“Disability Activism”: Ben Mattlin, Akemi Nishida & Heidi Johnson-Wright

Akemi Nishida uses research, education, and activism to investigate the ways in which ableism are exercised in relation to racism, cis-heteropatriarchy, xenophobia, and other forms of social injustices. She also uses such methods to work toward cross-community solidarity for the liberation and celebration of community power. In her research and teaching, Nishida brings together disability studies, and critical race and feminist theories with affect theory. In Just Care: Messy Entanglements of Disability, Dependency, and Desire (Temple University Press, 2022), she examines public health care programs as well as grassroots interdependent care collectives and bed-space activism. The book traces the ways in which care is used as a tool for social oppression structurally under the neoliberal political economy as much as marginalized communities engage in care to activate and sustain their social change work. Prior to joining the Disability & Human Development and Women’s & Gender Studies departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago as an assistant professor, Nishida earned her Ph.D. in critical social psychology from the City University of New York. Her research has been funded by the American Association of University Women, the Linda Powell Pruitt Dissertation Scholarship, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy. Her work has been published in Subjectivity, Multicultural Perspectives, Disability Studies Quarterly, and Occupy! n+1. Her commitment for disability and other social justices continues outside of academia as she contributes to multiple grassroots organizations in Chicago and nationally.

Ben Mattlin is a journalist, essayist, and author. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a congenital muscle weakness, he is a lifelong wheelchair user. His books include Miracle Boy Grows Up and In Sickness and In Health, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Vox, and on NPR. In Disability Pride, Dispatches From a Post-ADA World (Beacon Press), Mattlin weaves interviews and reportage to explore how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America and how it influences the future. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture – from social media to high fashion and Hollywood to Broadway – showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change. He also explores the movement’s shortcomings, notably the erasure of nonwhite and LGBTQIA+ people that helped give rise to disability justice. Written without anger or pity, Disability Pride is a revealing account of an often misunderstood movement and identity, and an inclusive reexamination of society’s treatment of those it deems different.

Practicing law and doing ADA compliance has paid the bills, but Heidi Johnson-Wright finds joy in freelance writing. She has completed an edgy memoir manuscript about the truths – both brutal and beautiful – of growing up with a disability. Her passions include Spain, punk rock, collecting vintage Wacky Packages and H.P. Lovecraft. She finds joy in rescuing stray cats in Miami’s Little Havana. Follow her on Twitter @GimpGirl64.