NEWS
COVID-19 at Year 3
It’s been 3 years since the first known cases of the novel coronavirus. Today, more than 300 people die from covid every day in the US, nearly 9 out of 10 among people 65 and older. And that staggering loss of life is still significantly reduced from the first 2 years of the pandemic.
As we enter the 4th year of the pandemic, public life is hostile to disabled people’s survival. Care is predicated on individualized proactivity: mask mandates are largely gone (maybe coming back soon in LA?), case underreporting is the norm (though a new NIH site is trying to capture at-home testing data), and ongoing contagion has caused mutations that weaken the protective measures we thought were reliable.
Ableism is at the core of why and how covid infection is imagined as a benign inconvenience. In reality, long covid is disabling millions of people in the U.S. and each new infection increases the risk of long-term effects from the disease. A majority of people with long-covid report experiencing brain fog, something that should be prompting widespread plain language protocols (like the newly established Clear Health Communication Collaborative). Instead, when we could be hope for our public officials to #FundPandemicPlans, we wait for the fateful day when the federal government will end the Public Health Emergency.
If you’re traveling this month, check out the Pandemic Travel Safety Guide created by Sick in Quarters (SiQ).
Guaranteed Income as Disaster Assistance
As new no-strings-attached cash transfer programs take off in California and Illinois, the Social Security Administration officially exempted several public Guaranteed Income pilots from SSI income determination because they qualify as disaster assistance exclusions.
This might not seem like a big deal, but it offers some hope for ways that these programs can reach disabled people and others who receive public benefits without sacrificing their access to necessary supports during and after a direct cash transfer program. When Guaranteed Income, a targeted form of Universal Basic Income, is imagined to replace other benefits, it will always send people who need help into a cliff experience. Guaranteeing income without jeopardizing benefits is an important anti-ableist commitment as this kind of organizing expands across the US.
Policing Mental Illness
The Mayor of NYC has announced that police officers will have more power to remove people living on the streets or in subways for nonconsensual psychiatric evaluation and so-called treatment. The move is part of the administration’s attempts to make mental health the cause of the city’s perceived uptick in crime - and to vastly expand the violent power of police.
Just a few weeks ago, the city’s Public Advocate released a report detailing the ways the Mayor’s administration is failing people experiencing mental health crises.
Lilumnia Alice Aster is organizing a direct action group led by psychiatric survivors. Click here for more information.
New Works
Provisional Structures by Carmen Papalia with Rebel Fayola Rose (Founder of Disability Justice Dreaming), Sharona Franklin, Catherine Frazee and Gabrielle Peters (Disability Filibuster Against Bill C-7), Heather Kai Smith, and The Curiosity Paradox is on view through April 16th at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World by Ben Mattlin is out now from Penguin Random House.
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Disability Pop is a new TikTok account from Madison Zalopany “exploring disability representation in TV, film, arts, and pop culture.”
Alexa Wang writes about the ways disability has impacted the music industry for Flux. In a different article, Ria Andriani looks at what happens to musicians who acquire or have disabilities for ABC (Australia).
Arts Access Aotearoa has announced the recipients of Ngā Toi Rangatira o Aotearoa Arts Access Fellowships 2022: Ari Kerssens, Salā Roseanne Leota, Major Herewini, and Charlotte Nightingale.
A group of social work scholars have published a call for Disability Justice in the field in the newest issue of Social Work.
Ryan Prior has joined the The Century Foundation’s Disability Economic Justice Team.
Andrew Gannon Impressions will be on view from Dec. 10th through Jan. 8th, at Fruitmarket in Edinburgh.
Performances of Ryan Haddad’s Dark Disabled Stories don’t begin until Feb. 28th at The Public Theater in NYC, but disabled and d/Deaf audience members can get a special discount code for $30 tickets: use AccessDDS when you buy tickets. Image description of Instagram post, above, by @RyanJHaddad: Text graphic on a white background with black text and a magenta paint swirl. "DARK DISABLED STORIES. Discounted tickets for disabled individuals. Use code AccessDDS for $30 tickets at publictheater.org.”
In Other News…
In the UK, menopausal people will be able to work more flexibly.
The WHO and now many national health agencies, including all U.S. federal public health agencies will adopt the mpox name. “When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO,” the organization said. “In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name.”
A private equity firm has acquired Hospice Care of America and established a holding company for investments in “advanced technology” and “operating improvements,” language that likely disguises the goal of weakening of care to maximize profit.
Railroad union organizers have put paid sick leave in the national spotlight as the federal government attempts to avoid a strike. About 33 million workers in the US - and more than 40% of the lowest paid workers - don’t have any paid sick days.
CALLS
The Center for Cultural Power is inviting Californian Artist Disruptors or Culture Bearers (artists and carriers of ancestral knowledge who weave past, present, and future stewardship of land, culture, community, and spirit), based in these zip codes, to apply for its Constellations x California Fellowship, which will provide a $120,000 full-time salary plus benefits over 18 months. Apply here by Dec. 16th.
Hyp-Access is seeking to raise $100,000 by the end of 2022 for The Hyp+ Community Care Center, a “Disability Justice, patient-run health center for people with Hypermobile conditions (Hyps) & Long Haul COVID (LHC).” Donate here.
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is accepting applications for SU-CASA, a community arts engagement program that places artists and organizations for residencies at senior centers across New York City. Apply here by Dec. 13th.
Disability Arts Online is hiring a UK-based, remote Communications Manager.
The 2024 issues of the North Carolina Literary Review will feature Disability (in) North Carolina Literature, guest edited by Dr. Casey Kayser. Submit relevant essays on and interviews with North Carolina writers by August 31, 2023, for essays about and interviews with North Carolina writers on this subject. In the meantime, send 250-word proposals/abstracts and a brief bio to her at ckayser@uark.edu by Dec. 15, 2022 to help her plan this issue.
EVENTS
Our Presence is Our Power Leadership Summit
Online. Monday, Dec. 12th, 12 – 4pm ET.
The National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (NAMD Advocates) is hosting its 2nd Annual Leadership Summit, “a one-day conference made for leaders of color who are committed to creating space for the routinely underserved.”
On Zoom. Thursday, Dec. 8th, 4 - 5pm ET.
Come hang, openly chat, chill, or listen to other disabled artists and creatives talk. Attendees are welcome to come with anything they’d like to talk about, share, ask others, or offer others in the space.
Register at link above or email morgaine, morgaine@kineticlight.org.
Dismantling the Culture of Professionalism: A conversation with Non-Profit AF's Vu Lee and Disability & Intersectionality Summit's Sandy Ho
On Zoom. Wednesday, Dec. 7th, 4pm PT.
Part of the Tiger Talks series of conversations sparked by Alice Wong’s Year of the Tiger. Hosted by The Longmore Institute at SFSU.
Pajama Party Politics: Access through solidarity
On Zoom. Thursday, Dec. 8th, 6:30pm Saskatchewan Time.
A cultural conversation with Max Ferguson and Traci
Foster on accessibility and accommodation. Presented by Listen to Dis' and the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance.
Horas Más Tranquilas Tour: "no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria" at The Whitney Museum
In-person, NYC. Saturday, Dec. 10th, 6:30 - 8:30pm ET.
A Spanish-only after hours "Horas más tranquilas" tour for Puerto Rican, Latinx and Spanish-speaking neurodivergent visitors, visitors with PTSD, on the autism spectrum and anyone else who is looking for a sensory friendly and trauma informed space.
Whitney Access and Community Intern Graciela Blandon writes, "... the systematic exclusion of Puerto Ricans from democratic voting processes and social assistance have decreased the accessibility for people with disabilities to cope with and recover from disasters. They do so in keeping with a long history of sustained protest against governments and corporations that discount disabled people. In 2019, Disability Justice activists in the Bay Area - among them the late Stacey Park Milbern - sparked a movement against PG&E power utility, whose rolling blackouts endangered dependents of ventilators, CPAP machines, electric wheelchairs, and refrigerated medications. In Puerto Rico, the monopoly LUMA holds on Puerto Rican energy contributes to a similar and worsening power outage crisis."