Calling all JFREJers who identify as having disabilities or chronic illnesses or are neurodivergent! Join our caucus!

The JFREJ Disability Caucus is a community for JFREJ members who identify as disabled, neurodivergent, or chronically ill. Ableism is a key factor in the issues JFREJ organizes around, from police violence to the care economy. The Disability Caucus is an affinity space providing a low-commitment way for JFREJ members to build relationships, share our experiences, and collectivize our voices as part of the JFREJ membership. Together, we convene people with disabilities in the JFREJ community, and bring access issues and disability justice framing to JFREJ organizing and campaign work.

Founding members of the JFREJ Disability Caucus have already participated in efforts to increase access and inclusivity across the organization, including JFREJ’s hybrid events policy, and political education on disability justice within JFREJ Neighborhood Groups. We hope to clarify our purpose and goals as we continue to build in 2022 and beyond, while maintaining a pace that respects and matches the actual capacity of its members and acknowledges the reality of being multiply marginalized.

As with all JFREJ caucuses, you must be a current JFREJ member to join the caucus. You can join JFREJ at this link.

“There is no neutral body from which our bodies deviate. Society has written deep into each strand of tissue of every living person on earth. What it writes into the heart muscles of five star generals is distinct from what it writes in the pancreatic tissue and intestinal tracts of Black single mothers in Detroit, of Mexicana migrants in Fresno, but no body stands outside the consequences of injustice and inequality... What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood, in the tracks of neurotransmitters and antibodies.”
- Aurora Levins Morales

A system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normality, intelligence, excellence, desirability, and productivity. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in anti-Blackness, eugenics, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. This form of systemic oppression leads to people and society determining who is valuable and worthy based on a person’s language, appearance, religion and/or their ability to satisfactorily [re]produce, excel and "behave. You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.
- A Working Definition of Ableism, by Talila "TL" Lewis