Circles USA salutes Disability Pride Month, a campaign launched to commemorate the original passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July 1990. As organizations like AmeriDisability have noted, Disability Pride Month honors “the largest and most diverse minority group within the population, representing all abilities, ages, races, ethnicities, religions and socio-economic backgrounds.” Further, “[b]ecause at least 1-in-4 adults in the United States has some type of disability, it’s no surprise that a movement of ‘disability pride’ is emerging and rapidly expanding.” [Source]
Since its inception 25+ years ago, Circles has focused care at the intersection of disability justice and economic justice. CUSA affirms that people everywhere, at every physical and mental capacity, deserve dignity, community, and the chance to move from surviving to thriving. In this second of a two-part series, we’ll explore more areas of overlap among disability, poverty, and other social factors; we’ll also provide media and resources to grow Circles chapters’ capacity to collaborate with our local disability communities.
Ableism, Poverty and Big View “Systems Transformation”
In their online resource How To Be Anti-Ableist And Promote Disability Inclusion, the Everyday Activism Network (EAN) cites disability activist Leah Smith. Smith defines ableism as:
…a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other. Ableism is intertwined in our culture, due to many limiting beliefs about what disability does or does not mean, how able-bodied people learn to treat people with disabilities and how we are often not included at the table for key decisions. [Source]
Circle Leaders seek self-determination in our chapters because people experiencing poverty know how it feels to be denied agency and opportunity in shaping their own lives. Poverty causes disability (and vice versa); so the harm Smith describes, ableism, is often compounded by classism: negative stereotypes of lower-income people as a group who should be denied social and economic access. Like the classist and racist narratives often aimed at support recipients (e.g., “How are ‘they’ spending those benefits?”, pp. 6-7), EAN reminds us, “Ableism is intrusive… [F]or example, believing you have the right to ask how a person became disabled or not believing that a person with an invisible disability is actually disabled. Ableism is condescending; for example, assuming that disabled people are less capable or that their ability to do typical things is inspirational.”
Furthermore, the report tells us, ableism is both physical and exclusionary. EAN describes the U.S. as a hostile environment for people with disabilities of every kind, citing high incidences of:
buildings without ramps
lack of braille on signs
absence of sensory-friendly lighting
lack of closed captioning, or planning an event at an inaccessible venue
Social capital, loosely defined as valuable networks of human connection, is hard to build in environments designed to separate vulnerable people from community care and needed resources. This is why each Circles chapter—in order to advance systemic change at the local, regional, and national levels—has a Resource Team called the Big View Team. It includes community members representing local government, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and businesses and Circle Leaders who bring perspective to the team. The Big View Team tackles issues such as affordable housing, childcare, transportation, healthcare, financial literacy, quality jobs, and the issue of the Cliff Effect — when rising income cuts off benefits before people can afford the services. [Source]
Disability justice falls squarely within this matrix of issues CUSA Big View Teams address, bringing to bear many tools such as community organizing, civic engagement, and meeting with public officials to advocate for systems-level policy change. And, as we tackle pressing problems that impact people with disabilities on the large scale via the Big View, our chapters practice community care with empathy from day to day, week to week, at meetings, dinners, and public gatherings.
The Everyday Activism Network recommends these steps to promote disability inclusion:
Identify and eliminate barriers
Make it safe to disclose disability
Implement inclusive laws, policies, and practices
Honor “Nothing about us without us”
Make disability inclusion intersectional
[Read more practices and strategies in alignment with disability inclusion at Everyday Activism Network.]
Connecting the Threads: Disability, Policy Platform Issues & Beyond
The National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF) released a study in 2023 entitled Systems Transformation Guide to Disability Economic Justice: Food Insecurity, Housing and Transportation. Its authors hold that the intersections of disability and gender justice “have long been ignored in framing economic policy.” Ultimately, they find,
…ableism, racism, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, sexism, colonialism, imperialism and other forms of eugenic thinking have motivated policies that form the very basis of the United States economy. The nation’s economic system was not designed to allow disabled women, particularly disabled women of color, to survive and secure basic needs, let alone to thrive […] With systemic transformations, it is possible to reimagine food, housing and transit to work toward greater economic equity for disabled women. Removing these existing barriers is just one of many paths toward achieving economic security for disabled women.
Circles USA affirms NPWF’s belief that “[e]nsuring that disabled people, particularly disabled women and their families, receive the foods they need to meet their dietary and nutritional needs is critical for the health and safety of every community.” We’ve also witnessed, in chapters across the nation, the truth of their findings on core CUSA issues like housing affordability and transportation access at the intersection of disability, poverty, race, and gender. “Beyond the housing affordability crisis,” NPWF writes, “there is an even greater shortage of affordable housing that is also accessible[…]”:
Even when disabled women receive a housing choice voucher, they may face additional barriers. Disability discrimination is the most common form of housing discrimination, making up about 54 percent of complaints processed by state, local and federal government agencies combined in 2021[…] For disabled women, and disabled women of color in particular, the lack of reliable, accessible transportation poses a number of concerns. Accessibility takes into account factors such as user friendliness, cost and physical accessibility, among others. [Source]
In her March salute to Women’s History Month, Board Member Joan Kuriansky invited us to consider the many backgrounds, identities, and economic realities of extraordinary women in our country. Social attitudes toward mental and physical ability, too, impact the life prospects of women everywhere. CUSA recognizes that—until we are able to build consistent and sustainable job, housing, transportation and other pathways for all people in the disability community—many such extraordinary women may never have the resources to realize their full potential.
FOR FURTHER READING:
Systems Transformation Guide to Economic Justice for Disabled People: Jobs and Employment – National Partnership for Women & Families
Disability Lead: A network of people with disabilities who use their power to create an equitable and inclusive society.
Lives Transformed Volume 2: Covid-19 Stories: Circle Leaders share intimate memories of their journeys from surviving to thriving during a mass-disabling pandemic
Lives Transformed: Education and Self-Confidence | April’s Story | Circles USA: April, a young mother with a learning disability, discusses how Circles connected her with Allies that helped her access the self-confidence and support she needed to pursue a career as a paraeducator.
During Disability Pride Month and every month, Circles USA is committed to our mission of building community to end poverty through intentional friendships, personal transformation, and systemic change led by the people closest to the challenge. If you found this post useful, read Pt. 1 here.
Click the Give to Circles button and help us celebrate 25+ years of extraordinary volunteers building community to end poverty!