[my dearest friends project]

 

Created by DisArt and Oaklee Thiele, the My Dearest Friends Project is an international, disability-led art collaboration archiving disabled stories. The collected stories are featured as part of various exhibits, and the writers are compensated for their contribution. The site includes video and audio resources, and features the amazing drawings of Oaklee Thiele (see image above as an example).

Sections include:

• Submit a story
• Demand access, 
• Exhibits
• Disability History
• Youth Resources
• and more...

I would like to say that the drawings that appear throughout this site are a real treasure, as is watching some of the videos in which Oaklee is creating drawings. The video I watched was descriptive - meaning, along with the closed captioning that captured the words the narrators and speakers spoke, another voice described what was happening on screen. This is something that is not often done, but useful to be more inclusive for those who are visually impaired.

https://mydearestfriendsproject.org/

[gender-based analysis plus]

Though Gender-Based Analysis Plus has been in use by the Government of Canada since 1995, many people might not have heard of it.

Here’s how they describe it:

GBA+ is an analytical tool used to assess the potential impacts of policies, programs, services, and other initiatives on diverse groups of women and men, taking into account gender and other identity factors. The "plus" in the name highlights that GBA+ goes beyond gender, and includes the examination of a range of other intersecting identity factors (such as age, education, language, geography, culture and income).

source

Part of the goal of using GBA+ is to ensure that programs and services which are intended to produce positive results do not inadvertently have a negative effect on one subset of the population.

Read more here.

Educate and equip yourself! Take a short, free course on GBA+

[you don't say... campaign by duke university]

"You Don’t Say? is a campaign founded by senior Daniel Kort and juniors Anuj Chhabra, Christie Lawrence and Jay Sullivan that aims to raise student awareness about the offensive nature of phrases and slurs used in everyday conversation through photographs shared using an online campaign." (source)

The latest part of this campaign features 41 student-athletes, who were each asked to choose a phrase that mattered to them.

What is it that #YouDontSay? pic.twitter.com/hykbOrfc2r
— You Don't Say (@youdontsayduke) January 15, 2015

Check out a lot more photos.
Additional photos of Cornell University students doing a series of similar ads.

Read more background info.

Follow on twitter.

[thoughts on ableist language and why it matters (resource)]

You might never have even thought that sentences like "He was blind to the realities of his flaws"  or "Legislative changes crippled the economy" could be offensive to some people, but they are.

Ableist language is the use of words like lame, blind, crippling, retarded, and more to describe people or situations that have nothing to do with ability. I recently came across a well-written article on ableist language, written by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg.

She addresses ten questions about why ableist language matters. Here is one of the questions she addresses:

5. I would never use the N-word because people of color are part of an oppressed group. But disabled people aren't really oppressed. Are they?

Yes, disabled people are members of an oppressed group, and disability rights are a civil rights issue. Disabled people are assaulted at higher rates, live in poverty at higher rates, and are unemployed at higher rates than nondisabled people.

We face widespread exclusion, discrimination, and human rights violations. For an example of what some of the issues are, please take some time over at the Disability Social History Project.

From 10 Questions About Why Ableist Language matters, Answered (source)

What I really appreciate about the article is Cohen-Rottenberg's grasp of the deeper issues behind these questions, including historical contexts and narratives, and the succinct and clear way she responds to them. Check out the rest of the article to learn more!