Philosophy

It is time to celebrate our interdependence! Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

Celebrate our interdependenceInterdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. If this pandemic has done nothing else, it has illuminated how... More.

Organize our lives around love and careThe activities that constitute care are crucial for human life. We defined care in this way: Care is "a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue,... More.

Our survival is bound up together.

PluralismPluralism refers to people of diverse and conflicting beliefs coexisting peaceably, linked by their adherence to a shared social contract which commits members of different groups to treating others fairly... More is our reality.

Let's organize our lives around love and care
Let's write each other letters and call it prayer
Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere
At the temple of broken dreams

--Temple of Broken Dreams by Ezra Furman

We steer by the collected phrases below. They are compasses and stars that align us on our mission.

Our philosophy points us toward the real.

Point me toward the real motherfuckers
Point me toward the real
I've been lied to and abused
Time to try to heal
Cut me loose, cut me loose
See what freedom might reveal
Cut my bound hands free and
Point me toward the real

∞ Design is tested at the edges.

James Baldwin’s prophetic literature The Fire Next Time was at the forefront of my mind. I’d been readingThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child's Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and... More it a lot, carrying it around in my pocket. It became like my religious text. Baldwin speaks about things that are very familiar within the human condition, and the most revolutionary music to me — the music that changed my life — is the songs about the inner struggle, the commonality of being human.

Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin

🦼 Disability justice (and disability itself) has the potential to fundamentally transform everything we think about quality of life, purpose, work, relationships, belonging.

Disability justice (and disability itself) has the potential to fundamentally transform everything we think about quality of life, purpose, work, relationships, belonging.

The moment has come to advance and recognize the promise of disability justice. Together, we can meet the moment, center individuals who are most impacted, and rebuild as a more just nation if we see disability as part of the continuing struggle for our full civil rights and liberties. We recognize that there is no justice that neglects disability.

Disabled people live at the intersection of all systems of oppression and social justice issues. There isn’t one issue or one intersection where you will not find disabled individuals advocating for or experiencing the effects of those issues.

There is no justice that neglects disability. Achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion means putting disability justice in every policy discussion and making it part of the continuing struggle for civil rights.

If the philanthropic sector is to advance social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, then we must recognize that disability is a key element in our work.

Elevate ableism as one of the injustices of our world.

Create more anti-ableist spaces. Let’s act to hold ALL spaces accountable for providing care and access to disabled folks with all types of bodies and minds.

🫀🧠🌈 Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason.

Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason; our differences are the genius – and the conscience – of our species.

To face the challenges of the future, we’ll need the problem-solving abilities of different types of minds working together.

Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general.

Reframe these states of being that have been labelled deficiencies or pathologies as human differences.

To be pro-neurodiversity is to be anti-racist.

Difference is not our deficit; it’s our operating system.

Diversity is strength. Difference is a teacher. Fear difference, you learn nothing.

Mind is an embodied phenomenon.

Magic happens when you combine collaboration and neurodiversity.

Collaboration allows us to create genuinely safe spaces for autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people.

Requiring diagnosis was counter to trans liberation and acceptance. The exact same is true of Autism.

Self diagnosis is not just “valid” — it is liberatory. When we define our community ourselves and wrest our right to self-definition back from the systems that painted us as abnormal and sick, we are powerful, and free.

📚⚖️ The right to learn differently should be a universal human right that’s not mediated by diagnosis.

Attend to the practices, policies, and aspects of institutional culture that traumatize children at school.

We must infuse trauma-informed education with a robust understanding of, and responsiveness to, the traumas of systemic oppression.

Being trauma-informed means consciously cultivating space in our mental models so that, even if we know nothing about a particular set of circumstances, we avoid the temptation to mindlessly apply rules.

When I went to your schools
I went to your churches
I went to your institutional learning facilities!

--Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies

Laziness does not exist.

🛏 We urgently need a society that’s better at letting people get the rest they need.

WIP
by Kristina Daniele

I’m in pain.
Mental. Physical.
The result’s the same.
Retreating into silence.
Resting my brain.
Taking deep breaths.
Trying to reframe.
Writing in my journal.
Listening to myself.
Trying to get centered
But drifting to the left.

I’m in pain.
Mental. Physical.
Emotionally, it’s the same.
Stimming to reset
Moving to get rest.
Blocking out the world,
And listening to myself.
Trying to get centered
But drifting to the left.
I'm a work in progress.
I'm not finished yet.

🔨 Stop, Hammer Time: When you measure include the measurer.

= There is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity.

There is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity.

Inequities are primarily power and privilege problems.

In order to achieve equity we must prioritize the interests of the students and families whose interests historically have not been prioritized.

Equity requires the redistribution of material, cultural, and social access and opportunity.

Educational outcome disparities are not the result of deficiencies in marginalized communities’ cultures, mindsets, or grittiness, but rather of inequities.

You cannot counter structural inequality with good will. You have to structure equality.

We are all accountable to the urgent work of building a more just, more equitable world.

I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Can you see
You’d agree
Everybody
Should be free
(Because if we ain’t, we’re murderers)

--I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free by Nina Simone

🧷 All human beings have the same innate need: We long to belong.

Psychological safety is a condition in which you feel (1) included, (2) safe to learn, (3) safe to contribute, and (4) safe to challenge the status quo—all without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished in some way.

Giving inclusion safety is a moral imperative.

All human beings have the same innate need: We long to belong.

Shame is not a weapon. Shame is toxic. It is the difference between “sorry I did” and “sorry I am.”

Authenticity is our purest freedom.

Never forget that authenticity and vulnerability are revolutionary in every capacity. Shame is the antithesis of progress.

The spaces where we belong do not exist. We build them with radical love and revolutionary liberation.

The place where we belong does not exist. We will build it.

🫶 It is time to celebrate our interdependence!

Putting care—not just care work, but care—at the center of our economy, our politics, is to orient ourselves around our interdependence.

Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today. If we do not understand that we are interdependent with the planet we as a species will not survive.

It is time to celebrate our interdependence! Collaboration allows us to create genuinely safe spaces.

❤️‍🩹 Care work makes all other work possible.

Care is an organizational structure needed to keep our nation running. It’s, by definition, infrastructure.

Care work makes all other work possible.

Health is at the center of the human experience.

We need a counterculture of care.

I feel that that the fundamental property of humanness is to fill those spaces where humanity has been abandoned with love. Those who would change the system have to begin with love, and with the vision to build geographies of care built from that love.

Reframing is self-care and social change.

Those who are the most sensitive and traumatised and have not lost the ability to extend trust constitute an enormously rich and diverse repository of insights and hold many of the keys needed for co-creating ecologies of care.

In the Parable books Lauren is a young, black, disabled woman who manages to not merely survive but to create a belief system and lead a community that brings together and helps thousands in the midst of chaos. As a result, this series is one example of how a better future can include those of us whose lives, bodymindsBodymind: A term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Written in various ways, Bodymind or Body-mind, this usage foregrounds the understanding that experiences... More, and perspectives are often devalued and discounted.

Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction

Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.

Parable of the Sower (p. 196)

Earthseed is Olamina’s contribution to what she feels should be a species-wide effort to evade, or at least to lengthen the specialize-grow-die evolutionaryShe tells of a radical fringe of scientists who are realizing that natural selection isn’t individual, but mutual—that species only survive if they learn to be in community.Emergent Strategy: Shaping... More cycle that humanity faces, that every species faces.

Parable of the Sower (Parable, 1)

Let's organize our lives around love and care
Let's write each other letters and call it prayer
Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere
At the temple of broken dreams

--Three New Songs by Ezra Furman

👏 Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.

Asking for help is a wonderful way to build community & engage in meaningful collaboration. In asking for help you also uplift others who want to show up for you.

What I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community. Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.

Without community, there is no liberation…but community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.

To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.

We can start building more accessible, care-centered communities now. We can combat ableism now. We can lay the groundwork for a world that works better for all of us.

Collaboration is contagious.

Everyday there's a sad a twist of fate
And it's easy to think there's no way we can make it
But I swear you and I can stay strong through the fight
If we hold on long enough to face it

Sure there's
Purple haze in the sky
And they say maybe we're running out of time
But I don't care cuz you and I
Know that love is all we need to survive

If the world is on fire
I don't care cuz you're down for the ride
We'll survive
We'll get by
From now on til the end of times

--Purple Haze by Joy Oladokun

⏳ Dreams are met, bridges are built -timelines changed.

Dreams are met, bridges are built -timelines changed.

All these realities become more true via each other, being ourselves; being that: we are the materials which become the embodiment of such.

Title: We Artistrian
Author: Adriel Jeremiah 2022 -noetic

*We Artistrian” was an utterance by A Badelle in pondering viewing a prior work titled “The Adorned Man.”

🩸 We exist as friction.

Nothing about us without us.

Build with, not for.

We must not allow pressure for resilience to permit broken systems to persist.

Dislodge hyper-punitive cultures and ideologies.

We exist as friction.

Nothing About Us Without Us

Strong content warning: Holocaust, genocide, ableism, eugenicsEugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.Eugenics is an inaccurate theory linked to historical and present-day forms of discrimination, racism, ableism and... More, euthanasia

My kind were identified
By twisted scientists
Separate by neurology
Focused ideology
The ones of us most profound
Sadly were oven bound
It seems I would have been
A super soldier unseen

Nothing about us
Without us any more
Do not rewrite history
On my account
Nothing about us
Without us any more
Do not rewrite history
On my account

I am not satisfied
To be marginalised
By ableistable·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ nounA system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply... More dictators
Robots patronising me
My condition was revealed
By a creator I oppose
Yet the source of my current chaos
Are my allies allegedly

Nothing about us
Without us any more
Do not rewrite history
On my account
Nothing about us
Without us any more
Do not rewrite history
On my account

--Nothing About Us Without Us by Tommy Concrete

/Strong Content Warning

I first heard the expression “Nothing About Us Without Us” in South Africa in 1993. Michael Masutha and William Rowland, two leaders ofDisabled People South Africa, separately invoked the slo- gan, which they had heard used by someone from Eastern Europe at an international disability rights conference. The slogan’s power derives from its location of the source of many types of (disability) oppression and its simultaneous opposition to such oppression in the context of control and voice.

“Nothing About Us Without Us” resonates with the philosophy and history of the disability rights movement (DRM), a movement that has embarked on a belated mission parallel to other liberation movements. As Ed Roberts, one of the leading figures of the international DRM, has said, “If we have learned one thing from the civil rights movement in the U.S., it’s that when others speak for you, you lose” (Driedger 1989:28). In this sense, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and “Power to the People” can be recognized as precedents for “Nothing About Us With- out Us.” The DRM’s demand for control is the essential theme that runs through all its work, regardless of political-economic or cultural differencesOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... More. Control has universal appeal for DRM activists because the needs of people with disabilities and the potential for meeting these needs are everywhere conditioned by a dependency born of powerless- ness, poverty, degradation, and institutionalization. This dependency, saturated with paternalism, begins with the onset of disability and con- tinues until death. The condition of dependency is presently typical for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.

NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US: Disability Oppression and Empowerment

We should always be part of the conversation.

🪢 Embracing pluralism is good citizenship.

Embracing pluralism is good citizenship. Democracy demands equal accommodation.

Fostering healthy pluralism, which democracy demands, means confronting intolerance.

Pluralism is our reality.

In order for true diversity to flourish, we need to first become unswervingly anti-racist.

Default to open.

🔌 Name the systems of power.

Just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.

Every single one of us has a moral obligation to use whatever resources we have — time, money, knowledge, skills, emotional energy, access to physical resources — … in service of justice, and fighting against injustice and oppression and violence in all of its forms, structural and individual, subtle and overt.

Inclusivity involves looking at a space and seeing all the ways it’s set up to benefit those in power. And then redesigning and resetting that space to support, affirm, and amplify marginalized folks.

The lens of power can really help us see what’s going on.

Do not be the oppressor.

People suffer, and when they do, it’s for a reason.

Name the systems of power.

You wanna be somebody?
See somebody?
Try and free somebody

Got a list of demands
Written on the palm of my hands
I ball my fist and you're gonna know where I stand
We're living hand to mouth
Hand to mouth

--List of Demands by Saul Williams

🏩 What if love said: Hear me out a bit before the future comes around.

As If We Existed

What's the problem with my genius?
Too attached to ever leave it
Silent for the new achievement but
What I long to witness is the equal shift
Of lifted gadgetry to intuition by
Genius giving up its selfish tact
And bringing praise of spirit back (Hey)
Pay respect upon the debt incurred
By non-belief when soul was speaking
Called simplistic by a name familiar to
Those regulars who think intelligence a competition
Missing opportunity to be a real show embarrassment
The care is not
The care is NOT spewing tools to ax the problem
Rather asking have or how they aptly solve themselves

...
What if love said: Hear me out a bit before the future comes around
...
This isn't anger, no, it's passion so let's live the way we should
As if we existed

"As If We Existed" by Solillaquists of Sound

Exist For Love

They say there is a war
Between the man and the woman (Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah)
I've never felt like this before
My heart knew that I couldn't (Ah-ah-ah)

And then you take me in
And everything in me begins to feel like I belong
Like everybody needs a home
And when I take your hand
Like the world has never held a man
I know I cannot heal the hurt
But I will hold you here forever
If I can, if I can

And then I learned the truth
How everything good in life seems to lead back to you
And every single time I run into your arms
I feel like I exist for love
Like I exist for love
Only for love

I can't imagine how it is to be forbidden from loving (Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah)
'Cause when you walked into my life
I could feel my life begin
Like I was torn apart the minute I was only born

And you're the other half
The only thing that makes me whole
I know it sounds like a lot
But you really need to know
We are leaning out for love
And we will lean for love forever, I know
I love you so

And then I learned the truth
How everything good in life seems to lead back to you
And every single time I run into your arms
I feel like I exist for love
Only for love

And when you say my name
Like white horses on the waves
I think it feels the same
As an ocean in my veins
And you'll be diving in
Like nothing is out of place
And we exist for love
Only for love

And I love you, I love you, I love you
And I love you, I love you, I love you

Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

Mission

We exist for the direct support and mutual aid of neurodivergent and disabled people.

We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Creed

I center the marginalized and the differentOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... More. I center edge casesCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a... More, because edgeFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at... More cases are stress casesCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a... More and design is tested at the edgesFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at... More. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds.

Covenant

We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

Philosophy

We steer by these acquired phrases. They are compasses and stars that align us on our mission.

Interdependence

It is time to celebrate our interdependence. Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

Edges

Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassionCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a... More are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequalityEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes... More, injustice, and thoughtlessness.

Let's organize our lives around love and care
Let's write each other letters and call it prayer
Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere
At the temple of broken dreams