Care Work, Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
File Under: How To
Having validation that more than half of this nation’s voting citizens are able to scrap human rights in favor of… what was it again? a previous greatness? my queer community has been grieving, strategizing, and scrambling to fill gaps they anticipate encountering posthaste and perhaps with little/no additional warning. These actions have looked like gathering together and comforting our hearts, updating identity documents, rewriting wills, and securing surplus HRT. It also means researching creative ways forward that do not rely on the US’s systems that have expanded accommodation to queer folks in recent years but are now promised to slam shut.
While I do hope that what has been promised can not not be executed, I am also pragmatic. A friend of mine always quotes Louis Pasteur, “Serendipity favors a prepared mind.” In preparing my mind, I turned to some old favorites on my bookshelf, namely my small collection of writing from the recent wave of Disability Justice warriors. Today I offer you the recommendation to connect with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Care Work, Dreaming Disability Justice.
As a queer, brown, disabled femme, the author is an expert in navigating systems designed for other people. Building and/or growing networks of community care that will provide for us and our loves takes more than wanting them. We need to build specific skills and increase emotional capacities in order to be the proficient community caregivers we know we can be. We need to know the difference between charity and solidarity. We need to accept there are no extra humans. Orienting the collective isn’t going to be quick or easy, but now is a good time to get started. If you’ve already begun, now is the time to fortify, strengthen, and expand your practices. Invite a friend. Remember small actions matter.
Piepzna-Samarasinha’s thought-provoking work can help us to excavate any rugged (toxic) individualism we may have adopted, and rebuild our brains with collective care in mind.
For anyone who finds resonance in these words or is in need of inspiration or suggestions of how to scale the wall forming in front of you, take heart, there are many ways forward. The same friend who quoted Louis Pasteur also said “There’s nothing that can’t be done.” Remember, none of us gets out alive. How we spend our time here is up to us. And pleasure matters. For everyone.
