Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post. I attempt to provide extra warnings for certain material present in articles, but your triggers/issues may vary.

Cripchick: wanting to live a disability justice lifestyle

i am thinking constantly about the contradiction and the space between wanting to live a disability justice lifestyle — desperately wanting to dismantle capitalist rules of productivity that leave out many of us and force us to give up our bodies and our labor for nothing that frees our communities— but also finding my life very rooted in a disability rights assimilationist model— i can do anything this other person can do, just need the right accomodations, just need more opportunities/laws/connections, just need to work harder…

WHEELIE cATHOLIC: It has nothing to do with disability

So-called solutions that keep the experience of being disabled segregated and “special” often fail. They don’t take into account that the ultimate solution is for the experience of being disabled to be recognized as a valid and equal state of being with the same rights and privileges as being nondisabled. Moreover, as we are seeing in the current economy, programs that are considered “special” are often the first to be cut in a budget crisis. Solutions that are grounded in charity also fail since relying on the kindness of strangers tends to keep people stuck with unpredictable results for what are very real needs.

Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction: Tools of the trade [NSFW warning] – on viewing various things used to relieve sexual dysfunction as assistive devices.

lisa at Sociological Images: Lady Gaga’s Disability Project

So, what do you think? Do you think Gaga is trying to make some kind of statement? Or is she just trying to be edgy and doesn’t really care about the issue? (As seems to be common in fashion.)

Racialicious: Quoted: The RZA on Metaphors for the Black Man in America, and its comment thread. [***WARNING: ableism in post and this pull-quote]

When I first saw Night of the Living Dead, I was scared to death. But when I watched it again at age sixteen (when they were up to Day of the Dead), I’d gotten knowledge of myself, and could relate to what it was saying about America. The dead were alive, but they were blind, deaf, and dumb. So to me, they were symbolic of black men in America.

The dead in those movies are alive – that’s just a description of physical matter, it’s active – but they don’t have life. Life comes when you have knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, when you can see for real, touch and feel for real, know for real. Then you are truly living.

Lois Watson at stuff.co.nz: Disabled TV heroine dies

In 1996 more than 600,000 people tuned in to watch the documentary Shelly has a Baby, which showed how [Michelle] Belesarius, who weighed just 27.5kg, fought against the odds and medical advice to have a healthy baby girl, Michela.

China Daily: Disabled court reeks of unethical laziness

I went to a court hearing last week in Beijing to hear the case of a person with disabilities.

The 32-year-old man with speaking and hearing impairments was from a village in Hebei province. He was accused of stealing two pairs of trousers and some cash from a mall. However, I realized that this case was unbalanced.

First was the unprofessional interpreter.