – all white, all men, all from urban areas etc. etc. at the table then whatever you are planning is wrong!
If you have those people at the table and not just there but leading the work, then you are engaging in Intersectionality and collective liberation. To get this input and to have the people necessary as part of the conversation you must have the connections to those communities and the actual desire to create change.
I have been working for over 10yrs now in disability rights and I still do not see much difference in the whiteness or a desire to change. It is a fact that these disability rights groups who authored this document, do not have the connections to the communities needed to be a part of this planning and they also do not have the policy staff (their policy staffs are mostly if not all white) to create the change.
If this is the disability rights movement’s “new focus on Intersectionality”, as I was recently told, then I did the right thing by laughing at this B/S! Because this policy document is yet another reminder of the glaring inequities and whiteness that remain in disability rights work, advocacy and policy outreach.
Resources:
Racial Equity Tools: COVID19 – Racial Equity and Social Justice resources
EVALUATION FRAMEWORK FOR HOSPITAL VISITOR POLICIES
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Thank you for this. I have shared it with others at the CIL where I work and it has sparked conversation about what we can do in our efforts here in Charlotte. I’m very interested to see how your work is evolving and will keep following along!
Hi Marty,
Thank you for reading and for sharing. I look forward to hearing about the conversations! Thanks for following along and I hope to be helpful in the work. (I also do trainings so let me know)
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