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Writer's pictureDisability Justice Network of Ontario
May 12, 20203 min read

DROP IN EVENT SERIES: (Friday) Friends Rocking the Intersection of Disability and Youth

By: Constanza and Matt (YAC)



Hi!


Are you a young person 25 and under living with a disability? If so, we invite you to keep reading because this post is for you!


If you are a youth living with a disability chances are a lot of your experiences have been anything but typical. And you may or may not identify as having a disability. So first, a note on what disability is.


For reasons that go beyond the scope of this post, societies have gone to great lengths to define and reinforce what “normal” bodies and minds are. Anyone that is different then falls in the “disabled” category. As disability justice organizer Mia Mingus puts it, “people usually think of disability as an individual flaw or problem, rather than as something partly created by the world we live in”. Navigating a disability is not easy but you don’t have to do it alone. There is an armour we sometimes must wear to survive in the “real” world, but that takes a toll. I cannot begin to tell you what a difference it makes when you enter a space where you can take that armour off. Where you are free to be. Free to come as you are. Free to be a full, dynamic, and complex human in an eqully dynamic and complex world.

Here at the YAC we spend a lot (A LOT) of time challenging the ways in which the world disables people. As a social justice organizer, I would lie to you if I said this entirely unique to our group ( there are lots of amazing social movements, groups, and organizations). What I can tell you, is that our group has gone where few have. We have learned to care for one another. We have cultivated connections. We get through hard times together and we celebrate each other. We communicate, learn and grow together. This is the sort of community we have created in DJNO’s Youth Action Council, and we would like to share it with you.


This is why we started our FRIDAY series - Friends Rocking the Intersection of Disability and Youth. Got to love a long acronym you will probably forget. And that is okay! Just remember that every Friday we will be co-creating a safe space with you at 5:00 pm EDT. Our series is intended to be a reflection of our youth collective. Some sessions will be light and fun and others will be deep and heavy. All we ask is that you come with an open heart and mind and be respectful of the space.


So what’s next? Well, while we are still in the apocalypse, all sessions will happen online, which means there will be some logistics to go over. You can find that information in the Q/A section below. This month, we will get things started by holding a screening of Crip Camp in collaboration with MSU Maccess. This will be open to anyone and it’s a great chance to get to know us and this series better as well.


The following Friday we officially start! We have a meet & greet (with a special guest!), games night ( there will be prizes!), and a radical mental health workshop + check in lined up. We will brainstorm future activities with you! By becoming a part of FRIDAY you also have the opportunity to be added to our super awesome and private Group Chat.


We are excited to meet you and connect with you - Friday at Five for our FRIDAY series:










FAQ


Who is this open to?

Youth under 25 who identify as having a disability


What about accessibility needs?

You can let us know when you register or email us and we can set up a time to talk about your accessibility needs by email youthcouncil@djno.ca


Who is creating the programming, coordinating, and facilitating?

Stay tuned for a short blog post series introducing the core FRIDAY team from YAC. Special guests will be introduced before each session.


Where do I find out more/ sign up?

For the movie + discussion event (open to all)



For the FRIDAY series:



What do I need to participate?

You will need a computer, tablet, or smartphone and internet connection. We recommend you download the video conferencing platform Zoom in advance.


Do I have to stay the whole time?

  • Nope! Stay for as long as you want. You can come to one or all of the sessions. It is entirely up to you.


What do we expect from you?

  • Treat others with respect, dignity and kindness.

  • We have no tolerance for acts of discrimination, harassment, or violence.

  • No racism, sexism, transphobia, classism, ableism, or bigotry of any kind.


If I have a question where can I get in touch?



Writer's pictureDisability Justice Network of Ontario
May 5, 20204 min read

Principles of Care-Mongering HamOnt: Updated May 5th 2020

Updated: May 7, 2020


Image says Mutual Aid is an Act of Love written across a pink ribbon. There are 4 hands holding it. Image is taken from https://chuffed.org/project/coast-to-cascades-covid-19-mutual-aid
Image says Mutual Aid is an Act of Love written across a pink ribbon. There are 4 hands holding it. Image is taken from https://chuffed.org/project/coast-to-cascades-covid-19-mutual-aid

NOTE: We hosted a live-streamed conversation on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to discuss these principles on Wednesday May 6 2020 at 6 PM. To view the recorded live-stream, you may visit: https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_4FgXPglP8/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet The video is not yet captioned, but will be as soon as possible.


1. We Keep Us Safe

CareMongering is built around the idea that we, as a community, look out for each other. When harm is caused by a member or members of the group, that harm is felt across the community and shakes its foundation. Group members should not call the police or Children’s Aid Services (CAS) on another member of the group.


1. a) Don’t call the cops:

Police and prisons function through racism. They criminalize Black and Indigenous communities, and endanger racialized, disabled, unhoused, and low income families. Calling the police and Childrens’ Aid Services (CAS) endangers people more than it keeps us safe: we can take alternate courses of action to respond to harm.


CAS causes pain and distress to families. They work with police and within a similar framework of disrupting communities through taking predominantly Black and Indigneous children from their homes and families. Despite making up only 4.1% of the population in Ontario under age 15, Indigenous children represent approximately 30% of foster children. http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/interrupted-childhoods


Things to do instead of calling the cops -


1. b) Prisons destroy community, community keeps us safe:

Prisons socially isolate people from healing and community. They tear apart families, stigmatize individuals and their families, economically strain the incarcerated and their families/ communities. This is true before, during, and after incarceration.


1. c) Dismantle, divest, defund, disarm: committing to prison abolition and the call to #FreeThemAll.

Abolition is the movement to eliminate prisons and police. Prison abolition requires that we build stronger communities and meet people’s needs. If they can’t be met, we build a reality where they can.


Especially at this present moment, we support the call to release all prisoners. Every prison sentence in close quarters, with access to protective/sanitary equipment and adequate health care, becomes a death sentence under COVID-19. Formerly incarcerated people have nowhere to go and lack community support / resources.


Care-Mongering can be part of the process towards prioritizing healing over punishment. We can take an approach to justice that centers the needs of those who are harmed while also fundamentally working towards repairing the harm that has been caused. This is done through addressing root causes of violence and harm through a process of healing rather than punishment. We recognize that harmful situations have happened and will happen: we need to learn together how to respond. Not being open to learning together defeats the purpose of why this group is here.

2. CareMongering goes beyond COVID-19

CareMongering is a part of a greater push towards justice.


Racism: where Indigenous, Black and racialized people face oppression and are abused under the system of capitalism

Ableism: where people with disabilities face oppression and are only valued based on their ability to work

Carceral systems: violent institutions and systems that are built upon and profit from the criminalization, aggression, and killing of Black, Indigenous, and racialized people.


2. a) CareMongering is rooted in disability justice.

Disability justice is the activism and work of queer/trans Black and racialized disabled people. It’s goal is to create a world where everyone can exist freely, and where nobody is left behind. We lean on each other and depend on the insight of our community to exist.




2. b) State institutions intentionally fail us. We build up mutual aid from within our communities to address our needs, by us and for us.

Too often, we are told to focus on ourselves when we move through this world. COVID-19 shows us that at the end of the day, we only have each other, and we need each other. We take care of our community better than the government/institutions that claim to help us. The State continues to fail housed and unhoused people. The City was ticketing unhoused people instead and hasn’t opened up the buildings they evicted tenants from during the LRT. The government has failed renters in a global public health crisis that is also in the middle of rising housing costs, where many have not and continue to not be able to afford rent.



2. c) We help each other to survive because we need each other to survive.

Care-Mongering is a matter of survival pending revolution. The revolution we build towards is a world and society where people are cared for and are prioritized over profit; a world where life and land are not only valued for what can be taken from them - in other words, a world without capitalism.


Before, during, and after COVID-19, issues like poverty, racism and ableism, all exist. Mutual aid is necessary to survive and overcome these systems.


3. Community and the Collective, Not Individuals


3. a) The aim of CareMongering is to build community.

In offering to help someone or asking someone for help, members of the group are not only exchanging ideas, goods, skills, and/or services but creating the potential for trust and care between them. We are building relationships, not just providing a service.


3. b) There is nothing wrong with people who are in need. There is everything wrong with systems which put people in need.

Needing help or support is not a reflection of our worth. We are not all in the same place in life and we can help each other survive, wherever we’re at and whoever we are.


It is no one’s place to determine who may or may not need support. Everyone is deserving of care and it is not our (or anyone else in the group’s) place to judge how people spend their money, or what is deemed a luxury versus a necessity. In order to build relationships in this group it is necessary that we have trust and patience with one another, in part by not criticizing or monitoring other members of the group.



Further resources:


Barton Solidarity Project (link)

Instead of prisons; a handbook for abolitionists

Angela Y. Davis - Are Prisons Obsolete?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore - Golden Gulag

On history of the RCMP:

Prison & COVID-19:


Writer's pictureDisability Justice Network of Ontario
May 1, 20201 min read

Happy International Workers' Day from the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO)


Image description: Picture says "May Day", written in red text over white background. Below the text there are black outlines of people in a crowd with their fists in the air, at what looks like a rally.
Image description: Picture says "May Day", written in red text over white background. Below the text there are black outlines of people in a crowd with their fists in the air, at what looks like a rally.

On behalf of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario, we would like to wish all of our comrades in struggle a happy International Workers' Day or "May Day".

International Workers' Day is a celebration of the working class that is promoted by the International Labour Movement which occurs every year on May 1st. The date was chosen by a pan-national organization of socialist and communist political parties to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4 May 1886, the date of the legal establishment of the eight-hour work day, and other demands of the proletariat.


The continued fight for workers' rights cannot be separated from the working class struggle of people with disabilities.


As the late Hellen Keller, deafblind socialist and organizer theorized: "First of all, we must organize. We must make ourselves so aggressive a political factor that our natural protectors can no longer deny us a voice in directing and shaping the laws under which we must live"

Happy May Day!

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