Freedom Week Five
LIBERATION LECTIONARY ~ DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH
Faith in Our Bodies
“The truth is we can’t separate the punishments that Black girls face for their race and gender from their disabilities. Every part of their identity is relevant.” from op-ed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Dr. Subini Ancy Annamma, Vilissa Thompson
Reflection: Reports from the Disregarded
This last day of Disability Pride Month, as we head into Black August, we are thinking about the political and economic structures born from Capitalism, remembering that disabled people are incarcerated at high rates in the United States. And many people who are incarcerated, especially as youth, develop disabilities while imprisoned. Nearly 2 in 5 (38%) state and federal prisoners had at least one disability in 2016. The most commonly reported type of disability among both state and federal prisoners was a cognitive disability (23%), followed by ambulatory (12%) and vision (11%) disabilities.
We have not celebrated Disability Pride Month together as a community before, so we wanted to do our research, and as we did, we read through some troubling information from many reports. One report focused on the factors that combine to impact incarceration rates, “Access to Justice: A Cross-Disability Perspective on Reducing Jail Incarceration”.
Race and poverty are major contributing factors to over-incarceration of certain populations. When you combine disability, race, poverty and family incarceration, the odds of police contact and incarceration increase.
Nationally, Native Americans have the highest rates of disability among working adults, followed by Black people at 11 percent; white people, 9 percent; Hispanic people, 7 percent; and Asian-Americans, 4 percent. People with disabilities account for one-third to one-half of all the people killed by law enforcement. When discrimination and bias overlap with other marginalized identities, an identity may become lost or mislabeled and therefore a person’s life story is never accurately accounted for, especially when it comes to race and disability.
When all ages are accounted for, there are higher rates of disability reported for Black people in the United States. According to the study “Black-White Differences in Self-Reported Disability Outcomes in the U.S.: Early Childhood to Older Adulthood”, Black people experience higher percentages of learning disabilities; for all disabilities in midlife, Black people have 1.5 to two times the odds of disability over white people. Disability advocates we spoke with attributed disability discrepancies across race to historical harms to communities of color, including the legacy of enslavement and lack of access to equal educational opportunities.
“There are certain things that people shouldn’t be subjected to, but unfortunately, we are, and in those events, you have a choice – that neither option can result in a great outcome, but you must choose – to try to achieve your objective or goal to get in a better situation so then you can access greater choices.” Lisha Fields, disability advocate and formerly incarcerated
Prayer & Meditation: Faith with our Bodies
“You have Our Faith with Our Bodies” from Masai mystics in Tanzania
Father, thank you for your revelation about death and illness and sorrow. Thank you for speaking so plainly to us, for calling us all friends and hovering over us, for extending your arms out to us. We cannot be stable on our own, we fall into death without you. We fall from faith, left to our own, we are really friendless without you. Your extended arms fill us with joy, expressing love, love caring and carrying, asking and receiving our trust.
You have our trust, Father, and our faith, with our bodies, and all that we are and possess.
We fear nothing when with you, safe to stretch out and help others, those troubled in faith, those troubled in body. Help us to do with our bodies what we proclaim, that our faith be known to you and to others, and be effective in all the world. Amen ~~
Prompts for prayer during this first week of Black August: Pray for the incarcerated and impaired. Pray for the meeting of God’s mercy to triumph over humanity’s judgment. Pray for disabled people struggling to visit and access information about incarcerated loved ones. Pray for young people at risk of incarceration, and therefore at risk of injuries and cognitive issues. Lift up the names of incarcerated peoples. Locate the names of prisons in your area; pray that the Lord will heal and deliver.
Daily Scripture Readings - from 2nd Corinthians 4
Sunday: 2nd Corinthians 4.16-18 “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
Monday: 2nd Corinthians 4.1-2 Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to manipulate God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.
Tuesday: 2nd Corinthians 4.3-4 And even if our gospel seems vague, it is vague to those who are perpetuating empire. In their case the god of this world has confused the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from perceiving clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Wednesday: 2nd Corinthians 4.5-6 For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of obscurity,” who has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Thursday: 2nd Corinthians 4.7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.
Friday: 2nd Corinthians 4.8-12 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us but life is at work in you.
Saturday: 2nd Corinthians 4.13-15 But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and therefore we also speak, because we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence. Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
Music: Marvelous
Gospel Music legend Andrae Crouch was with us from July 1942 to January 2015. He was known for his encouraging and spiritually centering melodies and lyrics. One of the most successful songwriters, Andrae wrote lyrics for many more artists than just himself.
His lyrical success, however, did not come easily. Crouch had dyslexia, and approached songwriting with very little attention to what we would define as writing, or typing up words by hand. Instead, he would begin the songwriting process by drawing a picture of what he wanted the song to sound like. Because of his dyslexia, Crouch had learned to memorize the shape of words rather than their spelling so he often consulted others on how to fit difficult words into a song’s drawing. Songwriting was visual art for him, and this difference that many would call a disability is part of the reason that his lyrics and melodies worked so beautifully together. When you sing his songs, you can almost see them. Crouch called his dyslexia a blessing, and used his visual skills to write dozens of hit songs. This week’s meditation music is from one of his later works. The song “Marvelous” from the full length album Mercy, based upon Psalm 118.23 “This is the Lord’s doing, and it’s marvelous in our eyes”
Credits
Body images: art by Romeo Temwa, header image: art by Ehpram Urevbu
Disability x Incarceration Report
Narratives from Cook County Detention: Read First person accounts Here
American Progress article — Disabled Behind Bars
Op ed in Teen Vogue — Criminalizing Black Girls w. Disabilities