Collective Work:
Disability Justice Beyond Academia

Jane Gravel, PhD, The Words for Things

Jane Dunhamn, Sub-Committee Chair, NJ
State Advisory Committee to the US
Commission on Civil Rights

Kathy Coleman, MSW, Artistic Director,
Disability Art and Culture Project
 Visions,
Actions, and Changes
 In
the intersections of race and
disability
Historic
 In
Black civil rights organizations
disability art and culture
Integrated
dance
Building the edifice of hope…
Visions into Actions

Artifacts and texts

Performatives

Social constructions

Enactments
Disability Justice Enacted

Diversity

Non-ableist

Anti-racist
Forms of Disability Justice

Substantive

Procedural

Distributive
Actions into Changes
Advocacy Coalition Framework


Change Requires Time
Public change can be thought of in the
same manner as personal belief
systems.


It takes energy to create change
from the way things are to
disability justice.
There is a relationship between
the ways we go about making
change and the change that
happens.


Research reports take a moderate
amount of energy. The amount of
change from research varies.
Research can enlighten people.
When it is effective, the change
can last a long time.
Who are we trying to change? Are
they receptive?
 Privilege
through expertise
 Privilege
through world view
Activating latent constituencies

Taking the concepts of disability
studies out of theory and into
 Black
 Art
civil rights organizations
and culture
Visions
Actions
Changes
I’ll Be Rested, Mavis Staples
I’ll be rested when the roll is called
I’ll be rested when the roll is called
I’ll be rested when the roll is called
Until justice flows down and righteousness
Like a mighty stream
Keep alive the names
Of those who put their lives out on the front lines
And died just trying to live and breathe
For racial justice in disability, there is
a move to utilize outside sources
other than dominant culture disability
advocacy and service delivery
systems.
Attitudes, Beliefs, Issues
 Racism baggage
 Passing
 Issues
Vision
You never change things by fighting
the existing reality. To change something,
build a new model that makes the existing
model obsolete.
--Buckminster Fuller
Action – Getting Started
 Identification
 Research
Action
 Writer
 Black Organizations
 Barriers
Change
 Expected – BIC & NAACP
 Education of Black Leadership
 Disability Component to Black Conventions
 Black disabled workshops and Black
disabled keynote at BIC
 Unexpected – Legislative Black Caucus
 Bill for a Commission on Underrepresented
Communities in Disability
 Review all disability bills for Legislative
Black Caucus
 Unexpected – USCCR
 Statehouse hearing on issue of services by
NJ DOC for people with non-apparent
disabilities
 Call for accountability by Black nondisabled leadership
 Request to participate in disability
agencies’ activities
 Participate in the discussion of closing
developmental centers
 Participate in wage discussions for
direct support staff
 Commitment to Black disabled issues
 NJ Public Policy Research Institute
 National Council of Negro Women
 Garden State Bar Assn.
 NJ Black Mayors Assn.
 Nat’l Org of Black Law Enforcement
 Collaboration with Black United Fund
 National Black Disability Endowment
Fund
 National network of Black owned
disability service provider agencies
 Repository of evidenced based models
of effective service delivery
The Right to Dance
Inclusive Arts Vibe
Inclusive Arts Vibe Programs

K- 6 Grade After School Dance Program
◦ Collaboration with Schools Uniting
Neighborhoods (SUN)
◦ Located at Lynch View Elementary
School
◦ Disabled and non-disabled participants

Community Dance Company
◦ Youth/Young Adult
◦ Anyone can join – not school based
SUN
After
School
Program
Community
Dance
Program
Vision
Action
Change
Vision
 Disabled
students
should have equal
opportunity to
participate in dance
both in schools and
communities.
 Although
there is always room
for the purpose of dance to be
social or therapeutic, disabled
students should also have
the choice to participate in
dance to improve their skills,
enhance their creativity, and
become artists.
Manifesting Disability
Justice in Dance
Action
 Establish
an atmosphere for
exploration and learning that
includes support for
expressions of authentic
disability identity and disability
pride.
“I feel proud when I perform.” –Amy
 Build
art and culture that
value the variation that
makes up humanity.
◦ During choreography, when we used
the dance skill word shake, a
student said she couldn’t shake
cause her meds make her shake too
much. I asked her if she would like
to do something else. She said she
would wiggle.
-from SUN program observation notes
 Create
and perform quality
dance and therefore challenge
the notion that “those people”
can’t contribute to the arts or
in other areas of society.
◦ I feel like most of my interactions
w/dev. disabled there’s a gulf btw. us
– I am tempted towards callousness
b/c it is so hard to relate. Seeing the
performers’ radiant, beautiful
humanity gave me so much hope and
love.
-Evaluation comment from audience
member
 Nurture
students’ abilities to
make choices, work in
groups, and develop
leadership skills.
◦ Students each contributed ideas to
create a story dance, The Girl’s
Hideout. One student didn’t like
another student’s idea. They were
instructed to write them all down
and then decided as a group which
ideas went together best to fit their
story.
-from SUN program observation notes
Change

We struggle in our youth/young
adult group with recruiting nondisabled dancers and dancers
with a variety of disabilities.

The first dancers to join us were
dancers primarily with intellectual
disabilities. Since this time we
have had more difficulty
recruiting other dancers.
Disability Hierarchy

Some impairments are perceived
as being more desirable than
others both within the disability
community and in the nondisabled community.

This creates separation between
people with disabilities and
between people with and without
disabilities.
Examples

During a high school club rush, a
student came to our program
table interested in our dance
video. She walked away once
she saw the word disability on
the flyer.

A dancer commented, in a way
that belittled the other dancers,
that she was higher functioning
than the other students in the
group.
 The
SUN program is more
inclusive, but there are still
issues that arise…
◦ A fourth grade student said,
“people with disabilities can’t
dance; all they can do is move
their heads and arms and do
wheelies.”
Making Strides
Our Latest Performance
 Audiences
members
described the young dancers
as "push[ing] the boundaries
of artistic expression" and
"somewhat avant garde."
 One
artist wrote, "...the
movement was captivating
and engaging. Your dancers
worked like a flock of
sparrows rising into the sky,
synchronized, but
individual.....Your dancers
proved that no matter the
material, anyone can
dance."
Striving for Social Justice
in Dance
Opportunities to participate
 Develop skills as dancers
 Create quality art
 Foster leadership and affirmative
disability identity
 Change perception of who can
dance and what dance can be!

 Thank
 Time
you
for discussion