Be Antiracist with Ibram X. Kendi

Rebecca Cokley is one of the country’s leading voices on disability rights, and centers race in her analysis and advocacy. She is the founding director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress, and served in the Obama administration from 2009-2013.

Dr. Kendi sat down with the California native for a frank conversation on the intersections of ableism and racism in America, the historic civil rights legislation governing both, and what we can all do to advocate for a better future for people with disabilities. 

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

QUESTIONS TO INSPIRE DIALOGUE

• Rebecca Cokley borrowed the words of Talila Lewis and Dustin Gibson to define ableism as “a system that places value on people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence, and productivity.” What values and ideas about what’s “normal” and “good” do you hold that may unconsciously perpetuate ableist attitudes? And where did you learn these values?
• Dr. Kendi and Rebecca Cokley each shared stories about how disability shows up in their personal lives. How does it show up in yours? Are you or a loved one living with disability? Do you interact with the members of your community who are living with disability?
• Rebecca Cokley challenged us to acknowledge the ways in which we may have behaved in an ableist mindset, and to check our language and terminology. Have you unknowingly or knowingly used ableist language, or expressed ableist attitudes? What can you do differently going forward?
  • Communicating With and About People with Disabilities, CDC

• Rebecca Cokley outlined the ways in which disability intersects with race, economics, social class, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, education, and criminal justice in America. How do you look at the causes you already support through a disability lens? What can you add to the conversations you’re already having around these issues to amplify disability rights?
• Rebecca Cokley informed us that roughly one-third of people with COVID will have long haul symptoms that might not realize they’re not protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Do you know any COVID survivors who might be in this group? What information and support can you provide them to help them on their journey?

GUEST LINKS

• Rebecca Cokley on Medium
• Rebecca Cokley, 30 Years Later, The American Dream Is Still Not ADA-Compliant, Refinery29
• Rebecca Cokley, Reflections from an ADA Generation, TEDx
• Your Values & Disability, ft Rebecca Cokley, Center for American Progress
• Rebecca Cokley, ADA Past, Present, and Future, through the Lens of the Coronavirus, Smithsonian
• Rebecca Cokley, Together We Make A Family, CNN

FURTHER READING + RESOURCES

• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, Edited by Alice Wong
• The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me, by Keah Brown
• Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, by James I. Charlton
• Capitalism and Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell, by Marta Russell
• Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
• Crip Camp on Netflix
• How do you sign ‘Black Lives Matter’ in ASL?, LA Times
• Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, by Haben Girma
• “What Your Disabled Friends Want You To Know About 'Going Back To Normal' Post-Vaccine,” Huffington Post

ORGANIZATIONS TO SUPPORT

• Disability Visibility Network – an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture.
• American Association of People with Disabilities – a convener, connector, and catalyst for change, increasing the political and economic power of people with disabilities.
• ADA National Network – provides information, guidance and training on how to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Disability Rights Advocates – a national nonprofit disability rights legal center, geared at advancing equal rights and opportunity for people with all types of disabilities nationwide.
• National Organization on Disability – increases employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities.
• The Harriett Tubman Collective – A Collective of Black Deaf & Black Disabled organizers, community builders, activists, dreamers, lovers striving for radical inclusion and collective liberation.