Feminist, Queer, Crip

by Alison Kafer

I argue that decisions about the future of disability and disabled people are political decisions and should be recognized and treated as such.

Operating on crip time, then, might be not only about a slower speed of movement but also about ableist barriers over which one has little to no control; in either case, crip time involves an awareness that disabled people might need more time to accomplish something or to arrive somewhere.

As critics of utopian thinking have long argued, the futures we imagine reveal the biases of the present; it seems entirely possible that imagining different futures and temporalities might help us see, and do, the present differently.

I can see clearly how futurity has been the cause of much violence against disabled people, such that “fuck the future” can seem the only viable crip response.

it is hard to deny that some futures (and some bodies) are more protected than others.

How then do our/my notions of crip time shift if we/I think not only of institutionalization but also of incarceration as a sign of disability oppression?

To put it bluntly, I, we, need to imagine crip futures because disabled people are continually being written out of the future, rendered as the sign of the future no one wants.

This erasure is not mere metaphor. Disabled people—particularly those with developmental and psychiatric impairments, those who are poor, gender-deviant, and/or people of color, those who need atypical forms of assistance to survive—have faced sterilization, segregation, and institutionalization; denial of equitable education, health care and social services; violence and abuse; and the withholding of the rights of citizenship. Too many of these practices continue, and each of them has greatly limited, and often literally shortened, the futures of disabled people. It is my loss, our loss, not to take care of, embrace, and desire all of us. We must begin to anticipate presents and to imagine futures that include all of us. We must explore disability in time.

His comments reveal that the attempt to draw bright lines between classes of disability is rarely successful; one person's “severe” may be another's “moderate” or “mild.”

“there is a long history of experts underestimating the cognitive abilities of people who appear to be profoundly intellectually impaired.”

But drawing lines between levels of impairment is notoriously difficult and, as Eva Kittay points out, suggests that some people are more deserving of ethical concern and consideration than others.

Dorothy Roberts notes that racism also plays a role in access to assisted reproductive technologies, as doctors are far less likely to recommend fertility treatments for black women than for whites.35 Although clinics cannot legally discriminate against potential patients on the basis of race, they can neglect to inform people of color about all possible treatments.36

“[T]he public believes we [people with disabilities] must prove ourselves before we are allowed to do the things nondisabled people consider their right.”

However, in both of these situations, it is assumed not only that disability and queerness inherently and irreversibly lower one's quality of life but also that there is only one possible understanding of “quality of life” and that everyone knows what “it” is without discussion or elaboration.

Quality of life is inherently ableist. No doctor or court should get to decide if my life is worth living based on symptoms, conditions, and how I react to the world. That's up to me.