i’m returning from a few days of conjuring access magic in the woods of so-called pennsylvania, so today’s issue was written early last week. if there are things you’d like to shout out, please add them in the comments.
-kevin
NEWS
Anniversary of the Welfare Reform Act
Tomorrow, August 22nd, is the 27th anniversary of President Clinton’s signing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Among other things, this legislation restricted access to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
The legacy of these policies has been profound and often disastrous for disabled people in the U.S. The signing represented Clinton’s crowning achievement in his promise to “end welfare as we know it.” Installing a monstrous ideology around “welfare-to-work,” this legislation helped cement the capacity to work as a defining feature of worthy and deserving citizens. Enduring racist and ableist fears of welfare “dependency” have created some of the major barriers to securing meaningful public support for disabled people, in large part because of this bill.
For some excellent recent reporting on the unbelievable market of for-profit welfare management companies, check out the most recent season of The Uncertain Hour about the “welfare-to-work industrial complex.” Also check out Eesha Pandit’s essay on the 20th anniversary of the law from 2016.
Disability & A.I.
If you do a Google search for “disability and AI,” you’ll find many results touting possibilities for disability inclusion from automation processes. It feels like something is missing here.
There’s AI and there’s Crip AI, as scholar Louise Hickman teaches us. (And if you can, support Louise’s Substack so we get more of this kind of thinking out into the world!) Too often, AI is figured as something agile and superhuman that is done to disabled people, instead of something that could emerge from disability-led design. And we have reports of the ways AI is being used in offensive and discriminatory ways, like the story of a child in Pittsburgh being taken from her disabled parents likely stemming from an AI tool used in the county Department of Human Services, which is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
There’s also a lot of money in the disability and AI space:
A company called Advocate recently raised $4 million in seed funding for a tool that claims it will simplify and accelerate the application and determination process for disability benefits.
A Kennedy scion and a former banker have created K. Ventures, a start-up looking to cash in on “the growing market for disability services,” whose investments so far include AI tools.
In the field of disability arts, Manuel Delgado is on a global tour to promote ways AI could increase access to art and disability artistry.
In a recent essay in The New York Times, blind author Andrew Leland lays out the tensions he’s discovering in “visual interpreting” technologies’ integration of AI, between the promises of these tools and the irreplaceable intimacy of access that emerges from personal connection:
This infinitely refreshing storehouse of information, most of it difficult if not impossible for people with visual or print disabilities to get access to, makes a universal technological solution seem like the only path forward. But in spite of technology’s well-documented power to transform the lives of people with disabilities, it cannot be the only solution.
CALLS
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine is seeking a consultant “to develop introductory disability justice educational resources for patient and provider abortion advocates, with a focus on those who provide, refer for, or have lived experience with later abortion.” More here.
EVENTS
What the Heck is Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) Federal Student Loan Discharge? – Teach-in & Community Discussion
Thursday, Aug. 24, 7 - 8:30pm ET, online
Join our panel of disabled organizers and Debt Collective members as we discuss recent changes to the Federal student loan Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge process and as we begin to explore the larger ways in which debt and disability inform our lives.
Accessible Futures
Sunday, Aug. 27, 7pm PT, in-person at Oasis (San Francisco)
Accessible Futures is a fundraiser show for SPM Disability Justice Fund, a nonprofit fiscal sponsor for disability justice work led by disabled Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color. To Make a Tax-Deductible Donation: https://donate.stripe.com/dR6bKzbzffvPfnO288. Hosted by Your Favorite Disabled Dynamic Duo: King LOTUS BOY (@kinglotusboy) & Glamputee (@glamputee). Performances by: Iman (@therealiman84), JanpiStar (@janpistar), THEMME (@themmeheals). Music by: @therealedgeslayer.
Vanessa Hernández Cruz’s Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes
Aug. 24 - 26, in-person at REDCAT (Los Angeles)
Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes, by Disabled dance artist and activist Vanessa Hernández Cruz, is a solo dance work that examines the contradiction of over-consuming social media to the point of feeling isolated and disconnected. Inspired by Cruz’s own experience with social media, screens and technology, as someone who counts on it as a way of survival like others in the Disabled community, this work ponders how technology can expand human connection, even if in today’s reality, we mostly communicate through our screens.
Superfest Virtual Disability Film Festival
Wednesday, Aug. 23, 4 - 6pm ET, online
Join the Contra Costa County Library for a virtual film festival in celebration of Disability Pride Month. For more than 30 years, Superfest has celebrated cutting-edge cinema that portrays disability through a diverse, complex, unabashed and engaging lens. The films featured are appropriate for all ages, and will feature American Sign Language interpreters and closed captioning.
Bramble Journal: Open Mic for Disabled Creatives + Disability Writes
Tuesday, Aug 22, 7pm Australian EST + Thursday, Aug. 24, 6:30pm Australian EST
Presented with Red Room and QLD Poetry, an open mic night on Zoom as part of Poetry Month 2023. Disability Writes is writing and social meeting for disabled creatives.