Disability Justice, COVID, and Abolition (an ASA 2020 Freedom Course)

An American Studies Association 2020 Freedom Course Disability Justice, COVID, and Abolition In this panel, leading disability justice and abolitionist community organizers and thinkers - Mia Mingus, Talila "TL" Lewis, and Liat Ben-Moshe (moderated by Connie Wun)- discuss the importance of centering disability justice in addressing the ongoing public health crisis and abolition of the carceral state. What has and does centering disability justice, an inherently intersectional framework, under a pandemic mean? What are disability justice frameworks for abolition? And why are they necessary now? How do these frameworks help us to both challenge the current moment and build a different future? Informed by their decades of work and scholarship, they expand contemporary abolitionist discourses by examining the ubiquitousness of ableism and the need for disability justice and transformative justice across the entire carceral landscape. Panelists: Mia Mingus - Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) Talila "TL" Lewis - Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities (HEARD) Liat Ben-Moshe - Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois, Chicago Connie Wun - AAPI Women Lead Co-Sponsors: AAPI Women Lead and ASA Critical Disability Studies Caucus ASL Interpreters: Stephanie Chao, Tricia Vazquez