I believe in the disabled future.

This is a radical statement. Disabled people aren’t supposed to be alive, take up space, exist—joyfully, complicatedly, thrivingly, ornery-ly—in the present. But the future? Nah. Double nah.

In the Bad Future of all kinds of dystopian imaginings, disabled people are either everywhere, with our pathetic, pain-filled, dysfunctional, broken bodyminds. We’re the tragic autistic son in Children of Men who can’t look up from his devices, the “disfigured” ugly babies produced by toxic waste and climate change. We’re a cautionary tale told to children, warning them to fight climate change and fascism or just look what will happen. On the other hand, in so much utopian social justice–oriented science fiction, it’s unquestioned that in the good utopian future, disabled people don’t exist. Everyone eats organic, and disabled babies are eliminated before birth through genetic selection that no one ever calls eugenics. In the happy future, we’re all dead. And isn’t it better that way?

Fuck that.

“Crip bodies were built for space travel. Crip minds already push the outer limits,” Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project, tweeted in 2016. “We already master usage of breathing apparatuses and can handle challenging situations.” A 2020 Wired article wrote about the buried history of disabled and Deaf people selected as some of the earliest astronaut trainees, because Deaf people were less likely get nauseous and used sign to communicate; because pooping is a major problem in space and it’s easier when you already have a colostomy bag. Disabled and Deaf gain—the brilliance within our divergent bodyminds—help us take root amongst the stars, to paraphrase Octavia Butler. As white Jewish queer disabled writer Carrie Kaufman recently wrote, “Where do you (the abled) go when you leave us behind? Is it worth it?”

At the core of my work and life is the belief that disabled wisdom is the key to our survival and expansion. Crip genius is what will keep us all alive and bring us home to the just and survivable future we all need. If we have a chance in hell of getting there.

Yet a major way ableism works is to erase us from ideas of the future. The science fiction future, sure, but also the everyday future of having any idea of what a disabled adulthood or elderhood could look like. Ableism isolates and keeps disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people from finding disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent communities. It’s common for parents or teachers to tell some disabled children they’re “not like the others,” for parents of autistic, Deaf, or disabled kids to deny our identities. Sometimes, especially for BIPOC people, this can be the best survival strategy we know, but being kept from each other also kills. Most people still draw a blank when you say the words “disabled community”—like, what is that? Autistic and disabled special-ed student Cole Sorensen writes, “Until I started college, I had never met an adult who was like me. I had other disabled friends, sure, but with no model of what my life could look like after graduation, I couldn’t imagine much of a future for myself at all.”

This is why I believe some of disability justice’s most important work lies in how we’ve created space for BIPOC people (and, secondarily, Others) to identify as disabled, chronically ill, Deaf, or neurodivergent, through our creation of Black- and brown-centered disabled, sick, Deaf, and neurodivergent communities and politics. Community building isn’t always seen as “real activism” (whatever) but the work we do to create disabled Black and brown community spaces, online forums, hashtags, and artwork is lifesaving because it creates space for disabled BIPOC to come out as disabled. I mean big organized spaces, parties, and cultural events, and I also mean the disabled BIPOC version of “Hey, do you want some of my fries?”: one disabled BIPOC person being friendly and Initiating Hangout Space with another, who might not be ready to be out yet. It’s very difficult to organize for survival, power, and pleasure when people can’t even admit they go to this school, you know?

Disability justice (DJ) spaces filled with disabled Black and brown people are crucial spaces for disabled, sick, Deaf, and neurodivergent BIPOC people to witness possible futures for ourselves, as we take in other Black and brown disabled people as possibility models and friends. I could do it like that. I could have a life like that. I could expect my access needs be met like that. I could just say, “Hey, I need a chair or captions,” easy like that. I could be disabled like that.

Many Black and brown disabled people have been gatekept from claiming disabilities and excluded from mainstream disabled spaces for years by blatant and covert racism perpetuated by white disabled people and/or by the idea, Yeah, I know about that group but they’re all white people, making it not safe or not worth the risk to go through the door. I’ve witnessed a fair bit of resentment and anger over the past decade from white disabled groups/people at the success of disability justice groups to attract masses of disabled BIPOC and ally BIPOC people. White-majority and -lead disabled groups’ racism and lack of intersectional analysis and leadership, in tandem with the general ableism of the world, prevented that kind of community buy-in for decades. I didn’t make the rules, though, and it’s just a fact that racism is an impediment to movement-building and activist wins.