Disability Rights Florida Blog
Happy Disability Pride Month! Check out some of the books our staff members are reading this month to celebrate. Consider adding one of these books by disabled authors to your reading list today.
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Alice Wong
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Learn more on the Disability Visibility website.
About the book:
One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.
Book cover image description: 3 images in a row of a book titled ‘Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the 21st Century Edited by Alice Wong’ the book cover has overlapping triangles in a variety of bright colors with black text overlaying them and an off-white background. Book cover by Madeline Partner.
Black Disability Politics
By Dr. Sami Schalk
Learn more and download from Dr. Sami Schalk’s website.
About the book:
In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement. Drawing on the archives of the Black Panther Party and the National Black Women’s Health Project alongside interviews with contemporary Black disabled cultural workers, Schalk identifies common qualities of Black disability politics, including the need to ground public health initiatives in the experience and expertise of marginalized disabled people so that they can work in antiracist, feminist, and anti-ableist ways. Prioritizing an understanding of disability within the context of white supremacy, Schalk demonstrates that the work of Black disability politics not only exists but is essential to the future of Black liberation movements.
Book cover image description: The cover of the book is a dark background, with the title and the author in bold light yellow lettering that reads: Black Disability Politics Dr. Sami Schlak.. The title phrase has a thick red line above the title as well as below it, then about a line of space.
Demystifying Disability
By Emily Ladau
About the book:
An approachable guide to being a thoughtful, informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) and how you can help make the world a more accessible, inclusive place.
Disabled people are the world’s largest minority, an estimated 15 percent of the global population. But many of us–disabled and non-disabled alike–don’t know how to act, what to say, or how to be an ally to the disability community. Demystifying Disability is a friendly handbook on important disability issues you need to know about, including:
- How to appreciate disability history and identity
- How to recognize and avoid ableism (discrimination toward disabled people)
- How to be mindful of good disability etiquette
- How to appropriately think, talk, and ask about disability
- How to ensure accessibility becomes your standard practice, from everyday communication to planning special events
- How to identify and speak up about disability stereotypes in media
Authored by celebrated disability rights advocate, speaker, and writer Emily Ladau, this practical, intersectional guide offers all readers a welcoming place to understand disability as part of the human experience.
Book cover image description: Emily Ladau's book cover. A teal background with many pictures of cartoon people with disabilities. In the middle it says "Demystifying Disability What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally". At the bottom it says "Emily Ladau".
Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid
By Shayda Kafai
Learn more about Crip Kinship on the Arsenal Pulp Press website.
About the book:
The remarkable story of Sins Invalid, a performance project that centres queer disability justice.
In recent years, disability activism has come into its own as a vital and necessary means to acknowledge the power and resilience of the disabled community, and to call out ableist culture wherever it appears.
Crip Kinship explores the art activism of Sins Invalid, a San Francisco Bay Area-based performance project, and its radical imaginings of what disabled, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming bodyminds of colour can do: how they can rewrite oppression, and how they can gift us with transformational lessons for our collective survival.
Grounded in the disability justice framework, Crip Kinship investigates the revolutionary survival teachings that disabled, queer of colour community offers to all our bodyminds. From their focus on crip beauty and sexuality to manifesting digital kinship networks and crip-centric liberated zones, Sins Invalid empowers and moves us toward generating our collective liberation from our bodyminds outward.
Includes a foreword by Patty Berne, co-founder, and executive and artistic director of Sins Invalid.
Book cover image description: a drawing of a Black woman using a cane. Behind her is a collage of flowers, plants and desk. Text reads: Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid. By Shayda Kafai.
Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
By Haben Girma
Learn more on Haben Girma’s website
About the book:
The incredible life story of Haben Girma, the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and her amazing journey from isolation to the world stage.
Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she discovered courage as she faced off against a bull she couldn’t see, and found in herself an abiding strength as she absorbed her parents’ harrowing experiences during Eritrea’s thirty-year war with Ethiopia. Their refugee story inspired her to embark on a quest for knowledge, traveling the world in search of the secret to belonging. She explored numerous fascinating places, including Mali, where she helped build a school under the scorching Saharan sun. Her many adventures over the years range from the hair-raising to the hilarious.
Haben defines disability as an opportunity for innovation. She learned non-visual techniques for everything from dancing salsa to handling an electric saw. She developed a text-to-braille communication system that created an exciting new way to connect with people. Haben pioneered her way through obstacles, graduated from Harvard Law, and now uses her talents to advocate for people with disabilities.
Haben takes readers through a thrilling game of blind hide-and-seek in Louisiana, a treacherous climb up an iceberg in Alaska, and a magical moment with President Obama at The White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating memoir is a testament to one woman’s determination to find the keys to connection.
Book cover image description: Graphic with a dark blue background with a book cover shows Haben in profile, confidently facing forward in a blue dress. The background is a warm red, and white text over the bottom half reads: “Haben The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law. A Memoir. Haben Girma.”
The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me
By Keah Brown
Learn more on Keah Brown’s website.
From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America.
Keah Brown loves herself, but that hadn’t always been the case. Born with cerebral palsy, her greatest desire used to be normalcy and refuge from the steady stream of self-hate society strengthened inside her. But after years of introspection and reaching out to others in her community, she has reclaimed herself and changed her perspective.
In The Pretty One, Brown gives a contemporary and relatable voice to the disabled—so often portrayed as mute, weak, or isolated. With clear, fresh, and light-hearted prose, these essays explore everything from her relationship with her able-bodied identical twin (called “the pretty one” by friends) to navigating romance; her deep affinity for all things pop culture—and her disappointment with the media’s distorted view of disability; and her declaration of self-love with the viral hashtag #DisabledAndCute.
By “smashing stigmas, empowering her community, and celebrating herself” (Teen Vogue), Brown and The Pretty One aims to expand the conversation about disability and inspire self-love for people of all backgrounds.
Book cover image description: The book, The Pretty One: On life, pop culture, disability, and other reasons to fall in love with me, by Keah Brown. She is shown laughing on the cover.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Learn more on Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's website.
About the book:
In their new, long-awaited collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime disability justice activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centres the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Leah writes passionately and personally about creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour, and creative "collective access" -- access not as a chore but as a collective responsibility and pleasure -- in our communities and political movements. Bringing their survival skills and knowledge from years of cultural and activist work, Piepzna-Samarasinha explores everything from the economics of queer femme emotional labour, to suicide in queer and trans communities, to the nitty-gritty of touring as a sick and disabled queer artist of colour.
Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.
Book cover image description: The front cover of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's book ‘Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice’. An arm and leg creep around from behind a tangle of tree roots.
These are just 7 of many great books written by disabled authors. Which books would you add to this list? Let us know on our social media pages.
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