DREDF

Zzzave the Date! The 2nd Annual Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights is Coming on March 12, 2021, World Sleep Day

/ Ingrid Tischer / Leave a comment
Photo collage of 17 naptivists, including adults, children, dogs, and cats. Described in post below. Text: 1st Annual Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights March 13-15, 2020 talesfromthecrip.org 3 Days, 38 Naptivists #TiredOfAbleism $1740 in Donations 100% to dredf.org Thank You for Your Naptivism!

All Photos courtesy of Naptivists

Well, the glorious 1st Annual Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights was all of 6 months ago. In news that will shock absolutely no one, I’m tired again. As I bet you are, too.
So – when the waking gets rough, the sloths plan naptivism.  And that means…

Sloth photo. Zzzave the Date! March 12, 2021, World Sleep Day. The 2nd Annual Napa-a-thon for Disability Rights #TiredOfAbleism Naptivists stay tuned at talesfromthecrip.org

Zzzave the Date! March 12, 2012, World Sleep Day

Summon your inner naptivist sloth and stay tuned for more info on how to be part of the
2nd Annual Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights!

#TiredOfAbleism? Calling All Naptivists to Join the 1st Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights Advocacy March 13-15, 2020

/ Ingrid Tischer / 1 Comment

Photo of a pooch napping belly-up on a couch 1st Nap-a-thon for Disability Rights March 13-15 2020 #TiredOfAbleism

Disability rights advocacy is tough and tiring. Supporting disability rights advocates shouldn’t be. Napping as activism is an easy way to do it!

Here’s what you DO:

1. You, your kid, dog, cat, horse, or sloth companion nap anytime between 3/13-15/20 and snap of photo of you doing it. Post it on social media with #TiredOfAbleism. Include alt-text!
Here’s where you can follow the action:
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/196300241622595/
On Twitter: @IngridTischer, @DREDF
2. Post a message with your photo: “I’m napping for disability rights because I’m #TiredOfAbleism. We need to bring attention to ableism and support Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) in fighting discrimination. Will you give a donation in honor of my nap?”
B/W photo of a young white man sleeping peacefully with a calico kitty

Photo courtesy of a Naptivist team

3. Add a FB Donate button or a link to dredf.org/support-our-work/, and note “naptivism.” All donation amounts welcome!

→ Scroll down for The Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Support Naptivism for Disability Rights March 13-15, 2020

Top left-right: A basset hound sleeping; a golden retriever napping; a white woman napping on a couch in an office; middle row left-right: a white woman holding a small sleeping child; 2 cats curled in a basket; a little dog napping belly-up on an office floor; bottom row left-right: a woman napping with a cat; a white guy cuddling a blanket and stuffed frog; a lounging white woman

All images courtesy of Naptivists

Disability media peeps! Naptivism is an example of crip-led activism and philanthropy shifting the disability narrative from:

  • “awareness” to advocacy

  • charity to social justice

  • using less accessible fundraisers to more inclusive action

Young woman sleeping at her desk. Text: #TiredOfAbleism NAPTIVIST www.talesfromthecrip.org

This Hero Naptivist could be you on World Sleep Day, 3/13/20. Will you answer the call of naptivism for the cause of disability rights?

Long ago when I was a disabled fundraiser at Breast Cancer Action, I jokingly said sleeping was more my thing than some 3-day-schlepp for “awareness.” Yada yada, it’s the 1st annual nap-a-thon for disability rights advocacy!

Continue reading →

TryHarder™ Magazine: The Disability Etiquette Issue Featuring the Dowager Crippess From Downwith Ableism

/ Ingrid Tischer / 2 Comments

TryHarder™ Magazine: The Magazine for People Who Need to Try Harder, 2 cents

Issue No. 5: The Disability Etiquette Issue

In which Mx. Crip-Manners is most grateful for any etiquette-related #CripTips the Dowager Crippess of Downwith Ableism might care to offer

Gif from Downton Abbey of the Dowager Countess in full evening regalia, stamping her cane for emphasis.

“My dear, if punctuality is the courtesy of kings, then access is the etiquette of ableds.”

 What is a ‘forgetting of the access’?

2 cents symbolEtiquette is so inextricably bound to access that I cannot countenance this notion of ‘disability etiquette’. Disabled people do not require ‘special’ manners.
There is nothing remarkable about courtesy, except regarding the lack of it many disabled people encounter. I have never understood how any well-intentioned host could ‘forget’ to offer a navigable entrance to guests.  We do not ‘forget’ to offer our guests chairs, for example, do we? Why, imagine it – it would be like one of those exceedingly tedious ‘cocktail’ parties where one is forced to stand as if one is in the court of Louis XIV. 

Continue reading →

I Remember This: I See a Disabled Person

/ Ingrid Tischer / 1 Comment

Cartoonized image of Ingrid Tischer's eyes in close-up.I remember this:

I am eight. I am waiting alone for the little bus inside the doors of my school, White Sulphur Springs Elementary, in the Catskills. I glimpse a small girl not  far away – tired, leaning against the wall like it was holding her up. Seeing her, I feel a sorrow for her. The sorrow is bigger than me, it blooms out of my stomach and swallows me whole like a monstrous flower.  In the next instant, I see that I’m looking at myself in the reflection of a display cabinet’s glass doors. I am angry at myself – first, for letting myself look like that  – then, for looking like that. Then I know that I will never be faster than seeing is. It can get even me. This means that while I’ll empathize with strangers who feel sorry for me in decades to come – having done it myself – I’ll want them to snap out of it, too – as I did.

I’ve been the only (identified) disabled student in my classes in five schools since first grade, I see children “like me” at this clinic and on tv once a year during a telethon that makes me cringe. That’s it. I have a pronounced lack of images to work with and an inability to decipher the ones I do see.

Continue reading →