PBS News Hour –Disaster & Disability
October 2023
Check out this segment from PBS Newshour where I strive to emphasize the critical importance of disability inclusive disaster management.
Category: Sourced From The Soil: Updates & Upcoming Events
November 2023
Sunstorm is a beloved series that I created and curated from 2021-2023. Funded by the WITH Foundation, this public health-oriented project was implemented in collaboration with the National Disability Rights Network, SeededGround, John Hopkins Disability Health Research Center and Foundations for Divergent Minds.
The project continues our efforts to prioritize the pandemic experiences of people of color with Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities. The stories are featured in short narrative videos and are aimed at urging medical professionals to meaningfully improve inclusion, enhance access and prevent discriminatory treatment.
Check out the Sunstorm 2023 trailer below as storytellers share their experiences, ideas, and recommendations for how we can collectively build a more equitable public healthcare system.
You can click here to view the 2023 stories in full and click here to check out the phenomenal stories from 2022.
September 2023
I am so proud to serve as a Co-Chair of the Public Health Strand as well as a keynote speaker for the 2024 Pacific Rim International Conference On Disability & Diversity.
Fifty years since the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, diverse people with disabilities continue to endure harms caused by pervasive health and healthcare inequities. This strand explores barriers and facilitators to advancing equity and justice, access and inclusion, and dignity and belonging for diverse people with disabilities – within public health, health care and the health professions. We wish to move beyond structurally violent policies peppered with platitudes regarding “scarcity” and “sacrifice” – toward flexible public health and healthcare frameworks capable of holding space for our collective grief, safety, and survival. We especially welcome solution-focused proposals that seek to rectify power imbalances and center the priorities and leadership of persons multi-marginalized by systems of oppression (e.g., racism, ableism, colonialism, audism, sexism, transphobia, eugenics). And we embrace contributions and insights that emanate from lived experiences and embodied knowingness. Proposals that include community-designed practices, culturally grounded approaches, and/or creative expressions were particularly encouraged.
We welcome explorations of how building an organizational culture of belonging creates new possibilities. Law professor john a. powell posits that a framework of belonging involves “expanding our circle of human concern” and “perceiving one another in our full humanity.” Central to powell’s concept of belonging is “the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political and cultural institutions.” Understood in this way, belonging is more than an intrinsic human psychological need; belonging is a pathway toward – and a positive outcome of – more just and equitable societies. Join us as we ready ourselves for an emerging world where diverse people with disabled bodyminds lead the way toward building cultures of belonging in public health, healthcare, and the health professions.
Click here to learn more about the entire conference and register today!
WOC World is a virtual space for Blind Women Of Color to connect, converse and build community. Members are encouraged to share lived experiences, ask questions (personal or professional) & receive genuine guidance/peer support. Engaging events and regular check-ins help to strengthen and sustain this emergent world we are collectively building.
WOC World was created by 3 badass Blind Women Of Color, Justice Shorter, Melissa Lomax, and Conchita Hernandez Legorreta. Each of us are committed to now creating the very same communal spaces we once yearned for throughout our youth while navigating school, careers, and active social lives.
If you, or someone you know, identifies as a Blind Woman Of Color then consider joining our blossoming community!
A Homemade Theory
“We create homemade theories out of our everyday shared lives, and it really helps us to make sense of everything that we are and all that we find to love,” Aurora Levins Morales.
Multi-versed (Adjective): Primary Definition
Describes a Person of Color who deeply values the versatility gained from their connection to multiple communities. They unapologetically identify within several groups whose collective presence/power is often unappreciated or disrespected by the rest of society.
Multi-versed: Poetic Description
A Person of Color who practices the re-membrance and survivance of infinite intersectional experiences. An embodiment of power, expertise and versatility derived from centering all of their beloved identities — identities historically deemed as marginal. It conveys use of an internal compass where multiple identities co-exist at the core to guide decisions made, or directions taken, in life.
Example Sentences
- The Black Lesbian Love Gathering featured a grief circle with 4 multi-versed healers who each lovingly represented/centered multiple races, sexualities, income levels, geographic locations, genders, and disabilities.
- Jayna defined herself as multi-versed when describing the depths of her experiences living holistically as a Black Blind woman.
Purpose
Multi-versed individuals are highly skilled travelers through universes of reclaimed time, reshaped space, restored histories, reunited communities, and reimagined dreams.
Origins
Our bodies and our minds are astral archives that we actively explore each day as the embodied ephemera of entire Solar Systems. We are made of stardust, divine miracles, collective magic, and ancestral memories. It is a practice grounded in entire worlds of worthiness and galaxies of gifted generations. Direct Lineages include: Black Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory, Indigenous Research Approaches/Decolonized Methodologies, Healing Justice, Disability Justice & Afro Futurism.
Created by Justice Shorter in community and conversation with other beloved multi-versed folks.
Who is this for?
Black cis women, Black trans women, Black femme folks, Black people who are gender non-conforming and any other Black person who finds the following reflections useful.
Description
The phrase CrySis Response is an emotional embrace for all Black women. It is a swift and soft answer to unrelenting questions, racialized critiques and unrealistic social pressures. CrySis boldly affirms that it is indeed alright to cry, sis. To cry when there is joy, pain, anger, confusion, disappointment and sadness. We embody a full range of human emotions and deserve to tap into the restorative/reflective power of our tears. CrySis is thus a personal and collective care practice as we survive structurally violent and socially stigmatizing crises each day.
Practices
- Cry To Understand: Tears talk and they leave evidence in our eyes. Each tear streaked serving as a story rooted in a reason. Crying is akin to awakening. A fresh understanding of the formerly unknown. A necessary acknowledgement of the presently unavoidable. May crying gift you with lessons that lessen the load of what you carry.
- Cry To Cleanse: Water can purify. When released, the tears we carry have the capacity to cleanse. Cleanse us of toxic energies and emotional build up. May your tears, those spiritual waters of immeasurable depth, become a readily available balm. May they form rivers of inner transparency that float you toward an ever-evolving freedom.
- Cry When You Need A Portal: A CrySis Response creates an entryway for truth, transition and transformation. May your cry transport you to a place where you can explore emotions and experience personal evolutions.
- Cry As Needed: Despite our most valiant efforts, not all crises will be averted. Consequently, it is alright to cry in jubilation when we make it through difficult times. To cry in sorrow when we are called yet again to surrender something or someone we love to unfair circumstances. May you discover reassurance and relief in the act of crying. May feelings of embarressment evaporate to reveal new revelations that offer clarity and comfort. May you cry with rigor and regularity.
- Cry As You Protect Your Privacy: Our pain is not performative. We retain the right to grieve without gawkers present. A preservation of privacy can create space for sadness to exist freely. May you find and conserve enough room to cry aloud. Or, in silence. Or, in song. Or, in dance. Or, in art. Or, in exercise. Or, ______. May you have access to being alone as you wish and in community as you need.
- Cry To Survive: Loss leaves its imprint on our lives, in our bodies and across our minds. Cry to celebrate your survival. Cry to commemorate everything and everyone who didn’t survive. Cry because your tears bare witness to all you’ve been through. Cry to call into existence all that you still wish to do. May your tears provide pause and purpose. May they serve and save you.
Justice is the creator and lead coordinator of Decoding Discrimination. This two-part series gathered and shared information on how both common and coded language is used to deprioritize people of color with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout the pandemic.
In February 2020 Justice created/curated Disability Rights In Black, a daily celebration recognizing the remarkable contributions of Black disability rights advocates and attorneys. Each day featured phenomenal profiles via social media of Black advocates and attorneys who have previously influenced disability rights or who are currently making an impact in their communities. The series also highlighted Black youth who aspire to reimagine disability rights in ways reflective of their dreams for a more inclusive and intersectional future. Check out the entire series comprised of personal videos, written reflections, and penned tributes!