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Kirsten Beltran Midterm Part 1 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - In order to understand the position of crip theory, it is essential to elaborate on how disability was defined and encapsulated. The medical model of disability was used to frame disabled bodies and minds in medical terms to develop a “treatment” to fit into an able-bodied society. However, it was used to position medical, but also social mistreatment of the autonomy of people with disabilities. Kafer states, “The category of ‘disabled’ can only be understood in relation to ‘able-bodied’ or ‘able-minded,’ a binary in which each term forms the borders of the other” (Kafer 162). To be specific, Kafer is referring to how able-bodieness is ingrained in a social hierarchy where people with disabilities are unequally distributed power and resources compared to able-bodied people. The root of the problem is not to focus on disability individually, but collectively to change the social relations of disability.
    - - The political/relational model of disability, according to crip theory, is a social transformation of the social hierarchy of able-bodieness and people with disabilities. Kafer puts it that the social model marginalizes disability with inaccessibility and systems that isolate deviency (Kafer 162-163). The crip theory expands on the political/relational model of disability because of the rethinking of social exclusion of disability. In essence, the framework of disability not only focuses on the experience of it, but the political experience of disability in systematic and social inaccessibility.
    - - Radical Accessibility
        
        Crip theory is involved with radical accessibility because of the encompassing of the perspectives of people with disabilities, away from the able-bodied culture of defining what “should” count as a disability. For uniting the disabled community with inclusion and awareness, radical accessibility is the recognition of the agency of people with disabilities, away from the traditional and systematic thought of people with disabilities are invalid. According to Tinsley in Tourmaline’s words,” Different levels of ableism that are really easy to be internalized, about what productivity can look like and what making a difference can look like, and just different ableist models of what activism should look like” (Tinsley 111). In making this statement, like different labels of disabilities, there are different levels of ableism in relation to how different people with disabilities are treated, which brings to light how radical accessibility is needed for the conversation of centering disabled voices to be publicized without any stigma.
- - - - Quare studies are the validation of queer people of color due to their exclusion from queer studies because of their experience in racial and class discrimination. Their identities are not only made of their sexuality, but also their experience of surviving systematic oppression. Johnson claims queer theory fails to “acknowledge consistently and critically the intellectual, aesthetic, and political contributions of nonwhite and non-middle-class gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgendered people in the struggle against homophobia and oppression” (Johnson 61). Essentially, queer theory integrates palatable identities under their “inclusive” umbrella. However, since identity in social culture varies significantly from upbringing and community culture, queerness is felt as unreachable because of the lack of validation from identities changing and expanding from white queerness. Quare studies fill in these significant gaps by providing a space for validating different and complex identities of queerness and race.
    - - Performance is survival and pride. Specifically for African Americans, oppressed by a racial system dominated by White people and heterosexuality, performance became a space for pride and acceptance. Quare performers used performance to reinvent queerness to not only encompass sexual identity, but also reimagine its position. Johnson writes quarters of color use resourcefulness to reinvent themselves in performance, away from their identity as oppressed (65). In making this comment, quareness is a social and physical culture of positionality challenging queerness. Tinsley touches upon performance in her work “Beyoncé In Formation” with the acknowledgment of the gap between black feminist and queer studies (Tinsley 11). Further elaborating on this acknowledgement, black and queer communities intersect at multiple identities. Performance is cultural.