Hi Friends & Happy Disability Pride Month!
My name is Love Wallace, and I am a Black Jewish queer & disabled person living in the United States of America. I currently live in the smallest state in this country, Rhode Island. The state motto of Rhode Island is hope. These days I’m trying my best to manifest hope, but I must admit it’s been hard. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a variety of people. For most of my life I’ve worked two or more jobs. All of my jobs tend to be customer facing, where I work with others for the majority of the time. Whether it be college students, parents, or guests looking to enjoy food & drinks, I never know who is going to walk through the door at any of my jobs. However, most people that walk through the door may have never met a Jewish person before, yet alone a Black Jewish queer disbled person. But they often take the time to dialogue with me and learn about my experiences. I continue to be surprised by a person’s ability to be genuinely interested in new perspectives and experiences outside of their comfort zone. I’ve gone on to see these same people advocate for more inclusivity within their circles, whether it be for disability representation, equity training, or better healthcare for their workers.
But those are the good conversations. I’ve also had many frustrating conversations with defensive people who have tried to “save” me (hello, evangelicalism), who have told me that it’s not their responsibility to help others who were lazy, and who have let me know that while I might be one of the “good ones” that most people who look like me weren’t deserving of hand outs. Those conversations are always frustrating. And some days I handle them better than others. But I always let the person know that there is no difference between me and the next person who looks like me. While there are many different ways to come to disability and there is no one way to “look” disabled, there is also no difference between us as disabled folks. This is one of the beautiful things about our community. Whether we were born with our disability, came into it as children or adults or as elders, we are all united as one vibrant community.
On June 24 of this year the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion. Depending on how closely you follow the Court, politics, or the political climate could probably predict how surprised you were by the release of this decision. For me, I wasn’t very surprised that the decision was released at this moment in time. The end of Pride Month leading into Disability Pride Month seems like a good time to stir up some drama nationally. When people talk about reproductive rights, it’s very common for heterosexist language to run rampant. It seems that people quickly forget that reproductive rights are not just women’s rights and that not just cis women give birth, are caregivers, need access to abortions, and have a stake in reproductive healthcare.
On June 24, I also quickly saw race, socioeconomic class, and geography quickly divide people into haves and have-nots within hours of the court decision being released. While I currently live in a state that has codified abortion rights into law, the state healthcare plan does not currently cover abortions. So while I might be eligble for an abortion because I have private insurace, someone on state insurance would not. On social media, there was a variety of shaming going on of southern states, including my original home state of Georgia, when it should be known that the majority of Black Americans live in the Southern United States. The work that I do on my social media account is to remind people that there is always more to the story. We can always being doing more. If you live in a so-called “blue state” make sure that you are really aware of the laws within your state. As an individual, you might be personally protected in your circumstances, but does that mean that others in your state are? This is your call to action to find out.
Before I end, I’ll leave you with one more antidote. On June 24th, I attended an in-person rally in Providence, RI in response to the Supreme Court decision with several of my co-workers and my partner. I listened as a representative was transphobic in their exclusion of non-cis women in their medicare for all speech. I heard members of the crowd boo and correct them as they continued to not include transmen, non-binary folks, intersex folks and other non-cis women in their speech. I listened to other speakers be more inclusive and honor the work that has been done by other activists in the Rhode Island area. As a fairly observant Jewish person, I had decided to forgo lighting Shabbat candles to attend this rally. Shabbat is a holy time of the week where work ceases and you spend time with friends and family and attend synagogue from sundown on Friday evening until an hour after sundown on Saturday evening. I am again breaking Shabbat for this cause. At this rally there was an interrupter, who was later determined to be an off-duty police officer, disrupting the rally. At some point after the interrupter said something a large portion of the crowd screamed at them, “Fuck the Jews.” No one organizing the rally addressed the antisemitism. The interrupter happened to be fairly close to where I was standing, and having a crowd of people scream antisemitism at me while I was making an active choice to go against my cultural practices to be in solidarity with a cause I believed was a headscratching moment.
While later the interrupter tried to go on stage, and several times the organizers stated that violence was not what this rally was about…it did leave me to question if antisemitism was okay in the organizers’ minds. Reproductive Rights are Disability Rights. Disability Rights are Human Rights. There is no room for Anti-Blackness, Antisemitism, Ableism, Xenophobia, Sinophobia, Anti-Asian Sentiment, Islamophobia, or Anti-Indigenity in Reproductive Rights either. There can’t be if we hope to truly work to have justice for all. Thank you.