LIBERATION LECTIONARY - DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH

This Body is My Body

“A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential, that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them.” Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Reflection

Disabled Ancestors led our people to freedom. Learn about the history of the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”. It was said to have been written by a sailor named Joe, who people called Peg Leg Joe, because he had a prosthetic leg. Joe pretended to be a carpenter in order to gain access to plantations and help to train enslaved people in carpentry while completing tasks impressive enough to keep white folks fooled. While he worked on plantations he would teach Black people a song he had written, “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” The song’s verses were codes that describe a safe way to travel from Alabama to Kentucky, where they could cross the Ohio River to freedom. The song instructs them to leave in the spring time and follow the Big Dipper, which points to the North Star. They were to travel at night and watch for signs marked on dead trees — a left foot and a peg foot. From there, they would see a river and then another river to cross to freedom. No one knows for sure if Joe was a real person, a myth, or a combination of real people, but this song inspired Black people to escape to freedom.

People with prosthetic limbs may have lost a limb or been born without it. This kind of disability can lead to being marked or renamed, the way that Joe was called Peg Leg Joe. But disabled people are worthy of respect and ought to be honored. Joe’s prosthetic was a wooden leg and it helped him to travel and work in the same manner as people whose legs were not prosthetics. 

During the month of July, we have celebrated Freedom Season. In resistance to the false freedom that the United States claims as part of the fourth of July, we describe the Afro Future as a place where freedom rings free of capitalism, carceral systems and any systems that threaten people because of their identities. Freedom Season is also a time marked by the commitment to liberation of the body. Black ancestors were lynched at much higher numbers during the summer time. Recent history shows an increase in police violence against Black people during the warmer months in the US. This season reminds us that without activism, resistance, protest and pride, Black people are not safe in our bodies. The East St. Louis race massacre occurred on July 3rd 1917. Alton Sterling was murdered by police July 5th 2016 in Baton Rouge Louisiana. Philando Castille was murdered July 6th 2016 in Minneapolis. There are more and more stories, and all of these events show us that the defense of our lives and the safety of our bodies is in our hands. Disability justice is a crucial part of liberation for all bodies. 

Disability Pride Month is just now making its way into the mainstream and is not yet nationally recognized like other month-long observances. Disability Pride is a way to promote visibility and increase awareness of the strides made and the pride felt by people with disabilities. 

Take some time each week in July to rejoice in the power and pride of disabled people, to confess any ignorance you have around disability, and to commit to follow and support Black people with disabilities who are leading in their own liberation. A community that is built for disabled bodies is a community that welcomes and brings equity to us all.

Daily Readings

Sunday Romans 8: 19-21 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

Monday 1 Corinthians 6. 19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Tuesday 1 Corinthians 10.23-24 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.

Wednesday 1 Corinthians 10.31-33 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Thursday 1 Corinthians 12. 4-6 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Friday 1 Corinthians 12.7-11 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and God distributes them to each one, just as The Spirit determines.

Saturday 1 Corinthians 12.12-14 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Meditation and Memory

July 2nd, The Amistad

July 3rd, The Race Massacre of East St. Louis

July 5th, Alton Sterling should be here

July 6th, Philando Castille should be here

July 4th - a day of resistance and redefining freedom. 

Today’s meditation is in honor of the indigenous people and Black people whose freedoms were long denied, whose stories are being banned from education spaces and hidden by the histories where hetero-patriarchy is the centerpiece. Dear Black people, dear Indigenous people, dear disabled people, this 4th of July, be sure to celebrate yourself. 

1855, by Beth Piatote

I celebrate myself And what I hereby cede you shall hereby cede, For the country relinquished by me as good is relinquished by you. I loafe and convey to the United States All the right, title and interest ... in my country, occupied and claimed, I give and grieve ... meeting on spears of summer grass

I hold and cherish Article III, I protect and love our usual and accustomed places, our exclusive right to take fish, to hunt, to gather roots and berries, and pasture our horses on open land. I celebrate our land. And our land is our land forever. I love and enlarge my soul. I love my people, and our land; We are one with our land, And our land is our ancestors’ land, always. All the land they are lighting, the land is shining bright forever.

Music: Why We Speak

From Robert Glasper’s Black Radio III. As you listen to this song, think of the different ways that people communicate. Not all humans are verbal communicators. Think about non-verbal autistic people, deaf people and people who are non-verbal for other reasons. How can they “speak”? How can they be reminded that they deserve to be listened to? What are ways that you can better communicate for yourself if you are non-verbal? What are some ways that people who talk can talk about listening more before we speak?

Lyrics from Why We Speak — “Sometimes in life when you go too far, The truth will bring you to who you are. Life can bring you down when you're living in it. These circles and cycles go 'round, though you even spin it - But you stoppin' it when your shoulder is a reminder, To not run yourself in the ground, to yourself be kinder. Sometimes, I got real cast by truth even in the rear viewDriving aimlessly around with nowhere to stay to. She ain't, they should be them, the vibes like an abstract poet. If somebody ask who you are, well, you better know it.”

Recommended Reading for Disability Pride: Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha