6/15/26 - Deeper thoughts
Today's links aren't really newsy. They're more like heavy, thoughtful, personal thoughts from the people writing them. They feel deeper than usual to me anyway. What do you think?
First, another reminder ...
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Editorial: Where Rights and Justice Meet
Jim Ward, ADA Watch / Coalition for Disability Rights and Justice - May 19, 2026
"These are not the same frame with different vocabulary. They produce different priorities, different coalitions, sometimes different organizations. The rights frame, at its weakest, can become overly institutionalized — a world of lobbyists, lawyers, and organizational gatekeepers protecting a class of beneficiaries that looks more like the people in the room than the people the movement was supposed to serve. The justice frame, at its weakest, can become a critique without infrastructure — sharp analysis that never quite builds the durable institutions a movement needs to outlast any single generation."
I don't know much about how well the project Jim Ward refers to here is actually managing to combine the "Disability Rights" and "Disability Justice" frameworks. But this is the most helpful explanation of the two ideas and movements I have seen so far. It makes sense to me, for whatever that is worth. At the very least I think it might be essential reading for anyone who is just now wondering what the difference is between "Disability Rights" and "Disability Justice." It's a difference, and an intersection, that is important to know about.
Ableism is getting worse and I'm finding this work harder than before
Lucy Webster, The View From Down Here - May 21, 2026
"What you don’t see are the tears of overwhelm and frustration and hurt. What you don’t see is the surge of adrenaline when someone is abusive online and the hours it takes for my nervous system to relax again afterwards. What you don’t see is the mental load of deciding whether the thing I want to write about is worth dealing with the potential reaction. What you don’t see is the toll of being constantly on edge."
This piece offers two important things. First, it recognizes and describes how painful it can be "behind the scenes" to be a disabled person involved in disability culture and / or activism. Depending on how your exact experiences and how much of them you feel willing, able, or called to share, it can be an intensely public, exciting and uplifting, and at the same time a demoralizing, emotionally lonely way to live. Second, this post describes in detail something a lot of disabled people have been thinking for several years now – that "ableism is getting worse," and that it's part of the general Right Wing trend in politics and social climate around the world. It's a personally revealing article, with clear, strong connections made to broader implications for disability communities everywhere.
On Representation, Reckoning, and Repair
Lawrence Carter-Long, Able News - June 1, 2026
"Presence is better than absence, but without power it does not amount to much. Disabled filmmakers need cameras, crews, edit bays, writers’ rooms, funding, mentorship, criticism, distribution, and time."
Here Lawrence Carter-Long digs deep into one of the longest, continuous issues in disability culture: disability representation in all aspects of film, both its creation and its results. And he makes a strong case for measuring progress not just on how many movies have disabled characters or how they are portrayed – though that's important of course – but also whether we have the institutions and infrastructure we need to make disability in integral and permanent part of the film industry. This is important and notable. Interest and trust in institutions is pretty low these days. Budgets, policies, and organizational structures are often seen as boring or even exploitative – because they can be both. But I am more convinced than ever that as disabled people, we need strong, authentic, carefully built and monitored institutions and organizations to fight regression and keep progress moving forward. It's true in the practical sense in film. It's probably more true than many of us would like to admit in other areas of disability culture and politics.
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