Disability justice is a framework that examines disability and ableism as it relates to other forms of oppression and identity. It was developed starting in 2005 by the Disability Justice Collective, a group of "Black, brown, queer and trans" people including Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Stacey Milbern, Leroy F. Moore Jr., Eli Clare, and Sebastian Margaret." In disability justice, disability is not defined in "white terms, or male terms, or straight terms." Disability justice also acknowledges that "ableism helps make racism, christian supremacy, sexism, and queer- and transphobia possible" and that all those systems of oppression are intertwined. The disability justice framework is being applied to the intersectional reexamination of a wide range of disability, human rights, and justice movements.
Origins
Initially conceived by queer, disabled women of color, Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Disability Justice was built in reaction to their exclusion from mainstream disability rights movement and disability studies discourse and activism, as well as the ableism in activist spaces. They were later joined by Leroy Moore, Eli Clare, and Sebastian Margaret. Disability justice centers "disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conformingpeople with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others." Sins Invalid, the group through which the founders were connected, defines disability justice through ten key principles: intersectionality, leadership by those most affected, anti-capitalism, solidarity across different activist causes and movements, recognizing people as whole people, sustainability, solidarity across different disabilities, interdependence, collective access, and collective liberation. The disability justice work of the Bay area activists has informed the development of the Disability Justice Initiative in Washington, D.C. On July 26th, 2018, the 28th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Center for American Progress formally announced its Disability Justice Initiative, under the direction of Rebecca Cokley. CAP is the first public policy think tank to specifically focus on disability. Recognition of the need for an intentional and intersectional approach was driven in part by attempts to cut the Affordable Care Act. In April 2019, Performance Space New York hosted a three-day festival developed around the Disability Justice framework. Performance SpaceNew York worked with the political arts group Arika, the Whitney Museum of American Art and others to bring together disabled artists and writers. Entitled I wanna be with you everywhere, the festival attempted to create an experience of “access intimacy,” in which needs were "respected, anticipated, and lovingly welcomed".
Like earlier critiques of reproductive rights by reproductive justice activists and critiques of environmentalism by environmental justice activists, the founders of the disability justice movement thought the disability rights movement and disability studies overly focused on straight white men with physical disabilities to the exclusion of others. Many in the disability justice movement were also critical of an emphasis on rights without a broader examination of systems of oppression. Writer and activist Audre Lorde is frequently referenced as inspirational to the disability justice movement, for works such as her essay “A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer,” which addresses disability, illness, and racial justice, emphasizing that “We do not live single issue lives”. Writers such as Catherine Jampel have emphasized the importance of disability justice to an intersectional reexamination of environmental justice. Writers such as Jina B. Kim draw upon disability justice and "crip-of-color" critiques in an attempt to develop an intersectional critical disability methodology which emphasizes that all lives are "enriched, enabled, and made possible" through a variety of means of support.
