“Who Wants to Get Arrested?!?”

I’ve seen Bruce Darling open presentations about direct action with the words “Who wants to get arrested?!?” many times. A number of those times, I watched the horrified but fascinated reactions of a group of autistic college students with an interest in organizing. I thought, watching this, that while my heart said “yes, let’s do this, I can do this” that I wouldn’t be in much of a place to actually get arrested at a protest and perform civil disobedience in my life. I felt that while I was working for ASAN it was ill-advised, and didn’t anticipate leaving at the time.

I was wrong on multiple accounts.

I’d rather get arrested than die without Medicaid- so I was. [Heavy pale femme, slightly sunburnt, Holds up a citation for “incommodating/obstructing a public area” with personal information scribbled out. ]

On July 25th, 2017, I had a free afternoon after a march and rally for disability rights and to save Medicaid in Washington, DC. I had rolled up to Stephanie Woodward in my rental scooter, hanging out as the crowd dispersed. She started gathering people together, and we rolled from the lawn out front of the capitol building towards the Hart Senate office building.

“Hey wanna come to a party?” she asked people as we rolled past people heading to hill visits or biding time until their visits. Everyone who knew Stephanie chuckled and either followed or said no thank you. Everyone knew that when Stephanie says “party” she means at minimum a protest, but more likely some civil disobedience and time in police custody.

At the Hart building atrium, after sending my sister (acting as my PCA) on break, a crowd slowly assembled. Experienced members of ADAPT went around the crowd, explaining what was going to happen and some basic rules.

1. When Bruce gave the signal, the crowd would start chanting.
2. The police will eventually show up with a megaphone and issue three warnings.
3. If you don’t want to get arrested, before or during the second warning you should get out and be quiet- either go to the sides of the room and watch silently, or go up to the many balconies around it and silently observe. (Or cheer, but I’ll get to that.)
4. If you want to get arrested, have your photo ID easily accessible. When the cops come to you, hand it over. When they wave you to follow them into custody, go peacefully- this particular action called for no resisting arrest charges.

I managed to roll up to the center of the knot of ring leaders right in time to get started. There were many awesome people there- including Becky Ogle, Colleen Flanagan, Cheryl Gottlieb, April Murdock, Amber Smock, German Parodi, and many more- including Judy Heumann, who has been an activist and advocate for a lot time and is an important figure in disability rights, and Spitfire, who is another honored elder in the community for whom this was, I believe, arrest number 84. (You can see a few photos that Amber took on facebook of this protest if you start here. National ADAPT also posted pictures of the protest on Facebook.)

So we chanted. As time went on, staffers from the Senate offices came out to watch from their windows and the atrium balconies. There was a good 200 or more people at this point, all chanting to save Medicaid.

Eventually the cops showed up and issued a warning. You could barely hear the megaphone where I was over the chanting, but those who were experienced made sure to pass the message along. People at this point began to trickle away, and I think this was around when we got the banner out. (I’m not sure though- some things blur together, and adrenaline was escalating. But the exact timing of when the banner went up was unimportant- what was important was that it went up at all.)

My fist was pumping in the air when the second warning went out. I was looking around, chanting with all of these other people deciding if they were going to get arrested today. At this point the crowd was thinning out, and when I looked my best friend, who had been standing next to my scooter, had cleared out. It made sense- he tends to work things from an establishment angle. We need all of these angles dealt with to be effective as a movement.

At this point I needed to make a choice: was I willing to be arrested for my rights as a disabled person?

And at that moment, full of adrenaline and fist pumping in the air, I realized I was. I had never had a protest related arrest before, and was a little worried. Many what ifs came to mind, despite being reassured earlier that they would likely pull as aside and give us citations before letting us go.

Stephanie had moved closer to the center and elevated her chair at some point. Beneath the banner, she was tweeting and getting updates. This whole time the Senate had been voting on the motion to proceed. This vote basically says that the Senate is willing to continue on to the voting process, with amendments being thrown into the ring and voting happening fast and furious. Around the time of the third warning, I want to say, we got word that the motion to proceed had succeeded. Stephanie yelled, “The Senate has voted to kill us!” And for a decent chunk of us if the plan had passed, it could have.

For those of us still in the circle, emotions were high. A woman across from me stopped and silently cried, while all around her people screamed, some crying, some sobbing, “I’d rather go to jail than die without Medicaid!” I closed my eyes and threw my head back as I screamed along, my voice breaking and cracking. I noticed in the periphery the cops surrounding us, and a police line going up. Slowly people on the edges were getting tapped on the shoulder by the cops, turning over their IDs, and being let away into custody.

Being in the middle of the circle, it was a while before they tapped me. I had already pulled out my ID and kept chanting until they came back to lead me into custody. First they lead us in batches of 10 into a hall area. As they escorted us one by one into our batch, spectators cheered us. From the balconies people celebrated each of us being willing to go into custody for our beliefs.

(In this video, you can hear Sam Crane’s commentary, chanting, and cheering as people are wheeled out. You can see me being taken into custody around 10:45-11:25)

In that short hall it was cooler somehow. Maybe it was that we were out of the pool of light cast by the skylights, or just a smaller number of bodies crowded together. A person arrested next to me also said this was their first protest arrest. (If this was you feel free to comment with a name and your pronouns!) For Stephanie, her arrest count was in the mid teens. As each group of 10 was collected, we were taken into the entrance way.

The entrance had been closed to the public and sectioned off. On one end was a table of cops with boxes of paperwork. On the other the holding area was roped off. By the time all 50 or so of us were all in holding, including many folks’ wheelchairs and mobility devices, it was densely packed. But it was also chillingly quiet compared to the atrium. While later more conversation would happen, as we waited for processing to start people had quiet murmurs with their neighbors. Near me, German quietly cried. “They voted to kill us. They voted to let us die.” I could hear the blood pounding in my own ears as I waited.

Sam Crane stood outside the building peering in while we were in custody to take this video. The glass was pretty sound resistant so there was a bit of pantomiming going on. (My tank top, by the way, says “Noncompliance is a Social Skill” and is from Real Social Skills, though she only offers them periodically. I got a TON of compliments on this tank top, by the way.)

They started processing us out in groups of 10 eventually. While it was roughly in order of arrest, it wasn’t precisely. Some groups got processed out of order, but they did try to keep it close to the order of arrest. I was so close to the center, so my group was closer to the end. Because we were technically under arrest, we weren’t permitted to use our phones. Some did sneak their phone use, hiding behind each other’s wheelchairs in the packed make-shift holding area. I didn’t risk it.

Eventually I requested to use the restroom and a woman cop escorted me to the lady’s room. Once my scooter and I were in the accessible stall, while I was utilizing the facilities, I covertly texted my sister.

So my family handled this well… Image: A screen shot of a text between Savannah, aka “Nico”, and their sister Christy.  Nico: Stay away until 3:30 at least okay? Nico: love you.  Christy: ok Christy: what do you want to drink? Christy Hey?? Christy: I’m going back to the hotel.  Nico: arrested meet me back at the hart building shortly.  Christy: Wtf Nico. I just got back to the hotel!! You’re going to have to wait a little bit.  Nico: hey I’m out of Hart!

 

I only had enough time to text “arrested meet me back at the hart building shortly.” I couldn’t wait for a response- I sent it, put my phone away and rolled out to wash my hands.

On the way back to holding at about, Tammy Duckworth was coming to check on us. I rolled into holding right before she gave us all a rousing speech of encouragement and support. (Also as someone who was literal feet from her, her shoes were FABULOUS. Great sense of style.)

 

 

(This second video was re-shared by Kerith Strano Taylor, who has run multiple times as a Democrat against my Representative, Glenn Thompson. I was STOKED.)

Eventually they called my group up for processing. The cop had a little paper with a carbon copy set up on it. He verified my address and name, got my height/weight/etc, handed me the yellow sheet and my ID, and sent me to wait for a speech before release.

These were the Capitol Police. They had been trained extensively on dealing with protesters, and they were very used to arresting and detaining protestors. Several of them knew the ADAPT regulars by name, and asked after those who weren’t at this action. (Some ADAPT people had to deal with other life things; another group went to the Senate balcony.) A few of the cops thanked us- both for speaking up generally, and for this particular issue. Some had disabled relatives at home whose lives they were worried about too.

Finally my group got the speech. You have 15 days to pay your fine, you can pay it starting tomorrow, if you don’t pay then you’ll need to go to court, where you can contest the charges. (ADAPT organizers advised us newbies to just pay the fine.) then they released us outside.

After my release I went to another rally and then rolled to the hotel. At one point I encountered unexpected stairs on a path (thanks for nothing google maps) and off roaded the scooter down a steep little hill. (Bruce was going by, and THAT got me a bad ass designation from him.) Because I had gone straight to another rally I missed out on a group post-arrest photo with Judy Heumann and Gregg Beratan. Instead a stranger took my picture at the rally because they thought it would look awesome.

“Hey can I take a picture of you holding that sign for you? It would look AWESOME.” “Okay.”

Being me, I called my mother. It went something like this.

Mother: You got arrested?!?

Me: yeah it was just a citation and fine though.

Mother: … how much is the fine?

Me: oh, it’s only $50 I’ll pay it before I leave.

Mother: Oh well that’s not bad. It is for a good cause. [Short conversation about my sister.] Okay have fun and don’t get into TOO much trouble okay?

I thought that went pretty well. By the time I met up with my sister back at the hotel Christy had calmed down enough to be proud of me. Later in the evening, a friend of mine who is abled contacted me- she and her daughter can’t get arrested because of work stuff, but they wanted to anonymously cover my fines. They also covered some other people’s fines once I connected them to Stephanie.

They next day we went on a poorly fated adventure to take the ADAPTers who had camped outside of the Russel office building an ADA anniversary cake. They had broken camp an hour before we got there, so after stumbling into the Planned Parenthood rally, we went to pay my fines.

PatientMiles from twitter gave me a Planned Parenthood rally shirt since by the time I asked about them, they had handed the last one to my sister. Thanks Miles! Thrilled to have met you! (My sister got even more swag because she raided the swag-distributors. Sigh.)

I hobbled over there just barely in time to get in before the office closed. A friendly young guy did a security screening and chatted. He informed me that the people who had gone to protest in the Senate balcony got more than a fine. Turns out interrupting the Senate is a Big Deal, and those who didn’t know were a bit shocked to learn that that isn’t a charge you can just pay a fine for. Those folks had to go back for a court date.

A surly cop then escorted me over to where they would process my fine. After he left even the other cops joked that he tends to be in a crappy mood, which helped my nerves. Several other ADAPTers were there paying their fines as well. It was actually fairly relaxed considering the setting- everyone was in an okay mood. When it came my turn, they finger printed my thumb, took my money, photocopied the paperwork and my ID, and gave me a receipt. Then I was free to go about my evening.

Oh and the cake? Yeah, we tracked down some ADAPTers to deliver that to eventually, too.

At the end of the day, we delivered the cake! By we, I mean Kelly Israel, Christy, me, and Rabbi Ruti. I hope Jill and Laura enjoyed the cake!

Over all, my first protest related arrest went well. I was surprised, as I’m terrified of cops. I think it went well because:

1. I was with experienced activists with lots of civil disobedience background.
2. The group was large enough they were doing catch-and-release instead of taking people to the station.
3. It was the Capitol police, who are experienced with this kind of arrest.
4. We knew the charges and fines ahead of time and were able to make an informed decision.
5. It was a very public set up somewhere where people could easily observe.
6. We didn’t resist arrest.

I can factor in my white-ish-ness and gender presentation as well as a consideration. I didn’t see any of the people who differed from me on those respects gone after differently at this particular action, but it’s something to be aware of. I will say that if you are making a risk assessment for if you want to try this tactic, please do factor in your gender presentation and if your appearance is racialized, as well as any disabilities, before making your decision. These are things that can and do impact how police will treat you.

I want to emphasize that these circumstances were different in part because of where we were. That same week, ADAPTers in Ohio were injured by police at protests, and despite non-disabled activists in Colorado having their charges dropped, the ADAPTers who occupied offices there have not. I would never do this in some places precisely because of the history that some of the police departments have for assaulting protesters.

If you want to know your rights at a protest, the ACLU has a guide about your rights as a protester. And here’s a guide on your rights if arrested.

If you’d like to support the work of ADAPT you have a few options. You can contribute to the National ADAPT expenses, including paying fines, here. The folks who camped outside of the Russel building still need their expenses covered as well- contribute to July’s Camp ADAPT here. Stephanie and Bruce are both from ADAPT Rochester, and you can support them via this donation page– if you donate a certain amount you get a shirt! (The page is run through their local CIL, but will help cover Rochester ADAPTer’s expenses for actions this summer.) Or if you are a history fan and want to make sure the story of ADAPT gets out there, you can support the documentary about ADAPT’s history and work, Piss on Pity.

A Quick Note On: Disability vs Impairment

In the past couple of months, I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing curriculum and reading some research papers/essays that some people trying to be decent allies have done.  A lot of them do an okay job on some things, and a less great job on others. But the most common issue seems to be conflating “disability” and “impairment” in a way that reflects a relatively un-nuanced understanding of the larger disability rights movement.

The most basic definition of the Social Model is along the lines of a person is disabled not by their impairment, but by their environment. Sadly, many people fail to look at this and see more than “society alone is to blame for disability.” I see people who say that social model isn’t realistic, based on this misconception, for individuals with extensive support needs.

This fails to take into account the possible corollary that within an appropriate context, a person’s impairment would be irrelevant to their abilities. Here’s an illustration of that, and a very standard one:

Imagine a wheelchair user named Mary. Mary’s condition includes impairments in being able to support herself due to muscle weakness, so she needs to use a chair to get around. Mary goes into a general world, and there she finds that people who she shares interests with meet in a space that is up stairs without an elevator, and that the coffee shop that said it was accessible actually has a stoop too high to wheel over. But if Mary goes into Accessible Town, elevators are in the buildings and the buildings were built/modded in a way that doesn’t involve stoops, and where the halls and doors are wide enough for her electric chair.

Mary didn’t magically stop having her impairment. Instead, her environment no longer interfered with her ability to participate fully in the community of Accessible Town. Unfortunately, people look at the stories of hypothetical people like Mary and go on to claim that that is all well and good for people with physical impairments, but that those with intellectual, developmental, or psychological impairments. This is inaccurate.

Bob is non-speaking, and uses alternative communication. In general world, people become impatient or dismissive because they do not want to deal with alternative communication. (This is similar to someone who doesn’t speak the typical language in a country they are visiting, unfortunately.) Bob goes to Accessible Town to meet his friend Sue, who is Deaf. People wait for his responses, don’t try to speak for him without his permission, and ask for help understanding when they do not. Bob’s other impairments might preclude him being able to learn much of the sign language his friend Sue uses to communicate, but her interpreter is great at making sure both of them can understand each other, even though they are speaking different languages and styles.

Bob is still non-speaking and still has intellectual impairments. But he is able to not only be actively involved in this community, but to communicate and hopefully have a good time with people with different access needs entirely. In this particular context, his impairments are not disabling him from this sort of participation. He has the support, both technically and emotionally, to be a full participant.

Some people see this as just a fantasy. The standard that they hold up as “too disabled” shifts to higher and higher support needs each time we try to explain how that hypothetical person could be supported. At some point, it has become a game, which is why my examples of the hypothetical Accessible Town will end. The truth is that what access looks like will vary by person. It isn’t an easy thing at all, especially in our current world, to create environments or communities that balance people’s access needs. This seems especially true when the most needed aspect of that process is patience and trust.

Note, if you will, that a condition that may be referred to as a disability might have traits that are not impairments in and of themselves. While stimming can be a coping response to an impairment, perhaps with self regulation or sensory hyper awareness, it is not necessarily so. In some cases it is simply used as an expression of emotion- atypical, sure, but not an impairment. The only disabling factor when it comes to stimming, barring those which involve self harm, is that other people are jerks about it and project prejudices and bigotry about how people are supposed to look. Essentially, it is simply other people’s assumptions, not the behavior interacting with the environment, that creates barriers. Yet it is one of the traits by which Autistics are diagnosed.

The next thing is something that I don’t know how to introduce properly. I see a lot of people approach the idea of Neurodiversity as though it is some new big thing completely different from other disability things. The truth is that it simply is applying the larger disability rights movement to the experiences of people with certain impairments, often defined as Autistics.* It is not some great new thing that we came up with via spontaneous generation, without previous foundations. It was built on the work of many people who live with a wide range of disabilities.

When we talk about both needing disability supports and treating our impairments as differences, we are not being disingenuous. We are not “talking both ways.” And it is not about denying legitimate supports. It is an incredibly nuanced issue, but one that can be summed up in a phrase that isn’t terribly new or specific to Autistics, and is in fact used on materials put out by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD):

“Disability is a natural part of the Human Experience.”

This is the core idea here. Disability is one of many natural variances in what the human experience is like. It is not inherently shameful,  “freakish,” or unnatural. It does not rob us of our humanity– that is instead done by the perceptions of people. It is part of the amazing and beautiful diversity of our amazing species, Homo sapiens sapiens. It is a part of who we are and how we are put together.

This diversity can be powerful whether you are a religious creationist (indeed, there are hymns about this), an Atheist who believes in an unmitigated evolution, or any combination thereof. On a personal level, I believe in theistic evolution, and the vast diversity which allows for the survival of the species is something amazing and beautiful and spiritual for me. But I believe that the fact that we are so amazingly diverse, that we live in such a diverse world and are such a diverse species, is something that can be beautiful and powerful regardless of your beliefs. (Reminder: this is not a post about evolution or religion. These are tangential issues.)

When we talk about Autism or any other condition as a difference, we are not inherently denying that people with those conditions face disability. We are talking about how our conditions, and the impairments that might come along with them**, are a natural difference in the species. That those differences, like any number of others, should not bar access, dignity, or respect. That our differences are not things that should be eliminated, but that we should work towards a society in which difference is not a bar to access, be that because of changing attitudes or changing our physical environments.

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Talking about these distinctions isn’t something new. Please consider checking out some of the links below in which a number of other writers have covered similar issues.

That Crazy Crippled Chick: A Musing on the Word “Disabled”
Radical Neurodivergence Speaking: In this place, in this activity, I am not disabled.
Yes, That Too: Ableism is to Blame; A Social Construct
Autistic Hoya: Has an entire tag dedicated to this issue

Additionally, there’s a nice bullet-ed definition of the social model on the KASA website.

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* I personally consider Neurodiversity an issue that covers a wide range of individuals whose brains don’t exactly fit the “typical” brains or ways of working.
** Some people do not follow this, but they are a small subgroup who are often not aligned with the principles of the movement.