Crip News v.68

Police terror, the coming end of the COVID Public Health Emergency, new works, calls, events, and more.

Feb 6, 2023

The Ableist Violence of Police Terror

Here at the start of February, Black History Month in the U.S., officially designated by each President since 1976 and refigured more recently as Black Futures Month, white supremacist ableist violence seems timeless.

We bear witness again and again to the police murders of Deaf and disabled Black people, including Tyre Nichols and Anthony Lowe, Jr. May their memories be for revolution.

The verbs that awareness/history/acceptance months produce - we “honor,” we “highlight, we “reflect on” - seem vague and empty compared to the material, bodily harm that ableism creates. The time of life is being stolen from BIPOC disabled people under the cover of our complacency.

NEWS

After the Public Health Emergency

There is no “after” COVID-19. But come May 11, 2023, the U.S. will officially end the “public health emergency” (PHE) that has been in effect since January 31, 2020.

This will have wide-reaching effects, especially for people who use Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and other forms of public support. It will end Title 42, the Trump-era order that has rapidly expelled millions of people seeking entry to the U.S.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has issued a brief on the implications for healthcare coverage, costs, and access. Justice in Aging has also published a guide for advocates on protecting those who use Medicaid.

The many “unwindings” that are being planned around the May 11th deadline will pull resources away from plans to address long COVID, the growing stratification in access to ventilation, and massive fraud in public emergency initiatives.

Tell your electeds: Maintain the healthcare we need.

In Other News…

Australia’s new $286 million funding plan, the Revive Initiative, includes a plan to “enable people with disability to access and participate fully in the cultural and creative life of Australia” through 2031. The Australia Council’s new $9.5 million funding package also includes support for several disability arts initiatives.
3 schools in Florida sold over 7,600 fake nursing diplomas to people seeking licenses in healthcare settings across the U.S.

"Listen: How Evelyn Glennie, a Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion" and "The Words We Keep" are among the winners of this year's Schneider Family Book Awards. (Penguin Random House)

The American Library Association announced the winners of its Schneider Family Book Awards for excellence in disability representation.
A coalition of disability organizers have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the rollout of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to compel treatment for people with so-called “severe mental illness.”
24 articles have been retracted from academic journals for undisclosed conflicts of interest related to Johnny Matson’s diagnostic tools. And novel diagnostic techniques, like those being rolled out by tech startups, can do more harm than good, says Eric Garcia for MSNBC.
Meanwhile, algorithms design our “data doubles” that inform the tailored diagnostic advertisements social media users encounter on their “for you” pages.
NYC will spend $38 million to hire attorneys to field a mountain of legal challenges about access to education from families with disabled students.
In Ireland, disabled children are waiting years for vital services.
The maker of Humira, an anti-inflammatory medication, gamed the patent system and made $114 billion while people who need the drug delay their retirement to try to afford it.

New Works

A red background with black and orange text, a book cover. Healing Justice Lineages by Cara Page and Erica Woodland

Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety By Cara Page & Erica Woodland is out this week from Penguin Randomhouse. Check out a launch event with the Health Justice Commons this Wednesday.
Never Seen, a documentary by Nimco Hersi & Naima Abdullahi follows Heri’s experience as a Black Deaf woman in Dutch society.
Language of Care is a short film about “how a community of Deaf patients are breaking barriers by co-designing their own care with University of Utah Health researchers.”

Visual Description: A two-panel photographic set. On the left, a color photograph of sand, water, and cloudy sky, with bits of land on the horizon, and a person standing on the sand, wrapped up in a blue tarp that is blowing in the wind. On the right, a black and white photo of snow-covered land, water with a pier on the left side, and a gray sky. A small wave crests on the water, and snowflakes dot the background and foreground of the photo.

Atlas: Skin/Bone/Blood: Body Maps in Brown And Black is the newest issue of Apogee. Edited by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, it features work by KT Pe Bonito, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Gisselle Yepes, Carlos Egaña, Sandra Ruiz, Isa Guzman, Naomi Ortiz, Diannely Antigua, Ren Koppel Torres, Aurora Levins Morales, and Gaby Benitez.
Perforated Tympani opens at Aguirre in Mexico City this week. It features work by Joseph Grigely and Juan Antonio Olivares, including archival records of Grigely’s wooden membranes - or trees’ eardrums? - made between 1988 and 1991.
The Irregular Art School is open at the University of Leeds. It features artists from Pyramid, an inclusive art collective, with students, care professionals and academics who have been exploring “new methods and collaborations to better support the professional development of learning disabled artists.”

A blue, grey, and white abstract work, like drips that are pulled upward and horizontal glitchy strips.

Inside - Out at the Xela Institute of Art in Long Beach, CA features work by disabled artist Katherine Sherwood and her student from over 30 years ago, Cynthia Ona Innis.

CALLS

Emerge is a July 2023 hybrid Disability Studies workshop for disabled activists, artists, cultural producers, filmmakers, and academics at the Longmore Institute at San Francisco State University. Applications are due Feb. 28th at 5pm PT.
Auditions for Sensorium Ex, “an opera for soloists, choir, chamber orchestra and electronics - exploring the nature of voice beyond language, what it means to be truly human, and how we find our sense of voice through our relationships with family, community and culture.” More info here.

EVENTS

Introduction to Disability Justice 101

Saturday, Feb. 25th, 4 - 5:30pm ET, on Zoom, Free

Co-led by Kayla Hamilton and India Harville. Participants will explore the ten principles of Disability Justice, coined by Sins Invalid, through conversation and movement invitations. We will use these principles to deepen our connection, relationships and acceptance of every. Body.

Yellow and Black text on a colorful background reads “Care Front Chicago - We are a group of disabled people, care workers, & people interested in learning about care, organizing around care, & sharing support, skills, & resources around care. Join us for our 1st public meeting Saturday, February 18th 3pm - 4:30pm CT via zoom. Monthly virtual public meetings to follow. Please reach out to carefrontchicago@gmail.com for accessibility requests. All are welcome for learning & support, though all organizing is Chicago-based. Register at tinyurl.com/carefrontchicago”

Care Front Chicago First Public Meeting

Saturday, Feb. 18th, 3 – 4:30pm CT, online.

We are a group of disabled people, care workers, and people interested in learning about care, sharing support, skills, and resources around care, and organizing around care. Join us for our first public meeting! Monthly virtual meetings to follow. Meetings are open to the public.

A peach to lavender gradient background featuring an illustration of a zoom call with multi-racial, multi-gender, disabled & chronically ill movement folks. Title is “Save the Date for Community Care Clinics For Disabled & Chronically Ill Movement Folks”. Text underneath title is the dates and times for the upcoming events (listed below) with link to register “bit.ly/PH-CCC”

Community Care Clinic for Disabled and Chronically Ill Movement Folks

Tuesday, Feb. 7th, 3 - 4:30pm ET, on Zoom

An offering from Peoples Hub: An ongoing community care peer support space aimed at expanding possibilities around how we live and work as disabled and chronically ill people.

The New Disability Media

Friday, Feb. 10th, 1pm ET, on Zoom

Film Quarterly explores new directions in disability film and media in a two-part webinar discussing its special dossier "The New Disability Media" (Winter 2022) co-presented with NYU’s Center for Disability Studies and Center for Media, Culture & History. On February 10th and February 24th at 1pm ET, dossier co-editors B. Ruby Rich (Film Quarterly), Faye Ginsburg (NYU) and Lawrence Carter-Long (DisArt) will moderate conversations with the dossier's scholars and filmmakers on exciting developments in disability film and media: Neta Alexander (Colgate University), Mara Mills (New York University), Pooja Rangan (Amherst College), Reid Davenport (filmmaker, I Didn’t See You There), and Jordan Lord (filmmaker, Shared Resources).