Honoring Arnaldo Rios-Soto & Charles Kinsey: Achieving Liberation Through Disability Solidarity

Honoring Arnaldo Rios-Soto & Charles Kinsey: Achieving Liberation Through Disability Solidarity

7/22/2016 3 Comments

[Video: For more context about this video, please review the “info” section at the YouTube video link above. The video abstract, which also provides info about the varied identities of the signers in this video, can also be found here: goo.gl/HG4mxL. Still shot of a Brown South Asian Deaf man with short black hair wearing a navy shirt standing in front of a gray wall with the following words: Even though people with disabilities are just 20% of our population,] When a Black Disabled person is killed by the state, media and prominent racial justice activists usually report that a Black person was killed by the police. Contemporaneous reports from disability rights communities regarding the very same individual usually emphasize that a Disabled or Deaf individual was killed by the police — with not one word about that person’s race, ethnicity or indigenous roots.

In the wake of Charles Kinsey taking a bullet marked for Arnaldo Rios this week, I am renewing the call for Disability Solidarity. Disability solidarity means disability communities actively working to create racial justice, and [non-disability] civil rights communities showing up for disability justice.