Social Justice

Hey everyone! Thanks for a really great semester. I've linked my joint final with Sarah here. If you have any issues accessing the document let me know. Happy reading!

TL;DR: The pandemic has demanded new ways for everyone to access the world. Some of these forms were more accessible for disabled people than the pre-pandemic world. Can we keep what we have gained in an ableist society that wants to return to "normal"?

Some of my thoughts over the course of the semester have led me to discover the right-to-repair movement. Organized from mostly farmers who could not repair their equipment without paying companies like John Deere to repair it for them, putting them in an unfair power dynamic with a machine that is necessary to their liveliehood and that they own. Recent platforming of the issue has allowed for a multiplicity of right-to-repair coalitions in support of the rights to repair medical equipment, electronics, industrial equipment, and manufacturing apparatuses, inducing an impetus for the intersection of disability advocacy into the movement.

I went from having almost no knowledge of disability studies before taking this class, and now I feel as though I cannot unsee the intersections at every turn in my academic and personal life. I don’t exaggerate when I say this; I am familiar with disability but have never had the language to explain, describe, or enunciate what I have experienced. Repeating many others, the current public lexicon is woefully equipped to address the diversity of human experiences, especially when it manifests itself as disability. Taking this class and holding on to several questions important to me throughout the semester has led to my understanding of disability being expanded upon in many ways.

The link to the Google Document is here, and it includes the advertisement as well as footnotes for news I reference. LINK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13REpUzKXYEtbeorUTWry4vmBiiVVR_t77Spy6GqCud0/edit?usp=sharing 

Hi all! Here's my final paper, which explores the links between capitalism and ableism in the American workplace:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lpbeKZXpjQpUbvcAflyBYuhOFNSokNO1OzQJ7dINF-I/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you all for a great semester! 

We were always taught that deafness is a loss/lack of hearing ability, that it is an unfortunate reality, but what if it is the other way around? What if it is a gift, what if deaf people are luckier than us as they have received access to a dimension of living and communicating that we would have never discovered as hearing people? We should learn from those we used to perceive as ‘lacking’ and reflect on why our ways of perceiving the world are considered the norm. 

(Open image in the attachments, then read the text) - image description is in the section down below

Death. Incarceration. Invisibility. Erasure. Undesirability. Helplessness. Capitalism. Institutionalization.

Has it really not changed at all?

Are we stuck in a vicious circle forever?

How do we break free?

Institutionalization. Capitalism. Helplessness. Undesirability. Erasure. Invisibility. Incarceration. Death.

Yeah, don’t be hungry. Have some crayon.

A few years ago, I was eating lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, a local Vietnamese-Thai place called Pho Thai Nam. As our waiter brought over our glasses of water and other table’s drinks, something in the cups caught my attention. Each one had a plastic straw placed in it with a little piece of the paper wrapping covering each top. My dad immediately took his straw out, telling me that he wished they had asked if he wanted one since it just got in the way as he drank anyway. I knew that I did not need one either. Knowing how much plastic ends up in our oceans, I felt guilty wasting a straw.