Disabled People: The Voice Of Many

Key Questions

Please help us to begin this dialogue by considering the following questions:

  • How can we better centre the lens of intersectionality and critical race discourse with disability justice and activism?
  • How can we authentically highlight the experiences of disabled people of colour within mainstream disability culture?
  • Is Disability justice/rights and activism too white?
  • How are cultural and economic factors reinforcing disability, as well as impairments?
  • How can socio-economic values be subverted towards the inclusion of disabled people?
  • How can we better decolonise disability studies?
  • How can queer and critical race theory aid the dissolution of normative ideas surrounding the body?
  • What role does education play in the inclusivity of disabled people?
  • What is the role of the arts in disability studies and disability justice?
  • How can art alongside activism work together to empower disabled people?
  • How can disabled artists challenge and subvert the ableist gaze?
  • How does language reinforce stereotypes and ignorance towards the experiences of disabled people?

ToR Topics

Topics for this ToR may include, but are not limited to:

  • Ableism versus Anti-Ableism
  • Disabled Identity Politics
  • Disability Theory
  • Disability justice versus Disability Rights
  • Lack of representation and narrative of disabled people in popular culture
  • The role of capitalism and consumerism and disability
  • Impairment versus disability
  • Normative gaze
  • Ableist and anti-ableist language
  • Global North/Global South Contrasts
  • Intersectional disabled Identities
  • Duty of care in Learning Environments
  • Global Models and Theories
  • Environmental exclusion, discrimination and institutional oppression
  • Learning Disabilities
  • Differences in terminology (self-identification) and terming
  • Colonial and Neo-Colonial Power infrastructures in Impairment and disability
  • Alliances within feminist, queer and postcolonial studies
  • ‘Dismodernism’ (Davis, 2006)
  • Inclusion and Separatism in modern discourse
  • Gender-based Violence and prejudice
  • Legislation and policy
  • Neurodiverse descriptions and experiences
  • Neurodiversity Movements
  • Disability within Intersectional Theory and Praxis.
  • Reflections on Trauma, healing and fear
  • The portrayal of Disability in Film and media

Micro Key Terms

Afro-Krip Terminology.

Provided by Leroy F. Moore Jr., founder of Krip-Hop Nation.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is an African American writer, poet, community activist, and feminist and one of the founders of Krip Hop Nation (a movement that addresses ableism, or discrimination against disabled artists, esp. Black musicians marginalised because of racism AND ableism internationally) and the co-founder of Sins Invalid.

 

AfroKrip

Afo-Krip, as one cultural aspect of/under African Diaspora Culture with a focus on disability through activism, art, music etc. attempts to hold all these experiences into one term and to hand down to the next generation this theory of Afro-Krip and Krip-Hop and Krip politics to the media and political organisations. AfroKrip is a term Leroy Moore coined in 2016 to help united Afro disabled people around the African diaspora associate to Krip-Hop during and after becoming politicised. Afro-Krip at the highest level is a common political stage where the person is comfortable with their identity as a person with a disability and are throwing off the mainstream brainwashing of overcoming or hiding disability to also reach beyond themselves to others for community and discovery of history building on arts and struggles of our African disabled ancestors.

Black Ableism

Discrimination and social prejudice against Black people with disabilities or those who are perceived to have disabilities from Black non-disabled people. Unchallenged, Black Ableism holds the Black community from advancing. Black Ableism can only be eradicated by stripping what the Black community has been taught about disability through the lens of oppression and then rebuilding. This rebuilding process must be conducted by coordinated teams of Black disabled people and family members who have had a presence in both the disability and Black communities. This process will be a long term commitment to healing and the detailing the historical significance of disability to present day issues, including Black Ableism.

Crip Theory or Crip Culture (Disability Culture)

There is an overall emphasis within crip theory on coalition building. A reclamation of the term ’crippled’, crip theory advocates and educates through outlining how disability theory intersects with queer theory to analyse a wide-reaching, global critique of neoliberalism. Thus, crip theory works like queer theory, working not only to resist the (oppressive, suppressive) norm but also to enact progressive change. Subsequently, this is where cripping comes from.

Krip

With this new term AfroKrip we need to know why the term Krip with a ‘K’ and its ugly history has been used. Leeroy Moore (founder of Krip-Hop) realised that international solidarity with terminology and history is tricky but disabled peoples can come close to a commonality and respecting differences when something that the so-called mainstream has been discarded with a fresh spotlight; thus Moore changed the ‘C’ to a ‘K’ in what we know today as Krip-Hop and now Afro-Krip.

‘Krip’ Hop

Krip-Hop is a global movement demonstrating alternate arrangements by which hip-hop artists with disabilities can communicate through social media, including educators, journalists and conferences. Created by Leeroy Moore the movement is about advocacy, education and overcoming oppression. For Moore the movement has sought to reclaim negative terms associated with the disabled using them to shock people into understanding and respecting the disabled African American community. It has over 300 members worldwide

The Dozens

‘The Dozens’, ‘snapping’, ‘cracking’, is the act of trading insults back and forth is a black oral tradition that dates back to slavery and has its roots embedded in both Mississippi and Louisiana. The term evolved to mean a competition between two people, typically men, in a contest of wit, mental agility, verbal ability and self control. It is believed that ‘The Dozens’ developed as an outlet for slaves’ depression and worked as a ‘valve of aggression for a depressed group.’

Key Data

With Thanks To

Special Thanks Contributors:
Jorge Aguilar Rojo
Academic Audio Transcriptions (AAT)
Shades of Noir Team Phase 5
Kalia Douglas-Micallef
Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALFIE)
Kana Higashino
Anonymous Contributors
Aisha Richards Kay Barrett
Anti-Ableism Movement
Angie Illman
Kay Ulanday Barrett
Birds of Paradise (BOP)
Ania Urbanowska
Kerima Çevik
Black British Visual Artists (BBVA)
Annabel Crowley
Kym Oliver
Dr Dieuwertje Dyi Huijg
Bea Webster Lani Parker
Heart n Soul at The Hub
Book Geek
Lemon Mingyue Wang
Krip Hop Community
Chelle Destefano
Leroy Moore
Lemon Art China Mills Maria Oshodi
Rebirth Garments
Claudette Davis-Bonnick
Melodie Holliday
Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA)
Claudia Sin Merissa Hylton
Sisters of Frida Dorota Chapko Natalie E. Illum
Triple Cripples Eleanor Lisney
Olajumoke ‘Jay’ Abdullah
Elora Kadir
Patricia Isabel Petersen
Peer Reviewers:
Evie Jeffreys
Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark
Jhinuk Sakar
Favour Jonathan
Rebekah Ubuntu
Robert Softley Gale
Federico Martello
Rotimi Akinsete
Florence Low
Sabrina Mumtaz-Hasan
Foreword Gloria C. Swain Sandra Alland
Michelle Daley Hamja Ahsan Serena Katt
Hilary Wan Shura Davey
Cover Illustration by
Hope Cunningham
Sky Cubacub
Samia Malik Iga Sokolowska
Syrus Marcus Ware
Imani Barbarin
Vilissa Thompson
Designed by Jerron Herman Zara Bain
Safiya Ahmed Jhinuk Sarkar Zuleika Lebow

 

Special Thanks.

Shades of Noir would like to extend a special thank to the ToR Support Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark and Angie Illman as well as Editors Melodie Holliday and Aisha Richards for their contributions to this Terms of Reference Journal.