telling stories: legacies, imagination, coalitions dr. susan burch middlebury college

 Telling Stories: Legacies, Imagination, Coalitions

Dr. Susan Burch

Middlebury College

ACTIVITY

What’s your first memory of

disability, and what did it teach

you?

Key point

We learn disability

ACTIVITY

Reflect on your position in that

initial memory

Where we are in the story also

matters—our proximity to

disability and disabled people.

“The layers are so tangled: gender folds into disability, disability wraps around class, class strains against race, race snarls into sexuality, sexuality hangs onto gender, all of it finally piling into our bodies”

- Eli Clare

ADA signing, 1990

Key point

Through coalition we tell and make

a different story

ACTIVITY

Take a moment to consider:

What factors shape your/our

relationships to disability and to

disabled people?

Activity: Dyads

What do you hope for in your own

relationship to disability and to

disabled people?

“Disability Justice holds a vision

born out of collective struggle,

drawing upon the legacies of

cultural and spiritual resistance

within a thousand underground

paths, igniting small persistent

fires of rebellion in everyday

life.”

-Patty Berne

“Loving to do” list:

What is ONE THING I CAN DO

NOW

to move myself, my workplace, or

my broader community towards a

more disability-empowered, just

story?

ACTIVITY: Pair and Share

Share your one ‘loving to do’ task with a person nearby

Brainstorm together:

With whom could you join in coalition to expand the impact of

your ‘loving to do’ task?

 “We bring legacies of resiliency that

are deep and strong and which we are

a part of.  And in all of our work we

have a responsibility to grow and

cultivate resiliency, just as much as

we resist the current systems at

work. 

We must not only fight against the

world we currently have, but also be

working to create the kind of world

that is inspired by our deepest desires

for our selves, our families (whom

ever they may be, including chosen

family) and our communities.

And it is from this place, where I

would like us to always start.  From

the world we want, the world we

collectively desire.”

- Mia Mingus

Thank you.

Susan Burch

sburch@middlebury.edu