Monthly Archives: November 2019

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A Disabled Body Is A Political Act

A Disabled Body is A Political Act

A review of Dorothy Palmer’s “Crutch, Cage, Sword, Kerfuffle” in Nothing Without Us (Renaissance Press, 2019).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Combining protests of the G20 summit, a sword from Roman Brittain, a disabled body, and the loss of a foetus, Dorothy Palmer’s “Crutch, Cage, Sword, Kerfuffle” examines the way that disabled women’s bodies are politicized and that disability itself is an act of protest. Using complex imagery of cages and walls, Palmer brings attention to the way that our lives are shaped by restrictions and controls.

Wrapping up the mythic from Arthurian legend into the complex stories around the G20 summit, Palmer brings attention to the nature of storytelling and the way that stories are complex, fluid, and ever-changing things. She explores the culture of surveillance and police violence around the G20 summit and the bodily impact of protest (as well as the need for protest), but this story revolves around the need to speak up and fight back.

To find out more about Nothing Without Us, visit https://renaissance-107765.square.site/product/nothing-without-us/117?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=2

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The Flow of Disability

The Flow of Disability

A review of Elliott Dunstan’s “Oliver Gutierrez and the Walking Stick of Destiny” from Nothing Without Us (Renaissance, 2019).

By Derek Newman-Stille

For folks like me, who are disabled, we develop a certain intimacy with our accessibility devices. They are both part of us… and not at the same time. They are extensions of our personhood, ways of challenging the idea of a singular, biological body and we engage with them in unique ways that often shift. One could say that we are in a conversation with our accessibility devices. For Elliot Dunstan’s character, Olivier Gutierrez, that conversation is literal. 

Gutierrez, who uses “xe/xem” pronouns, first discovered xe was in conversation with xyr accessibility devices when xe was given xyr first pair of hearing aids at 4 years old. Xe quickly discovered that xyr hearing aids would talk to xyr. 

Gutierrez feels that xyr life has been a series of steps away from the idea of normalcy and Xe asks at the beginning of the story “how many things could one person have wrong with them”. Xyr story has been one of being treated as abnormal, as Other. Xe experienced a life of labels, some avoiding words like “crazy” by calling xyr “imaginative” or “creative” or “odd”, but these words didn’t mask the intended meaning. Xe describes xyr self as “deaf. And crazy. And queer”, illustrating an intersection of different oppressed identities.

Gutierrez has an opportunity that few of us do, to enter into direct conversation with our accessibility devices and xe is able to learn how to negotiate xyr own identity through this conversation, figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

In Oliver Gutierrez and the Walking Stick of Destiny”, Dunstan examines the multiple intersections of disabled identity, exploring the complex milieux of overlapping experiences and knowledges while also illustrating to the reader the complex oppressions and internalized ableisms that occur at that intersection.

To discover more about Elliot Dunstan, go to https://www.patreon.com/elliottdunstan

To find out more about Nothing Without Us, go to https://renaissance-107765.square.site/product/nothing-without-us/117?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=2

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More Than A Statistic

More Than A Statistic

A review of Tonya Liburd’s “Sometimes You…” in Nothing Without Us (Renaissance Press, 2019)

By Derek Newman-Stille

People with mental illness or those who identify themselves as part of the Mad Community are statistically more likely to be victims of violence than they are to be perpetrators of violence. I think this is something that needs repeating, especially since so much media attention is focussed on making mentally ill people seem as though they are dangerous, threatening, and in need of police action. So, let me repeat – they are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.

Before getting to my review, I want to also nod toward the work of activists in the Mad Community, who have created a space for the reclamation of terms like “mad” and have worked to critique oppressive psychiatric and medical systems that have done damage to the Mad population. In acknowledgement of their work, I will be using “Mad” throughout this review.

I bring up the violence against the Mad population because Tonya Liburd brings attention to this violence in her story “Sometimes You…”. Whereas many people don’t seem to retain the statistic that the Mad population is more likely to be victims of violence, Liburd provides a powerful story about that violence, exploring both the pain of violent abuse against a person in the Mad Community as well as the internalized damage that comes from abuse. Not only does Liburd give a recounting of a violent encounter, but she positions the reader as the person in the Mad Community who is being attacked, using the second person throughout the story.

Liburd illustrates the predatory nature of people who prey on the Mad Community, giving details about how they target people and how they make people in the Mad Community feel unsafe in public spaces. Liburd illustrates the lasting damage of these encounters and the fear and pain and feeling of not belonging that gravitates like a miasma around people after violent encounters like this. She points out that even spaces that are constructed as “safe” frequently still have gaps and can still allow damage and violence to happen.

Liburd examines the precarity that exists particularly for homeless Mad people and the systemic violence that they experience from a system that doesn’t provide them with resources they need. Yet, Liburd points to other communities that can be found and developed to create a support network.

“Sometimes You…” is a powerful story that speaks to the need for community and the need for safe spaces for people in the Mad Community. It is a story that invites the reader into the mind and experiences of a member of the Mad Community, allowing them to experience the real world violence that people in that community are subject to and the repercussions of that continued violence. Liburd uses her gift of storytelling to paint a picture that goes beyond simple statistics about the Mad Community and instead gives a realness and three dimensionality to the population and their experiences.

To discover more about Tonya Liburd’s work, go to https://www.patreon.com/TonyaLiburd

To find out more about Nothing Without Us, go to Renaissance Press’ website at https://renaissance-107765.square.site/product/nothing-without-us/117?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=2