Blind from birth, Warren Cushman was a passionate advocate for blindness, cross-disability, and environmental issues for over 15 years. 

But, in 2007, something happened that changed him deeply and set him on a new path which he names as mental illness.

Now, 13 years later, Warren is at long last talking publicly about what happened.

He’s chosen our airwaves to, not only recount this life-changing event, but to talk about how his family and the blind community has reacted to his recent public announcement of this additional disability.

Adrienne Lauby hosts to ask what’s changed, what’s the same, and Warren Cushman’s thoughts about his path ahead.  Warren works with the California Council of the Blind, sits on the Alameda County IHSS Public Authority Board and adds his voice to many other groups and campaigns.

———————————————————————————————————–

DISABILITY 101 WEBINAR

Disability, Chronic Illness, and Neurodiversity are present throughout human populations regardless of color, class, or creed. Famed writer Susan Sontag informs us that “we are all subject to dual citizenship in the land of the well and the land of the ill.” Perhaps the most onerous parts of being disabled are due to the oppression disabled folks face at the hands of able-bodied, “sane,” and neurotypical populations.

Join the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective for an informative workshop on the emergence and development of Disability Justice activism; a modern civil rights movement. We will discuss many topics and concepts of ableism and saneism (the forms of marginality disabled people encounter) including: Patty Berne of Sins Invalid’s Principles of Disability Justice, Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory, johanna hedva’s Sick Woman Theory, and more. Our workshop will close with a discussion on how folks can learn to stand in solidarity with disabled people in their lives, and how to appropriately support and affirm disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill people.

This webinar will have simultaneous Spanish and ASL interpretation and live transcription.

Tasha Fierce (they/them/the divine feminine) is an infinite being. They are also: a crazy fat queer disabled nonbinary femme, a Black feminist, a writer, an artist, a facilitator, an activist, a scholar, an anarchist, a witch, a gardener, a crisis doula, a lover of shadow, and an intermittent ray of light currently residing in the occupied Tongva territory known as Los Angeles. Their essays have been published in White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race and Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love, and Fashion, as well as Bitch, EBONY.com, Bitch Planet and other publications. Their fiction appears in the anthology Nothing Without Us by Renaissance Press.

—

Find the Los Angeles Spoonie Collective at https://www.spooniecollective.org, or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/la.spoonie.collective/.

Fireweed Collective offers mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens. We help support the emotional wellness of all people, and center the needs of those most marginalized by our society. Our work seeks to disrupt the harm of systems of abuse and oppression, often reproduced by the mental health system. Learn more at about us.

If you cannot join this webinar live, you may still register here to get access to the recording afterwards. The recording will include closed captioning.

For any questions, please contact Lilac at [email protected]

The post Warren Cushman’s Vision – Pushing Limits – August 28, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.