Disability is Possibility.
Sweep wide open.
The door of Opportunity.
Recognition, Visibility.
Disability is Possibility.
Disability is Possibility.
Autistic Inertia - I can so relate
Keynote - Youth Leadership Forum - Able SC
I was keynote at the Youth Leadership Forum by South Carolina Able on 7/26/21
YLF 2021 is in full swing! Delegates have spent the morning building their disability pride and hearing from our keynote speaker, @harisri108 , about how small pieces of self-advocacy can lead to big changes for the disability community!
As Hari said, 'I think when you have a disability, some part of you is always in some kind of self doubt about your capabilities'. For the rest of the day, we are continuing to build our disability pride and work on ways to get past that self doubt to become strong advocates for ourselves and others!
[Image: A computer screen showing a presentation. The presentation read, 'Pebbles in the Pond of Change. Small pebbles count and add to the ripple in that pond of change'. A picture shows 5 pebbles creating a ripple effect in a body of water.]
Chat Comments during webinar
08:02:32 What is Ryan?
08:02:45 A text-to-speech program
08:02:47 his aac voice
08:02:59 mine is called tracy 08:03:25
08:10:32 Well put, Hari. No justice unless there's justice for all!
08:11:25 I completely agree with this video, it's very well put together and nuanced
08:18:28 You've done some really impressive work Hari
08:20:36 thats really cool
08:20:55 Hari just curious why did you make it so someone else is speaking on this slideshow and not you
08:21:13 hari has a speech disability
08:21:23 It's a text to speech program controlled by Hari, so it's still him
08:21:34 he has a speech disability
08:21:53 Ah
08:31:03 Thank you for sharing your story, Hari.
08:31:15 That was awesome Hari
08:31:37 That was amazing hari
08:37:36 i like that
08:38:17 That was very unique Hari
08:38:24 thank you for sharing hari
08:38:47 Great Job Hari!
08:38:54 It's very astute, I was impressed fr
08:41:02 That was amazing harri you did amazing job 👍🏾
08:41:16 I have a question, what do you mean each pebble is our own steps?
08:45:44 Thank you Hari!
08:46:11 Even the tiny things make a difference!
My first book reading
my first book reading (via zoom) at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, on 7/22
The last time I was published by Scholastic in an anthology, there were readings in Battery Park,NY and I never went as I thought I would not be able to participate, much to my regret now.
So this was my very first attempt using text to speech to read out the excerpts.. yeah.
Thursday 7/22, Essential Truths has their virtual Oakland Book Launch, hosted by Oakland Asian Cultural Center, from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. PST!!!!
Chat Comments
19:03:05 From Rachall Lee, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
Today’s Program:
1) Opening & Land Acknowledgement
2) Guest Presentations
3) Open Discussion/Q&A
4) Closing
19:03:55 From Rachall Lee, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
Native Land website: https://native-land.ca/
19:37:26 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
Go hari!!
19:37:30 From Tria (she/her) to Everyone:
So wonderful, Elmaz! And yay Hari!!
19:37:47 From Rachall Lee, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
Hari Srinivasan is currently a student at UC Berkeley and a student journalist at the Daily Californian. Hari is a prolific writer, having won many awards for his writing and poetry. He is also a minimally speaking autistic and passionate about disability justice. His advocacy was mentioned on President Obama’s Instagram campaign on the 30th anniversary of ADA
19:37:56 From Kelechi Ubozoh (she/her) to Everyone:
I mourn the loss of the human body
19:38:05 From Diann Leo-Omine (she/her) to Everyone:
Zoom the new reality
19:38:13 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
A microscopic virus brought the world to its knees
19:38:32 From Sridevi to Everyone:
the irony!
19:38:40 From Diann Leo-Omine (she/her) to Everyone:
So true, Hari!
19:38:50 From Elmaz Abinader, She/hers to Everyone:
Truth to power
19:38:54 From Lenore Naxon to Everyone:
Indeed.
19:38:58 From Akemi Chan-Imai, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
<3 <3
19:39:12 From Kelechi Ubozoh (she/her) to Everyone:
when the able bodied demanded it the impossible became possible overnight
19:39:20 From katie aliféris to Everyone:
TRUTHS!!!
19:39:21 From Sandra Bass to Everyone:
Cal in the house!
19:39:21 From Akemi Chan-Imai, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
yes!!
19:39:34 From Vanessa Cabrera to Everyone:
when I was there I wasn’t
19:39:45 From Diann Leo-Omine (she/her) to Everyone:
Somehow I was on equal footing
19:39:53 From Faria to Everyone:
Zoom as an equalizer
19:39:58 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
I became part of the conversation
19:40:07 From Sandra Bass to Everyone:
A part of the conversation rather than an observer of conversations.
19:40:10 From Lenore Naxon to Everyone:
He's opened my eyes.
19:40:12 From Christl Perkins to Everyone:
became part of the conversation, more than an observer of conversations
19:40:17 From Shirley Huey (she/her) to Everyone:
^^^
19:40:39 From Christl Perkins to Everyone:
definitely a lot of intersectionalities
19:40:44 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
yes.
19:40:45 From Shirley Huey (she/her) to Everyone:
yes
19:41:00 From Yeva Johnson to Everyone:
Hari, thank you for these lessons on intersectionality!
19:41:03 From Lorraine Bonner to Everyone:
Elijah McClain
19:41:16 From katie aliféris to Everyone:
yes!!!
19:41:20 From Sandra Bass to Everyone:
survival of the kindest!
19:41:21 From Faria to Everyone:
Survival of the kindest <3
19:41:21 From Tria (she/her) to Everyone:
Yes, Hari! All these truths.
19:41:21 From Akemi Chan-Imai, she/her (OACC) to Everyone:
survival of the kindest
19:41:24 From Kelechi Ubozoh (she/her) to Everyone:
<3
19:41:24 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
Survival of the KINDEST!!
19:41:28 From Yeva Johnson to Everyone:
Survival of the kindest, never heard of that until today! Thank you!!!
19:41:28 From katie aliféris to Everyone:
^^^
19:41:30 From Yeva Johnson to Everyone:
❤️❤️❤️
19:41:30 From Shirley Huey (she/her) to Everyone:
yes
19:41:37 From Tureeda Mikell to Everyone:
Great information, Hari!
19:41:43 From Sridevi to Everyone:
Sadly, it's true! worse for those with more intersections
19:41:53 From Sandra Bass to Everyone:
Project our goodness into the world through ACTION!
19:41:54 From Tria (she/her) to Everyone:
Thank you for this daily nudge <3 <3
19:41:55 From Vanessa Cabrera to Everyone:
thank you!!!!
19:41:56 From Elmaz Abinader, She/hers to Everyone:
yay
19:41:56 From Sandra Bass to Everyone:
Thank you Hari!
19:41:56 From Faria to Everyone:
Hari!! Thank you!
19:41:57 From Yeva Johnson to Everyone:
Thank you, Hari!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️
19:41:58 From danny ryu (they/them) to Everyone:
Wowwwwww thank you hari
19:42:02 From Kelechi Ubozoh (she/her) to Everyone:
HARI SO MOVING!
19:42:02 From Sandra Wassilie to Everyone:
Beautiful message, Hari: survival of the kindest.
19:42:05 From Susana Praver-Perez to Everyone:
Thank YOU Hari!!!
19:42:07 From Sridevi to Everyone:
daily nudge for long term!
19:42:08 From Tureeda Mikell to Everyone:
Yes all that’s Good within ourselves! Thank You!!!
19:42:12 From Christl Perkins to Everyone:
Wisdom - thank you Hari!
19:42:14 From Nancy Hom to Everyone:
Let us reach down into that goodness!
19:42:18 From Shirley Huey (she/her) to Everyone:
Thank you Hari!
19:42:27 From Johnny Huy Nguyen to Everyone:
Thank you for the real talk and the hopefulness
19:42:31 From Pardis Esmaeili to Everyone:
So insightful
19:42:49 From maestro mathmattox to Everyone:
10Q so much hari!
RDoc vs DSM in the context of Autism
Lexicon [Measures] RDoc, DSM
RDoc v DSM
The RDoC (Research Domain Criteria) & DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) are both tools used in the field of mental health, but they approach the understanding and classification of mental disorders from different perspectives. DSM is a clinically focused tool for diagnosing mental disabilities based on symptomatic criteria, while RDoC is a research-focused framework aiming to understand mental health disorders from a multidimensional, biopsychosocial perspective
For example, RDoC organizes its research around several "domains" of human psychological functioning, including cognitive processes, social processes, and arousal/regulatory systems, all of which are areas where autistics may show differences. Within these domains, RDoC further identifies specific constructs - like social communication and perception, or cognitive systems related to attention and perception - that could be targets for research into the biological and behavioral underpinnings of autism.
Challenges in implementing RDoC
There are potential challenges to implementing RDoC principles more fully into research or clinical practice for autism.
- DSM : Published by the American Psychiatric Association. It provides clear diagnostic categories based on observable behavior and reported symptoms. However, the DSM is often criticized for its categorical approach, where a patient either has or does not have a particular disability.
- RDoC : Developed by NIMH. The RDoC is not a diagnostic tool; it's a research framework. RDoC aims to integrate many levels of information (from genomics and circuits to behavior) to better understand basic dimensions of functioning that span the full range of human behavior . The goal of RDoC is to provide a more dimensional approach to understanding mental disabilities, based on neuroscience and behavioral science, rather than purely on observable symptoms.
Autism and RDoC
Autism, under the RDoC framework, is seen not as a single, homogeneous disorder but as a spectrum that includes a variety of symptoms and behaviors that can vary widely in challenge-level and impact-level. This aligns with the current understanding of autism as a "spectrum."For example, RDoC organizes its research around several "domains" of human psychological functioning, including cognitive processes, social processes, and arousal/regulatory systems, all of which are areas where autistics may show differences. Within these domains, RDoC further identifies specific constructs - like social communication and perception, or cognitive systems related to attention and perception - that could be targets for research into the biological and behavioral underpinnings of autism.
Challenges in implementing RDoC
There are potential challenges to implementing RDoC principles more fully into research or clinical practice for autism.
- Trying to map a heterogeneous disability like Autism onto the specific domains and constructs defined by RDoC.
- Current lack of practical tools and measures available to clinicians, to assess the various domains and constructs defined by RDoC in a routine clinical setting. This includes standardized measures for assessing constructs like social communication and perception, or the cognitive systems related to attention and perception that are relevant to autism.
- Need for further research: to validate the constructs and domains defined by RDoC, and to understand how these relate to the symptoms and behaviors associated with autism. We need a deeper understanding of the relationships between the biological, psychological, and behavioral aspects of autism to fully implement the RDoC approach.
- Changing Existing Systems & Acceptance in the Clinical and Research Community: Current diagnostic systems like DSM-5 are deeply rooted in many aspects of mental health care. It must gain acceptance not only among researchers, but also among clinicians, educators, and families. This requires education and evidence that the RDoC approach can improve outcomes for autistics.
Double Empathy and Autism - Reframing Social Communication Challenges
The "Double Empathy Problem," a concept introduced by Dr. Damian Milton, challenges the traditional view that autistic individuals have a deficit in empathy. Instead, it posits that difficulties in social communication and understanding arise from a mismatch in neurotypical and autistic communicative styles, rather than a unilateral deficiency in autistic individuals. This perspective suggests that misunderstandings are bidirectional, resulting from differences in social norms, communication styles, and cognitive processing between neurotypical and autistic people (Milton, 2012).
Research supports the Double Empathy Problem by highlighting that both autistic and neurotypical individuals can experience challenges in understanding and empathizing with each other's perspectives. For example, Sheppard et al. (2016) found that neurotypical participants often struggled to interpret the emotions and intentions of autistic individuals, mirroring the difficulties that autistic individuals face when interpreting neurotypical communication cues. This mutual misunderstanding can lead to social friction, reduced social cohesion, and the reinforcement of stereotypes about autism.
Furthermore, studies indicate that autistic individuals often employ different communicative strategies, such as directness or focusing on specific details, which can be misinterpreted by neurotypical individuals as inappropriate or lacking empathy (Crompton et al., 2020). These differences in communication style can exacerbate social isolation and contribute to the stigmatization of autistic individuals, as they are often judged against neurotypical social norms.
The Double Empathy Problem also emphasizes the importance of a more inclusive and reciprocal approach to social interaction. This involves recognizing and valuing diverse communicative styles and fostering environments where both autistic and neurotypical individuals can engage on equitable terms.
Related Posts on [The Double Empathy Problem]
References:
- Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem.’ Disability & Society, 27(6), 883-887.
- Sheppard, E., Pillai, D., Wong, G. T., Ropar, D., & Mitchell, P. (2016). How easy is it to read the minds of people with autism spectrum disorder? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(4), 1247-1259.
- Crompton, C. J., Ropar, D., Evans-Williams, C. V., Flynn, E. G., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2020). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism, 24(7), 1704-1712.
HHS Announcement of IACC Member Appointment
https://iacc.hhs.gov/news/2021/iacc-new-members.shtmlContact: Office of Autism Research Coordination/NIH
Email: IACCPublicInquiries@mail.nih.gov
HHS Announces Appointment of New Members to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee
Wednesday, July 7, 2021
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the appointments of new and returning members to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), a federal advisory committee reauthorized under the Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support (CARES) Act of 2019. The IACC is a federal advisory committee composed of public stakeholders and federal officials that coordinates federal activities concerning autism spectrum disorder and provides advice to the HHS Secretary on issues related to autism. Committee meetings serve as a public forum for the sharing of community perspectives and concerns about autism. The committee uses this input as it formulates advice and recommendations for the HHS Secretary on matters related to autism research, services, and policy. The committee's responsibilities include developing and annually updating the IACC Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and preparing an annual Summary of Advances in ASD Research.
After an open call to the public for nominations of individuals to serve on the committee, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, J.D., appointed 20 new and two returning public members to the IACC to provide him with advice to advance research, enhance services, and increase opportunities for people on the autism spectrum. The committee also includes 23 new and returning federal officials representing key federal agencies and departments that serve the autism community across a wide variety of areas, including biomedical research, healthcare, education, and social services. Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health, will continue to serve as the chair of the committee. The first meeting of the new committee will take place virtually on July 21-22, 2021 and will be open to the public via webcast. A full roster and biosketches of all the new and returning members can be viewed on the IACC website.
IACC Executive Secretary, Susan Daniels, Ph.D., stated, "We are excited to welcome the largest and most diverse IACC to date, with a wider representation of perspectives from across the autism community than ever before."
Public members appointed include autism self-advocates, parents and family members of children and adults on the autism spectrum, clinicians, researchers, and leaders of autism research, services, and advocacy organizations. Many of the appointed individuals serve multiple roles, such as parent and researcher or self-advocate and leader of an advocacy organization. Appointees hail from across the U.S., including states that have not been represented on the committee previously, such as Louisiana, Maine, Texas, Washington, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Autism and disability organizations represented by new and returning appointees to the IACC include the Autism Science Foundation, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Autism Speaks, Champions Foundation, Simons Foundation, and Madison House Autism Foundation. Four federal departments newly joining the IACC —the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Labor, and U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs—will provide additional expertise in the critical areas of housing, employment, interactions with law enforcement, and care for veterans on the autism spectrum.
Public members appointed by the Secretary to serve on the IACC from 2021-2024 are:
- Maria Mercedes Avila, Ph.D., M.S.W., M.Ed.Associate ProfessorDepartment of PediatricsLarner College of MedicineUniversity of VermontBurlington, Vermont
- Alice Carter, Ph.D.ProfessorDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of Massachusetts Boston
- Samantha Crane, J.D.Legal DirectorAutistic Self Advocacy NetworkWashington, D.C.
- Aisha Dickerson, Ph.D.Assistant ProfessorDepartment of EpidemiologyBloomberg School of Public HealthJohns Hopkins UniversityBaltimore, Maryland
- Dena Gassner, M.S.W.Ph.D. Candidate in Social WorkAdelphi UniversityWest Hempstead, New York
- Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, M.A.Humanities ScholarCenter for the Study of Women, Gender, and SexualityRice UniversityHouston, Texas
- Alycia Halladay, Ph.D.Chief Science OfficerAutism Science FoundationNew York, New York
- Craig Johnson, B.A.Founder and PresidentChampions FoundationHouston, Texas
- Yetta Myrick, B.A.Founder and PresidentDC Autism ParentsWashington, D.C.
- Lindsey Nebeker, B.A.Freelance Presenter/TrainerAlexandria, Virginia
- Valerie Paradiz, Ph.D.Vice PresidentServices and SupportsAutism SpeaksPrinceton, New Jersey
- Jenny Mai Phan, Ph.D.Post-Doctoral FellowWaisman CenterUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
- Joseph Piven, M.D.Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and PediatricsUniversity of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
- JaLynn R. Prince, B.F.A.Co-Founder, President, and ChairMadison House Autism FoundationRockville, Maryland
- Susan Rivera, Ph.D.Professor and ChairDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of California, Davis
- Matthew Siegel, M.D.Vice President of Medical AffairsDevelopmental Disorders Service LineMaine Behavioral HealthcareWestbrook, Maine
- Ivanova Smith, B.A.Self-Advocate FacultyLeadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related DisabilitiesUniversity of WashingtonTacoma, Washington
- Hari SrinivasanStudentUniversity of California, Berkeley
- Helen Tager-Flusberg, Ph.D.ProfessorDepartment of Psychological and Brain SciencesBoston UniversityBoston, Massachusetts
- Julie Lounds Taylor, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorDepartment of PediatricsVanderbilt University Medical CenterNashville, Tennessee
- Paul Wang, M.D.Deputy DirectorClinical Research Associates, LLCSimons FoundationNew York, New York
- Stephen Whitlow, J.D.Executive DirectorTransition ServicesMerakeyBaton Rouge, Louisiana
Essential Truths - The Bay Area in Color
My poetry-prose piece titled "Survival of the Kindest: Truths from a Zoom Reality" is part of this anthology by BIPOC writers and artists from the SF Bay Area.
Order the book at HERE
Amazon Review: Poetry, prose and artwork by 130 Black, Brown, Indigenous, and People of Color – from poets laureate and published authors to high-school students and closet writers, from teachers and healthcare providers to the formerly unhoused. Themes include: What has it been like living with loss and uncertainty? What has tested and inspired you as a person of color or ally? What gives you the strength to keep going? How are you working for positive, sustainable change? What are the challenges, lessons and rewards of becoming part of the solution?
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Truths-Bay-Area-Color/dp/1733059024/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=essential+truths%3A+the+bay+area+in+color&qid=1623887550&sr=8-1
Some press-releases about the book
https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/people-of-color-share-essential-truths/?fbclid=IwAR25w1_N8oQPV6EcjAHDCbthFR0p5oYB8zL1PJy_FP0ihkyo9b5DtSVRa5g
Which Mind Bodies have Access to the Land?
Last semester I took Prof Sunaura Taylor's Env Science Policy & Management, Disability Studies course. In Prof Taylor's words, "This course centers the body as a key analytic to understanding the more-than-human world." An absolutely intriguing course.
My Final Project
=====
San Francisco - Which Mind Bodies Have Access to the Land?
Eduardo Jacobo and I teamed up for this project and have looked at San Francisco from a few different perspectives as has been discussed in class: what constitutes Natural Beauty, the concrete jungle nature of the built environment in terms of accessibility (eg: city of slopes with some of the steepest roads in the world) and more. Which mind-bodies have access?
Our (Project) Creation Story
I have always felt uneasy and out of place in big cities; a trip to the beach is so much more enjoyable to me than going inside buildings, no matter how magnificent they are. My initial idea for the project was a big city or maybe a marketplace in India since I was there (the India idea came later but I’d already started working with Eddie by then). When Eddie initially mentioned he would be taking photos of San Francisco, it sounded like a perfect collaboration as it would add visuals to my thoughts on aspects of San Francisco I had in mind - I was especially interested in photos/visuals of steep roads, the manmade Golden Gate bridge juxtaposed against nature, walking in the shadows of tall skyscrapers and displaying the inaccessibility of the built concrete jungle. The plan thus was that he would take the photos and I would write a poetry-prose narrative around them. (We will each be handing in a separate personal reflection expanding on these ideas in the context of what was discussed in class.)
In addition, “collaboration-cooperation” was all the more relevant for me given that this was a disability-studies class. I’d first heard of this term during my interview with Judy Heumann for the Daily Cal, (Srinivasan, 2019) and it has stuck with me since.
We can extend this “collaboration-cooperation” to the relationship we humans need to have with the land we exist on and our fellow non-human and nonliving things. It has to be a treaty with the land, following in the footsteps of the Skywoman; the indeginous struggle is really a struggle for all earth given that the mess we’ve managed to make of the earth.
A Land Acknowledgement.
Photo Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
We acknowledge that the city of San Francisco sits on the unceded, ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.
Before the missionaries and the White man
Lived peoples of Ramaytush Ohlone
From the time of Sky Woman.
Treaties with living and nonliving.
Harmonized with the land.
Everything, a cherished relative.
Imprisoned, All but wiped out presently.
Even today, one of the fundamental aspects of settler colonialism is to superimpose their culture and ideas on top of indigenous culture so the new ways became the right way, and the old ways the wrong ways that needed to be eliminated and forgotten. In America this took the form of multiculturalism which meant indigenous people were reduced from treaty-holding independent nations to yet another minority that supposedly contributed to America's greatness with their giving spirit, (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2015).
The real picture - the lovely San Francisco, like the rest of America, was not the result of dialogue or “giving,” but a takeover. It was the result of the, “looting of an entire continent and its resources,” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2015), and genocide of its original immigrants and the systematic stripping of their culture, language, and identity. Of the 1500 families of the Ramaytush before the missionaries arrived; only one family lineage survives now, (ramaytush.com).
I think of the woods in San Francisco named after John Muir who showed great concern for the plight of bears, yet was quick to label the Indians of Merced Valley near Yosemite as “dirty and irregular,” and callously dismissive of their systemic genocide as he tried to attract the white tourist, “As to the Indians, most of them are dead or civilized into useless innocence,” (Purdy, 2015).
In this context I wanted to add something that used to confuse and lend to identity confusion as a child - why was everyone who was “brown-ish” called Indian? I’m of Indian (the country) descent; India used to be a bunch of kingdoms till the British clubbed them as India; the name given in the Independent Indian constitution is actually Bharat. India was the East Indies, Caribbean nations became the West Indies; Columbus set out in search of India and its spices and labeled the indigenous people of the US as Indians. Did everyone Brown and ‘native’ become the “other” body, clubbed as ‘Indian’ by the Global North?
San Francisco from the Air
Photo Credit:Hari Srinivasan
Delightful lights of San Francisco below
City by the Sea
Row after row of twinkling city lights
Lights that glow as the plane flies low
Expanse of the Pacific Bay with its Golden Gate
.....Dominate the landscape
San Francisco is said to be,
The most picturesque of US Cities.
Just full of natural beauty!!
Photos Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
But what is this natural beauty? What is natural?
… Is it that giant red steel bridge on the Pacific we call Golden Gate?
… Is it the row of neatly arranged houses on the hills?
… Is it the homes built from trees stripped from Oakland woods?
… Is it the manicured lawns of Golden Gate Park?
… Is it the small pieces of forest we have left untouched (for now)?
Have we redefined natural beauty to mean manmade rearrangements?
What mind-bodies do we see? Who has access?
When I think of nature, it is the personal growth advisor and your BFF. You see it inside, outside and all around. Nature is felt, not just seen; the human body is deeply enmeshed in nature. But what is natural? We seemed to have blurred the difference between natural, unnatural and manmade (Cronon, 1995).
Accessing Nature
Photos Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
Image Credit: goslides.com
A site for sore eyes
Blue and green with white sands in between.
Toes crunch in sand as waves wash the feet
But which mind-bodies get access to this feat?
San Francisco was built to leverage the “natural” beauty all around, but as we discussed in class, much of our landscapes, vista points and other places of “natural” recreation was created with the White, wealthy families with mobility (cars) in mind.
But why should the suburban, upper-middle-class have a monopoly on mobility? The white John Steinbeck could easily visit and rave about the beauty of Montana in his book, “Travels with Charley”. This contrasts to what we read in class about Black families being scared to visit traditionally White spaces like national parks, (Kafer, 2013). Even MLK was turned away from a national park. It is not without irony that Steinbeck had written about watching out for accidental bullets hitting people during hunting season in Montana. The White settlers had traditionally regarded the BIPOC and disabled body as inferior and disposable; imagine being in the path of dozens of trigger-happy, gun-toting White hunters during hunting season in any state.
And access trails to these nature spots and scenery don’t keep the disabled in mind. How would my 75 year old grandma who has an iron rod in her leg be able to access the beach pictured in the photo above?
The Built Environment
Photos Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
A City of Slopes
San Francisco, a city of slopes
… 31 percent grade is Filbert St
… 29 percent grade is Jones St
.... many many such more.
What mind-bodies do we see?
Slopes, who gets to navigate?
Photos Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
Footsteps on the steps
What of the SideSteps & UnSteps?
What about Me?
How are stairs, any form of share?
When it comes to chairs?
(Clipart Credit: GoSlides.com)
Photo Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
Photo Credit: Eduardo Jacobo.
We call this beauty? A Concrete “Jungle”?
A bay and a bridge and patches of green
A concrete jungle in its midst
Pretty patterns of concrete indeed.
“Nature-rize” with a jungle suffix
In the boulevards of downtown San Francisco
Shadows of skyscrapers are all you see.
Are we Spiderman to jump building to building?
What Mind-bodies do we see? Who has access to this land?
Kafer (2013) points out that social arrangements shape our “natural” environments, which is also built. Much like the vista points and natural parks, postmodern cities (like San Francisco) are built for White, wealthy, able-bodied people which marginalizes the disabled mind-body, rendering such spaces inaccessible. Kim (2018) too points out that the “public infrastructure system is more invested in the flow of capital than the well- being of the least powerful, the disabled bodies.”
There are many types of access issues, architectural access is just the beginning. For example, crowded cities with neon lights are sensorily hard to handle for autistics like me, as is walking in the shadows of tall buildings where you can barely see the sun. I was especially interested in including photos of the steep roads of San Francisco - some slopes in San Francisco for me are utterly scary and daunting.
Photo Credit: Eduardo Jacobo
Spencer Battery
Vestiges of WWII Machine
Manned Guns protected the city
Kept clean even today.
No entry allowed for nature’s stray vegetation.
A historic relic, blatantly man-made.
Spencer Battery (a place I am yet to visit) is a historic landmark that housed 12 guns used by the military to protect the city before the time of WWII and has remarkable views of the Golden Gate Bridge backdrop. Eddie had an interesting observation in that it is kept clean of stray vegetation. Ergo, it's now considered part of “natural beauty” but “nature” (i.e. vegetation) is not allowed.
By shifting our perspectives, (which I hope will become a reality) we will find that the human built environment actually offers an opportunity for justice, for both human and non-human beings on this Earth and the land.
References
- Avalos, W. (2021, April 29). Land-Based ethics and Settler solidarity in a time of Corona and revolution. Retrieved Apr 27, 2021, from https://arrow-journal.org/land-based-ethics-and-settler-solidarity-in-a-time-of-corona-and-revolution/
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