Thank you for this. I’d be grateful if you could share some thoughts about doing organizing work with and for people who live with illness that can sometimes preclude their presence in public spaces. I wonder how ACT UP structured organizing and labor around disability as the AIDS crisis progressed. As we have lived through a pandemic and mass disabling event, there is huge, mostly unacknowledged wreckage in the wake. I have community that is immunocompromised from long covid and unable to get their bodies to protests and actions, but whose interests are more at stake than ever. So I’m just curious to think this through with a lens from past movements.
Sure. I do remember the group learning that the police would confiscate people’s meds in jail saying they were “drugs” and that this endangered HIV positive folks. This still happens. So we came to decisions about actions that might involve other kinds of interventions that didn’t include the possibility of arrest. But I’ll ask some people for their advice.
There is much to learn in the disability community from Alice Wong, from the movie "Crip Camp", particularly in the movement to write and then get the ADA passed. There's an amazing organization called Little Lobbyists who has done good work in Washington, and Paige Figi of Project Access is also a source of strength. I know that these people and groups are intent on protecting the most vulnerable -- but such a great question for those who are incapacitated, who want to help, but how. I look forward to Alexander's response!
So much to think about in this post, loved this bit. "This sentence from the draft post caught my attention and stayed with me.
Jorge and I reminisced a bit about memorizing sound bites for when we got arrested at protests, so that we could shout them at the cameras if reporters showed up while the police dragged us away.
When I reached out to Jorge to confirm this, he told me it was a standard ACT UP media committee procedure back then. And I can see at this distance it was a way of turning any arrest into a press conference, basically. As activists, you might not get attendance from journalists at a press conference but you might get journalists at an action. "
Made me think that as ordinary people we perhaps have more power to shape the narrative around us by being focused and active rather than responding to what comes at us. The results of the US election made me feel sick to my stomach, but we have to get up and act up again. From Cape Town, South Africa
Wow, this took me back to SF and the vitality and creativity that marked so many actions. Thank you for the reminder to have the sound bites locked and loaded ready for delivery!
Thank you for this. I’d be grateful if you could share some thoughts about doing organizing work with and for people who live with illness that can sometimes preclude their presence in public spaces. I wonder how ACT UP structured organizing and labor around disability as the AIDS crisis progressed. As we have lived through a pandemic and mass disabling event, there is huge, mostly unacknowledged wreckage in the wake. I have community that is immunocompromised from long covid and unable to get their bodies to protests and actions, but whose interests are more at stake than ever. So I’m just curious to think this through with a lens from past movements.
Sure. I do remember the group learning that the police would confiscate people’s meds in jail saying they were “drugs” and that this endangered HIV positive folks. This still happens. So we came to decisions about actions that might involve other kinds of interventions that didn’t include the possibility of arrest. But I’ll ask some people for their advice.
There is much to learn in the disability community from Alice Wong, from the movie "Crip Camp", particularly in the movement to write and then get the ADA passed. There's an amazing organization called Little Lobbyists who has done good work in Washington, and Paige Figi of Project Access is also a source of strength. I know that these people and groups are intent on protecting the most vulnerable -- but such a great question for those who are incapacitated, who want to help, but how. I look forward to Alexander's response!
So much to think about in this post, loved this bit. "This sentence from the draft post caught my attention and stayed with me.
Jorge and I reminisced a bit about memorizing sound bites for when we got arrested at protests, so that we could shout them at the cameras if reporters showed up while the police dragged us away.
When I reached out to Jorge to confirm this, he told me it was a standard ACT UP media committee procedure back then. And I can see at this distance it was a way of turning any arrest into a press conference, basically. As activists, you might not get attendance from journalists at a press conference but you might get journalists at an action. "
Made me think that as ordinary people we perhaps have more power to shape the narrative around us by being focused and active rather than responding to what comes at us. The results of the US election made me feel sick to my stomach, but we have to get up and act up again. From Cape Town, South Africa
Excellent info! Prying we get it together, Planning, Preparedness and Action.
I keep coming back to this ❤️🔥
💖
Fantastic list. Thank you.
Wow, this took me back to SF and the vitality and creativity that marked so many actions. Thank you for the reminder to have the sound bites locked and loaded ready for delivery!
Thanks Nancy. It was a time.
Thank you for this.
Excellent list
Thanks for sharing this Alexander. xo