“A system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness.

These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism.

This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people's value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, ‘health/wellness,’ and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, ‘excel’ and ‘behave.’”

You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.”

Working definition by TL Lewis, developed in community with disabled Black/negatively racialized folk, especially @NotThreeFifths. January 2022.

An Access Check-In asks, “what do you need (or want) the group to know for you to participate?” It might also be an opportunity to respond to the questions, “how are you feeling and what do you need?” or “why are you here and what do you need?” or “what do you hope to learn and what do you need?” In the context of Disability Justice, everybody has needs to participate and access a space. It can be enough to say, “my access needs are met.” (influences, Sins Invalid)

Access is a process of negotiation between land, individuals, communities, and institutions that results in equitable outcomes. (influences: Papalia)

Access Art describes the ways marginalized people and communities creatively grow resources, design accessibility, celebrate joy and resistance, out-maneuver supremacy culture, and dream worlds beyond the impossible.

Access Art is starkly contrasted by standard access.

Accessibility describes the infrastructures in place to facilitate access, as well as their relative frictions. Accessibility is best measured by people who are excluded from or experience the most impact from frictions built into structures.

Accessible infrastructures might include Access Check-Ins, Audio Description, Image Descriptions, Captions, virtual and in-person options, ramps, meeting agendas, places to rest, land acknowledgements, financial support, and more. (influences: Hamraie, Papalia, Unsettling Dramaturgy, Ho (#AccessIsLove))

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a United States law passed in 1991 that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities through compliance codes in employment settings, public entities, public and commercial accommodations, and telecommunications.

Sins Invalid points out that the ADA and other disability rights frameworks center “…people who can achieve status, power and access through a legal or rights-based framework, which we know is not possible for many Disabled people, or appropriate for all situations.” (Sins Invalid, 15)

Obviously this is a word with a multitude of definitions. We use this description from Tobin Siebers’ book, “Disability Aesthetics,” as a working definition: “Aesthetics tracks the sensations that some bodies feel in the presence of other bodies.”

Oppressive systems use aesthetic preferences and taste to justify exclusions. The Curiosity Paradox believes that changing aesthetics toward liberation and justice is a way to resist eugenic cultural design. (influences: Siebers, ALLways)

Audio Description (also known as “AD”) is a narration that describes the visuals in film, tv, theater, live events, and museums so that audiences can have a creative and immersive encounter with the work. It is a beautiful experience that translates visual information into words.

It was created by blind and low vision people, but it also benefits many neurodiverse and non-Disabled people. While mainstream Audio Description privileges visual information, a movement of Disabled artists and media creators are developing Audio Description as its own creative form to express something more political, poetic, and less literal.

This definition arose in conversation with Cheryl Green and The Curiosity Paradox after a conversation Cheryl recently had with artists Carmen Papalia and Aislinn Thomas.

We tend to refer to “body” in very loose terms. Some examples include a person’s body, a cell body, a body of work, a body of art, a body of ideas, an institutional body, a cultural body, a flavor that has body, the body of the planet, the body of a molecule, body parts as individual bodies.

We do not believe that mind and body are separate, and also use the word mindbody to resist this false split.

A transcript that plays in perfect sync with a movie, show, or performance that includes dialogue, music, key sounds, and names of people or characters.

In the mainstream, captions privilege auditory information and are understood as simply capturing the auditory world into written language. However, they can also translate emotions and intentions, and use other creative ways to integrate into media to make them immersive.

This definition was written in collaboration between Cheryl Green and The Curiosity Paradox.

A desire path is a natural or unofficial path created through repeated use by animals, including humans. It is often the shortest, easiest, or most joyful way of crossing a particular space and time, and becomes worn-in by going over it again and again.

We offer this concept to illustrate how ongoing, repeated access negotiations help communities support their own needs, wants, and interests. These repeated negotiations are also a great way for institutions to consider seeking the most joyful, relational, and easiest route to giving access and designing accessibility.

“Disability is a word that links people of common overlapping related experiences of oppression based in navigating a world designed and defined by able-bodied people. This term has been reclaimed by people whose bodyminds have been medicalized and pathologized, working from an empowered perspective.” (Sins Invalid, 153)

Eugenics is a historical movement started in the 19th century, rooted in imperialism, whose aim is to “better the race.” It was founded by white non-disabled men to serve their interests.

“[Eugenics is] the practice of controlling a population by deciding who is born, who is able to have kids, who is given healthcare, and who is allowed or encouraged to die, in order to create a specific “desirable” population. Eugenics can include genetic engineering, forced sterilization and birth control, assisted suicide, and other mechanisms through which people in power get to decide who is worth existing (Sins Invalid, 153).”

This is a term used to refer to the often harmful relationships between governments, businesses, wealthy individuals, and nonprofit organizations. The relationship can look like this vicious cycle mentioned in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex:

“Corporations become rich by exploiting their workers. Corporate profits are then put into foundations in order to provide “relief” to workers that are the result of corporate practices in the first place.” (INCITE!)

A term coined by adrienne maree brown and unfurled in the book Pleasure Activism.

“Pleasure activism is the work we do to reclaim our whole, happy, and satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy. (brown)” 

One more quote, “I have seen how denying our full, complex selves—denying our aliveness and our needs as living, sensual beings—increases the chance that we will be at odds with ourselves, our loved ones, our coworkers, and our neighbors on this planet.” 

The whole book is a pretty joyful read.

At the Curiosity Paradox we consider standard access to be connected to the compliance-based access inherent in institutionalized accessibility, the American with Disabilities Act, and the Disability Rights Movement in general. In Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement Is Our People: A Disability Justice Primer, Sins Invalid points out:

“While a concrete and radical move forward toward justice for disabled people, the Disability Rights Movement simultaneously invisibilized the lives of disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, disabled people who practice marginalized religions (in particular those experiencing the violence of anti-Islamic beliefs and actions), queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others.” (Sins Invalid, 15)

For this reason, we have placed standard access against Access Art to further reveal the frictions between these two ideas.

“The characteristics of [white supremacy culture] are used as norms and standards without being proactively named or chosen by the group. They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. Because we all live in a white supremacy culture, these characteristics show up in the attitudes and behaviors of all of us – people of color and white people. Therefore, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization, whether it is white-led or predominantly white or people of color-led or predominantly people of color” (Okun)