The Need to Root Disability in the Movements

Sarah Jama

Conversations around disability in public spaces are often limited to that of ensuring a makeshift ramp was created. The dangers of a focus on access that isn’t grounded in the idea of liberation or a critique of power is that it quickly turns into a focus of ensuring people with disabilities have the ability to execute purchasing power or become an economic benefit to society. 

These erasures of people with disabilities or the stipulations on productivity are no mistake and are rooted in a history in Canada steeped in ableism and colonialism. We know that slavery and white supremacy were founded upon the physical imprisonment of Black people, sa well as psychological warfare. Throughout history Black people continued to be told that we were mentally inferior, language used as justification of slavery and language that led to the development of eugenic practices against people with disabilities. 

We will not see liberation from the systems that oppress us in this country unless we shift our movement to also focus on the protection and liberation of disabled people. I say this because people with disabilities fit every race, religion, geographic location, and LGBTQ+ spectrum. Disabled people are thus the antithesis to the capitalist system.

Illustrations by me; inspired by Niceshit Studio.

Click here for animated cover.