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We Survive Together
Sharing stories and activist-research to ensure disabled people survive disaster ableism of all sizes
WHAT WE DO
We center disabled people’s wisdom to dismantle disaster ableism. We offer critical and nuanced ways to understand disaster news and research. We make sure disaster resources respond to the unique needs of disability communities, especially those who are marginalized in more than one way.
WHO WE ARE
A growing bunch of Chicago- and Illinois-based disability activists, artists, and researchers. We put forward crip wisdom to collectively survive and thrive in the midst of disaster ableism. For more information, please see People.
What is disaster ableism?
The term describes how disasters are turned into opportunities to further oppress disabled and other marginalized communities, while privileged people gather more power and wealth.
It also refers to the idea that people believe they are superior to nature and can destroy it for their economic gain.
Disaster ableism:
- Devalues disabled and other marginalized people’s lives as disposable and burdensome;
- Pushes disaster preparation and response as an individual’s responsibility instead of pressuring the governments to build systems that support all in need;
- Excuses governments and corporations from taking responsibility for causing disasters by blaming nature and disabled people’s inability to evacuate;
- Reduces nature to something humans own and control by ignoring how the wellbeing of nature directly shapes wellbeing of people.
