A radical community discussion of strategies in mental health organizing and support hosted by Jacks Ashley McNamara and Sascha Altman DuBrul from the Icarus Project.

At Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street New York, NY

“It is so simply true, what disability justice is saying to social justice: a sustainable movement doesn’t leave any bodies or minds out. A sustainable movement doesn’t involve anyone destroying their body or pretending their body, or mind, is something other than w...hat it is.” – Editors, Make/Shift Magazine Winter 2010

How do we create a world where we can all show up, exactly as we are, with our suffering and our challenges, while also recognizing our potential for healing, recovery, and transformation? How does the language we use to frame our struggles have the potential to create opportunities for solidarity and connection, or further isolate and disempower us? Come join us in an exploration of the complex terrain between mad pride and disability justice. Let’s acknowledge our allies and elders, connect to the brave work being done right now, and consider how to contribute to building movements at the intersection of disability and radical mental health. Come hear about, share examples, and dream up visions of communities coming together in solidarity to care for every body and mind.

Let’s talk about the hard stuff:
• What does it mean to be survivors of trauma and oppression who struggle with disabling consequences, but don’t define ourselves as fundamentally broken? How do the intersections of race, class, and gender complicate and contribute to experiences of disability?
• How do we understand neurodiversity and dangerous gifts? Does a healthy social ecology need a spectrum of minds and sensitivities, rather than a uniform model of wellness? Would we even be considering calling ourselves “disabled” if we didn’t live in a capitalist system that requires consistent productivity and social conformity?
• How does accountability look within a disability justice framework? Where’s the line between being flaky and not being able?
• How does a disability framework change our notions of healing? What if health is not staying permanently able, or getting back to where we were, but moving forward to something new and unknown?

This event is in conjunction with the showing of Crooked Beauty at the Reelabilities Film Festival
http://www.reelabilities.org/films/view/crooked-beauty

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