“Before colonization, enslavement, and disaster, we had cultures where disability was a normal part of human existence, where we were honored and valued. As Black disabled queer writer and organizer Cyree Jarelle Johnson remarked to me, “Harriet Tubman had seizures and narcolepsy because a slave owner threw a weight at her head. While on trips she likely had to sit down, lay down, move slowly and rest. Her comrades didn’t abandon her then, and we can figure out how not to abandon each other now.” We have ancestral shame to heal. We have disabled lineages to honor. Let’s get to it.”

This was heavy, but at the same time gave me the strength to bear it.
A must-read for anyone interested in justice, fighting fascism, and imagining a better future.
I knew some of the organizing history discussed but not all, and I’m so grateful to Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha for documenting and thinking of ways of archiving these movements. This book also helped me reframe the way I think about my relationships with loved ones who might not identify as disabled, but who could benefit from more of this care work.

“I don’t want to be fixed, if being fixed means being bleached of memory, untaught by what I have learned through this miracle of surviving. My survivorhood is not an individual problem. I want the communion of all of us who have survived, and the knowledge. I do not want to be fixed. I want to change the world. I want to be alive, awake, grieving, and full of joy. And, I am.”