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Women Around the World: Mia Mingus · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I welcome to Stephane.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never told your protection of I Heart Radio. So this
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  Speaker 1: month and is a p I h M or a
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  Speaker 1: a p I h M or Asian Pacific Lender Heritage months.
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  Speaker 1: So we wanted to highlight a woman who has been
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  Speaker 1: working really hard in UM bringing justice and equality and
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  Speaker 1: restoration to her community. And so we are going to
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  Speaker 1: talk about Mia Minga's. I feel like there needs to
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  Speaker 1: be a clapped for something. So Mingas is a writer, educator,
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  Speaker 1: and an expert community organizer for transformative justice, disability justice
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  Speaker 1: and transformive justice, for fighting against child sexual abuse. And
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  Speaker 1: as it stays in one article when they're talking about Minga's,
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  Speaker 1: she is a quote queer, physically disabled Korean woman, transfracial
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  Speaker 1: and transnational adoptee born in Korea, raised in the Caribbean,
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  Speaker 1: nurtured in the US South, and now living in North California.
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  Speaker 1: And to say she is a fighter is an understatement.
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  Speaker 1: She is a fierce advocate whose passion and overall expertise
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  Speaker 1: has been a guide for many including for colleges, universities,
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  Speaker 1: and communities worldwide. Her career achievements have included working in
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  Speaker 1: transformative justice, including in prison abolition and disability justice. She
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  Speaker 1: has been a key advocate in fighting for transformative justice
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  Speaker 1: in response to child sexual abuse as well, and as
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  Speaker 1: part of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, which is
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  Speaker 1: a community group in Oakland, California. Right So, transformative justice
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  Speaker 1: is something she continues to talk about in implementing and
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  Speaker 1: teaching around the country. As it is written in her blog,
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  Speaker 1: she is quote passionate about building skills, relationships, and structures
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  Speaker 1: that transforms violence, harm and abuse within our communities and
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  Speaker 1: that do not rely on or replicate the punitive system
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  Speaker 1: we currently live in. So Amingas defines transformative justice as
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  Speaker 1: a quote political framework and approach for responding to violence,
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  Speaker 1: harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to
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  Speaker 1: respond to violence without creating more violence and or engaging
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  Speaker 1: in harm reduction to lessen the violence. And she continues
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  Speaker 1: on transformedive justice responses and interventions one do not rely
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  Speaker 1: on the state e g. Police prisons, the criminal legal system, ice,
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  Speaker 1: foster care system, though some TJ responses do rely on
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  Speaker 1: or incorporate social services like counseling to do not reinforce
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  Speaker 1: or perpetuate violence, such as oppressive norms are vigilanteism, and
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  Speaker 1: most importantly, three actively cultivate the things we know premit violences,
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  Speaker 1: such as healing, accountability, resilience and safety for all involved.
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  Speaker 1: Within her work and transformtive justice, she also pushed the
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  Speaker 1: framework of disability justice. She defines disability justice as quote
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  Speaker 1: an emerging political framework rooted in the lived experiences of
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  Speaker 1: disabled people who have been largely excluded, silenced, and ignored
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  Speaker 1: by the mainstream. At disability rights movement led by disabled
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  Speaker 1: people of color, specifically disabled queer women, trans and gender
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  Speaker 1: nonconforming people, disability justice demands a sharp and deep analysis
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  Speaker 1: of able is m so in her explanation of the
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  Speaker 1: framework for disability justice, she states, quote, we need to
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  Speaker 1: think of access with an understanding of disability justice, moving
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  Speaker 1: away from an equality based model of saneness and we
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  Speaker 1: are just like you, to a model of disability that
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  Speaker 1: embraces differences, confronts privilege, and challenges what is considered quote
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  Speaker 1: norm on every front. We don't want to simply join
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  Speaker 1: the ranks of the privilege. We want to dismantle those
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  Speaker 1: ranks in system that maintains them. And because there's no
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  Speaker 1: way we could explain what she is doing and how
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  Speaker 1: she continues to affect change better than her own words.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna keep on, She states, Disability justice activists are
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  Speaker 1: engaged in building an understanding of disability that is more complex, whole,
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  Speaker 1: and interconnected than what we have previously found. We are
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  Speaker 1: disabled people who are people of color, women, gender, queer
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  Speaker 1: and transgender, poor and working class, youth, immigrants, lesbian, gay,
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  Speaker 1: bisyde torual and queer, and more. We are pushing for
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  Speaker 1: an understanding of how able is um affects all of
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  Speaker 1: our movements for justice. We are drawing connections between able
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  Speaker 1: ism and other systems of oppression and violent institutions. We
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  Speaker 1: are pushing for a more nuanced and fierce interrogation of
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  Speaker 1: the medical industrial complex and understandings of health, wellness, and
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  Speaker 1: healing that aren't rooted in a list notions of bodies
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  Speaker 1: and what is considered normal. Within her conversation of disability justice,
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  Speaker 1: she also speaks to her own privilege, stating in the interview,
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  Speaker 1: it is important to acknowledge the complexities of privilege and
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  Speaker 1: oppression and how they play out in our worlds. For me,
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  Speaker 1: it is especially important around disability in this particular historical
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  Speaker 1: and political moment. Historically speaking, we are still so close
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  Speaker 1: to the majority of our history where most disabled people
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  Speaker 1: were locked up, institutionalized, homeless, hidden away in the back
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  Speaker 1: rooms of their family homes, not allowed to access education
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  Speaker 1: or have a job, and generally not allowed to participate
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  Speaker 1: in the public sphere at large. And this is still
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  Speaker 1: so true for so many people. So for me to
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  Speaker 1: be able to do the kind of work that I do,
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  Speaker 1: to be able to travel, be listened, to be able
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  Speaker 1: to work at sixteen hour day, it is so much
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  Speaker 1: about having the kind of disability and body that is
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  Speaker 1: quote able enough discrease itself into those privileged spaces. And
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  Speaker 1: she has also coined terms like access intimacy, which she
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  Speaker 1: states is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone
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  Speaker 1: else gets your access needs and that sometimes it can
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  Speaker 1: happen with complete strangers, disabled or not, or sometimes it
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  Speaker 1: can be built over years, and she continues, is also
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  Speaker 1: the intimacy I feel with many other disabled and sick
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  Speaker 1: people who have an automatic understanding to access needs out
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  Speaker 1: of shared similar lived experiences of though many different ways
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  Speaker 1: able is um in menifests in our lives. Together, we
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  Speaker 1: share a kind of access intimacy that is ground level,
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  Speaker 1: with no need for explanations, and she also coined terms
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  Speaker 1: and concepts such as politically and descriptively disabled, which she says, quote,
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  Speaker 1: when I say descriptively disabled, I mean someone who has
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  Speaker 1: lived the experience of being disabled and about politically disabled,
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  Speaker 1: she explains, when I say politically disabled, I mean someone
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  Speaker 1: who is descriptively disabled and has a political understanding about
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  Speaker 1: that lived experience. I mean someone who has an analysis
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  Speaker 1: about able is um power privilege, who feels connected to
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  Speaker 1: and is in solidarity with other disabled people, regardless of
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  Speaker 1: whatever language you use. And she also coined the term
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  Speaker 1: forced intimacy on top of that, and specific to forced intimacy,
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  Speaker 1: Mingus describes it as quote a term I have been
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  Speaker 1: using for years to refer to the common daily experience
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  Speaker 1: of disabled people being expected to share personal parts of
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  Speaker 1: ourselves to survive an enablest world. This often takes the
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  Speaker 1: form of being expected to share very personal information with
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  Speaker 1: able bodied people to get basic access, but it also
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  Speaker 1: includes forced physical intimacy, especially for those of us who
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  Speaker 1: need physical help that often requires touching of our bodies.
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  Speaker 1: And she continues on to say forced intimacy is a
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  Speaker 1: cornerstone of how able is M functions and enable bodied
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  Speaker 1: supremast world. Disabled people are expected to quote stripped down
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  Speaker 1: and show all our cards metaphorically in order to get
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  Speaker 1: the basic access we need in order to survive. And
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  Speaker 1: there are so many other things that she talks about,
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  Speaker 1: and of course this is just a small example of
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  Speaker 1: her incredible work and continued advocacy for disability justice and
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  Speaker 1: transformative justice practices UH in cases of sexual abuse, president abolition,
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  Speaker 1: and so many other things. And she has many a
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  Speaker 1: TED talks, she has many interviews. She is a wealth
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  Speaker 1: of knowledge that is so very much needed. She has
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  Speaker 1: put up all of that work for those of us
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  Speaker 1: who have that privilege of not understanding can do the
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  Speaker 1: work ourselves just by reading her stuff. So first and foremost,
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  Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you, Miya. But again, she has been
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  Speaker 1: awarded many accolades for her hard work, including the Create
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  Speaker 1: Change Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
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  Speaker 1: forty under forty the APIs Women's Champion of Change from
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  Speaker 1: President Barack Obama. The one women we love And I
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  Speaker 1: mean we would put that in our category too, Maybe
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  Speaker 1: we don't. We have a full hundred women that we've
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  Speaker 1: talked about. No, not yet yet, but she's definitely up
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  Speaker 1: there and the recipient of the Disability Features Fellowship for
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  Speaker 1: her continued work. So she is definitely someone that you
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  Speaker 1: should have on your list as a resource and U
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  Speaker 1: when we talk about intersectionality, she would be one of
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  Speaker 1: those that would be the forefront and definition of her
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  Speaker 1: advocacy work being about intersectionality, so it's really important. So
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  Speaker 1: you can check out her blog at Leaving Evidence dot
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  Speaker 1: WordPress dot com and she's also on Instagram and Twitter,
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  Speaker 1: so we would highly recommend that you follow her absolutely
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and if you would like to hit us up you can.
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  Speaker 1: Our email is Stephanie and mom Stuff that I Heart
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  Speaker 1: media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and Stuff I've Never
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  Speaker 1: Told You. Thanks as always, you're a super producer. Christina,
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  Speaker 1: thank you and thanks to you for listening. Steph I've
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Never Told his protection of iHeart Radio. For more podcast
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  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.