>> We've got the wonderful
distinction as being the panel
that gets to focus on, now what?
And I -- and I hope what
you've experienced is
that the conversations build
throughout the day and we hope
to continue that
through the evening.
I'll begin.
My name is Milton Reynolds, and
I have the pleasure for working
for an organization called,
Facing History and Ourselves,
which is an international
organization,
although we have five offices
nationally, as well as one
in Toronto, one in London
and one in Cape Town.
And we work around
comparative genocide history,
our hard histories, but
one of my primary interests
of intellectual focus is
really the history of eugenics.
And so that's one of the
reasons why I'm here today.
I want to just give
a quick shout
out to the teachers I work
with, many of whom are here
in the audience today, because
I think it is through them
that we can begin to imagine
new kinds of conversations
in creating perhaps a
response movement to some
of the troubling
trends that we see.
So if you are either a teacher
who works with Facing History
or a student who in a
Facing History class,
I'd encourage you
to raise your hands.
Alright. [Applause] And
then the other thing I want
to do is just, if you're
a scholar or an activist,
who is engaged with one of our
Facing History teachers or been
in one of the classrooms,
I would also
like for you to raise
your hands.
[Applause] Alright.
So maybe we can think
about this as really --
is about movement building work.
But I'm going to introduce
my panelists and I'm going
to give a few brief remarks
and then we're going to sort
of move through the panel.
So to my right, I
have Patty Berne.
So Patty Berne is the Co-founder
and Director of Sins Invalid,
a performance project on
disability and sexuality.
Hailing from San Francisco,
Patty's background includes
advocacy for immigrants
who seek asylum due to war and
torture; community organizing
within the Haitian diaspora;
international support
for the Guatemalan
democratic movement;
work with incarcerated
youth toward alternatives
to the criminal legal
system; advocating for LDB --
LGBTQI community; and
disability rights perspectives
within the field of reproductive
and genetic technologies;
offering mental health support
to survivors of violence;
and cultural activism to
centralize marginalized voices,
particularly those of
people with disabilities.
Patty is training in Psychology,
focused on trauma and healing
for survivors of interpersonal
and state-sponsored violence.
Her work can be seen
at www.sinsinvalid.org.
Welcome, Patty.
[Applause] Sounds
like you've been busy.
To my left, one of my -- one
of the teachers I work with
and really a colleague
is Kate Wiley.
Kate has taught and coached
in varied private schools,
both parochial and independent
for the past 15 years.
She is currently the Dean of
Students and a History teacher
at Lick-Wilmerding High School.
Kate received her MA in US
History and Women's Studies
at San Francisco State.
>> Gators.
>> And was a former
student of Paul Longmore.
Kate currently teaches two
seminar History Courses,
one examining the
years between the wars,
in which there is a sizable
unit dedicated to the study
of eugenics in America, premised
on the work of Facing History
and Ourselves; the other
Race, Class and Gender,
a course that also
uses many rich --
many of the resources
and materials
from Facing History,
as an organization.
So welcome, Kate.
>> Thanks a lot.
[Applause]
>> And then last, but certainly
not least, we will be joined
by Skype by Dr. Gregor Wolbring.
Dr. Wolbring is an
Ability Studies
and Disabilities
Studies scholar,
biochemist and activist.
He is based at the
University of Calgary.
He has been based at the
University of Calgary
for 21 years, where he
is an Associate Professor
in the Faculty of Medicine,
Department of Community
Health Services,
Community Rehabilitation
and Disability Studies.
He has various academic
appointments
such as Visiting Professor
of Ability Expectation
and Ableism Studies; American
University on Sovereign Nations;
USA and Affiliated scholar;
Center for Nanotechnology
and Societies at Arizona State
University; he is also a fellow
at the Institute for
Science, Policy and Society,
at the University
of Ottawa in Canada.
He was also the President
of Canada's Disability
Studies Association
and is a Board Member of the
Society for Disability Studies.
More about him can be found at
his website, which is listed,
I believe, in the program
and will make sure
you have the link.
It's probably too long for me
to read out and you to copy.
His research interests
include ability expectations
and ableism; ethics in
governance, disability studies;
social, ethical, legal,
economic, environmental
and cultural governance
issues of new and emerging,
converging science
and technologies,
such as nanoscale SNT, molecular
manufacturing; aging, longevity
and immorality research;
cognitive sciences
and much more.
And so we will hear from
him towards the tail end
of our panel, as he
joins us by Skype.
So welcome, Gregor.
[Applause] So if -- as we
think about this question
of what can be done as we're
building today's conversation,
I'd like to first
start by a challenge,
but it's one that's been sort of
referenced throughout the day,
so I'm not going to spend
too much time on it.
But one of the challenges
I do think we confront
as a community is this one
of historical knowledge.
Many still today are unaware
of the history of eugenics,
and I still find that when
people do surface this history,
it's often in the
context of Nazi Germany.
Now, that's an important
connection for people to --
to recognize and to understand,
but sometimes I believe
that that that solid
connection to the history
of Nazi Germany can create both
conceptual impediments in terms
of how we understand the
history, but are also sort
of argue some affective barriers
or affective complications,
as it's hard to imagine
that the US
and other societies have engaged
in some of those atrocities
that we would typically
associate with Nazism,
when in fact these ideas
are more normal and routine
than history -- or at least
many people's knowledge
of history would suggest.
But I also think that this
challenge also presents a great
opportunity for us, and one
is to really leverage the --
some of the structures that were
used to put some of these ideas
in place, which are schools.
Alright, if we think about how
this narrative was constructed,
we have to go back and look
at the role of education,
not just in the US, not just in
Germany, but I would argue most
of the societies that
engaged with eugenics;
schools played a very
important part in disseminating
and promulgating those ideas.
And so we should re-imagine
those structures as places
of intervention and response;
and so I think that's an
important opportunity.
I think in particular we're
in an exciting place here
in California, and
someone alluded to earlier,
in 2011 there was a passage
of the FAIR Education Act;
so that's fair, inclusive,
active -- excuse me, Fair,
Accurate, Inclusive and
Respectful education act,
which is a K-12 mandate, which
requires a teaching of a history
of the LBGT community,
the disability community
and other underrepresented
groups.
And so it is an opportunity to
re-imagine again, the classroom
as a place where we begin
to complicate our thinking
in these narratives.
I would also propose, as
many people have today,
that it's also a great
opportunity to begin to think
about intersectionalities and
begin to talk across the silos
that sometimes stifle
our civic imagination,
in terms of how we might
engage with these issues
and create a more
robust, coordinated
and effective response
community.
Let me see.
I think lastly, leveraging
some new frames, which allow us
to ask different
sorts of questions.
Some of these frames
are emerging;
we're going to hear
some of them --
actually Dr. Wolbring is
going to suggest some of them.
And we also hear
some earlier today.
But I also think it's
important to sort of think
about these new frames as in
some ways as being legacies
of the work that's
been done before.
As new opportunities are created
and new voices enter
the academy,
they come with different
perspectives,
because in many cases
they're coming
from different experiences.
So the questions that
animate their narrative,
their inquiry provide us new
opportunities to think again,
about these histories and
to pose new questions.
And more importantly, to connect
those questions of the past
to how they're resurfacing
and being repackaged today.
In the last conversation,
we had sort of had this idea
that all societies,
all moments in society,
grapple with this idea that
the tragedies and travesties
of today are normalized
in such a way
that they just become the
things that we're doing.
And yet in hindsight
when we look back,
we see that there were some
pretty tremendous things
taking place.
And so it's a tension, I think,
we all have to grapple with and
yet it's a great opportunity
to again, to as I suggest,
begin to complicate our
thinking about this.
So with that said, I'm actually
about to hand this over,
but I will say one more thing.
One other frame that I
think is really useful
and has proven generative in
our work, is actually thinking
about the process of
transitional justice,
which are the processes through
which societies go to recover
after episodes of genocide
or collective violence.
Some of the tools that they use
to re-imagine society
are educational reform,
institutional reform,
cultural responses, which can
include artistic responses
and a variety of things that
provoke conscious memory;
judicial responses;
reconciliation processes,
both formal and informal;
restitution and reparations;
and lastly, truth commissions.
I think in this last
panel, we'll be touching
on various different elements of
that and so I sort of just throw
that out as a frame that
we might think about
and use together as a
community to animate discussions
about how do we confront, not
just the legacies of the past,
but the resurfacing and
reemergence in the present.
So with that said, I'm going
to hand it over to Patty.
>> Thanks.
[Applause]
>> Patty: I have a
pretty soft voice,
so I want to make sure
people can hear me?
Yeah, awesome.
Yeah, the mic's close to me.
Yeah, awesome.
Thank you, Milton.
I am so excited to be here, I
have to say, because it's great
to see colleagues that I've
worked with before and friends.
And it's such a rare
opportunity to actually engage
in exactly these intersections,
and like everyone has said,
you know, next time maybe
two days, three days,
whatever our budgets can afford,
because there's so much content.
And I want to acknowledge
that part
of what I think encouraged me
to initiate the Sins Invalid
Performance Project was my
experience working at the
Center for Genetics in Society,
where I directed a project on
Disability Raising Eugenics.
We started in 2006, and as a
Disability Justice Performance
Project, we certainly, you
know, our majority queer,
majority person of color
project looking at disability.
We then brought in
social justice context,
not just theoretically,
but also in terms
of organizational practices, how
we understand movement building,
who we make alliances
with, et cetera.
And you know we're doing
some work, for example,
currently with the
Brown Boi Project,
looking at the relationship
between gender justice
and disability justice.
And so it's -- the work, the
flagship work that we started
with was the performance
project.
At this point, we're
also doing quite a bit
of movement-building
work as well.
And so if folks are interested
in that, please feel free
to look us up on the
website, sinsinvalid.org.
And I wanted to circle back,
when I was working at CGS,
which was an awesome place to
be, as a person that was kind
of identified as in many
of the eugenic crosshairs,
it was intense to be
experiencing so many narratives
of why I personally
should not exist.
That's depressing.
I saw that with the
responses that, you know,
when part of my responsibilities
were to engage folks and --
and I saw people was this ideal,
if you will, and now what?
Because you know, these are
historical forces as well
as current policies,
and the idea
of cultural work started
incubating at that point.
Because that is something,
if we can't engage our
political imagination,
then we certainly aren't
going to have any policies
that reflect something
that's libratory.
So I started thinking
a lot about the role
of cultural work in
movement-building.
I mean, I had obviously before,
but specifically
around this work.
And so many times when we
work with artists, we --
you know, we talk about
essentially what is motivating
and inspiring their work, but
also, we're constantly engaging
with what our -- the histories
in which we're embodying
our sexualities.
And there's no way to talk
about embodying our sexualities
as disabled people of
color, without talking
about eugenic violence that our
communities have experienced.
So you know, pictures
speak louder than words;
and so we have actually
an excerpt
from the 2011 performance and
part of it is in the film,
which I encourage people to --
we're in the middle
of moving offices,
so there's no copies here.
Sorry. But people can
contact us or me for those,
or for more information
in general.
But I wanted to show a little
bit about Sins and, oh,
I should give a little
bit of context.
These are excepts, so there
is more in each piece;
and each piece does
have an overall arch --
not each piece, each performance
does have an overall arch.
And this is part of
the opening and part
of the closing --
or closing pieces.
>> There we go.
[Laughter, chatter]
>> That's awesome.
>> The weirdest thing is that
that photo has long been removed
from my desktop; and every
time I'm doing something,
it shows up, only when
I'm connected to this.
>> I love that.
>> I apologize.
>> There you go.
>> Oh gosh.
[Laughter]
>> Sorry.
>> There's nothing to apologize
for; that's an adorable baby.
>> 1914, Harry Laughlin from
the Eugenics Record Office
categorized the five Ds of
those who should not reproduce.
>> Degenerate.
>> Dependent.
>> Deficient.
>> Delinquent.
>> Defective.
>> Eugenics was both a social
movement and state policies
in which ideology
and science combined
to selectively breed
the human population.
In the United States, 27 states
had eugenic sterilization laws.
By 1924, the State of
Virginia had a draft Eugenics
Sterilization Act, which called
for sterilizations directed
at giving the doctors
at the colony the legal
backing they needed
for sterilizing patients.
Colony officials decided to test
whether the Sterilization Act
was constitutional and selected
a young woman from the colony
as a test case, Carrie Buck.
>> My name is Carrie.
My mom lived in that
colony there.
So I lived with the Dobbs',
my foster parents,
since I was little.
They treated me alright.
I tried to help out
around the house and such.
I was sweet on Mr. Dobbs'
nephew; I don't want
to say his name though.
He raped me.
And then the Dobbs'
got mad -- not at him.
At me. Because I was pregnant.
They started telling
people that I acted up,
that I wasn't right in the head.
They said they didn't
want me there anymore.
They sent me to the colony.
>> The case eventually wound
up in the United States Supreme
Court, which decided in 1927,
in an eight to one vote
to uphold the Virginia
decision to sterilize Carrie.
The majority opinion
in the case was written
by Oliver Wendell Holmes and
included the famous statement,
"Three generations of
imbeciles are enough."
Sixty thousand sterilizations
are documented
to have been performed in the
United States from 1910 to 1970.
Scores of additional
sterilizations have occurred,
but have not been documented.
>> Open up.
Make room.
Let the circle grow.
From the shadows steps
a man of Tuskegee,
syphilis raging untreated
through his veins, gone blind,
lame and speechless, while
white doctors took notes.
But here, he speaks with
a voice like a drum.
At the light's edge,
a girl with no face
who lived 10 years locked
in a room holds the hand
of an old man with no relatives
and blue numbers
tattooed on his arm.
Trace the lines in the
maps of our bodies.
They run like furrows,
side by side.
They move like rivers,
enter each other,
make tributaries and forks.
Make room for the children
raised on locked words
under a flickering fluorescent
light, the shocked and injected;
the measured and displayed;
tormented; fondled;
drugged; called defective.
Their small blunt faces look
out from sterile hallways,
grey buildings, medical
case files,
toward this fire that we become.
They come wheeling and hobbling
over thick tree roots to sit
by the flames; cry out in
childish voices for water;
for hands to hold;
for us to listen
as they give themselves
new names.
We unwrap our tongues.
We bind our stories.
We choose to be naked.
We show our markings.
We lick our fingers.
We stroke our bellies.
We laugh at midnight.
We change the ending.
We begin and begin again.
[ Applause ]
>> So -- thanks.
So one of the amazing things
about cultural work is we can
metabolize things not just
through our overt language,
but through our bodies
and through the images and
memories and collectively,
as an audience when
we're watching things.
And what we've found is that,
you know, kind of complex social
and political forces
and personal histories,
hopes and dreams, as well as the
way that we move through trauma
as individuals, or collectively;
all that can be metabolized
in a much more -- I don't
know, I don't want to say easy;
it's not easy, but more
effectively, in much more
of a transformative way.
And when we address things
that are as difficult
as forced sterilization of
people with disabilities
or individual, you know,
assaults, or broader histories
of colonization and how those
have eugenic reflections.
Again, as a large group and
as people that can then --
if we can move the arc
from that kind of pain,
through where we move to
more celebratory stories
of resistance and collective
action and personal healing,
it -- the audience
moves in a way
that I've never seen
outside of a church.
It's pretty awesome.
And we have always
people coming to us
after the shows saying
they are survivors
of both personal acts of,
you know, violence as well
as institutional
violence including people
who are survivors of
forced sterilization
or family members
who are, et cetera.
And that's amazing
feedback for us.
That they walked out differently
and in a way feeling more
whole than they had prior.
And also because of that, we try
to hold this process responsibly
by having counselors on site.
And we typically work with San
Francisco Women Against Rape
and we have a table
there for counseling;
and we also give trigger
warnings, if there are --
because there's a lot
of provocative content.
That's not just about --
that's not so overt as
to its healing nature.
And I say that because there's
a fair amount of SM content,
because it is a project on
disability and sexuality.
And the SM content is definitely
a reflection of healing labor,
but not for everyone
all the time.
So we definitely have
trigger warnings,
it's just something that's
provocative in a current moment,
which is why have SFWAR
there specifically.
And both the counselors
from SFWAR, you know,
they've all been trained,
because I've trained them,
on eugenic frameworks as well
and are competent
to engage around it.
I would love to talk
with how this kind
of content can be folded more
into the work that we're doing,
because we can experience
both the difficulty in the,
not just in our cognitive,
you know, tracts,
but in our visceral experiences.
But we can also experience the
transformative possibilities
more viscerally as well.
And that's where
it has be, right?
Like regardless of what policies
change, if the social context
of our lived experience as a
whole people doesn't change,
then the policies are useless.
So anyway, this is
kind of the work
that we're doing
at Sins Invalid.
So I have really
been cottonmouth;
I started a new medication
and it makes my tongue weird.
Alright, so I think I'd
like to pass it down.
>> Great, thank you.
Thank you, Patty.
[ Applause ]
Now we're going to
hear from Kate Wiley.
>> I'm sorry [inaudible].
>> Am I supposed to take it?
>> Like that?
>> Of course.
This is getting a
lot of airtime;
this has really got to go.
So I'm used to -- is this on?
>> No, I think it might have...
>> Okay. Is that on?
Yeah.
>> There you go.
>> I'm used to standing
with high school teaching,
so I need to stand
and move a little bit.
So I just would like
to say first that my --
Paul Longmore was one of
my Master's exam professors
and he was the one who
encouraged me to go
into high school
teaching, so it's very sweet
that I'm back here
about 15-plus, maybe --
no, more like 20 years later.
So I just wanted to say that.
So my name is Kate Wiley,
and I work at a high school
about three minutes from
here, across the street
from San Francisco City College.
And I just want to talk a little
bit about the education piece
that Milton sort of introduced
us to and a little bit
of the work that I've been
doing with my classes.
I do want to preface this
by saying a few things.
It's really kind of odd for
me to sort of be up here.
It feels it's really
the work of my students;
I didn't really plan on a lot
of what happened happening.
So and a lot of it was
because I wasn't actually sure
about the content of my class;
which for a teacher is really --
can be risky, but this really
is the work of my students;
it's not mine, so I want
to acknowledge that.
I just happened to
create a structure.
They found sort of
the rich material.
And then the second
thing I want to say is,
I also work at a school
that is quite privileged,
and I get to decide what I
want to teach on any given day.
And so I can make up classes
that sound great to me,
and my school says, "Go
ahead and teach it."
So I also want to acknowledge
that actually being able
to do this work came from
a place of privilege,
and that is that I get
to pick what I teach
at an independent school.
I'm not bound by state law.
So I think that that's
important to say.
Okay, so how I sort
of came to this work,
the school where I work we
teach senior seminar classes
in our history department.
I was the former Chair of
the History Department.
And you can decide
what you want to teach.
And so about three and a half
years ago, I decided I wanted
to teach a class on the
years between the world wars,
because I really liked it.
And I really wanted a larger
forum to teach the Rape
of Nanking; and I wanted
to look at the modern story
of the Middle East, as
rooted in the decision-making
of the Treaty of Versailles
and the Treaty of Sevres.
And I thought this
sounds like a great class.
My understanding of eugenics
was connected to Nazi Germany
and that was the extent of it.
I happened upon Milton's seminar
at Facing History, in the summer
of 2011, where I was exposed to
the Race and Membership book;
and you have a flyer about
that, I know, in your packet.
And I learned much more
about the eugenics movement
in the United States.
You know I was one of
those who was sort of like,
"Margaret Sanger,
birth control movement.
And Jane Addams and
the hygiene."
That's when I taught US
History and then you dig deeper
and you learn a little bit more.
And so this became
sort of a really --
a keystone really of that class,
which I'm still currently
teaching.
And again, it was one of those
things where I still didn't feel
like I knew a lot about it,
and so I was sort of learning
as I was teaching the class.
And again, you give students an
inch and they'll take a mile,
but in really great ways too.
Not just in the purported sort
of negative disciplinary ways.
And so what I did that first
year was I created a debate
series for the students to do,
and one was on actually the SAT,
because I wanted them to look
at modern legacies
of early eugenics.
And so testing being
one of them.
And then the second was on
genetic prenatal testing.
And what I found was
that structuring a debate
for students on topics
like these was actually
intensely problematic.
Because it teaches them that
there's a right answer to that.
And that someone
wins the debate.
And so then there
you go, like "Done,
we've sort of sorted it out."
The project itself, they
got into a lot of research
and it was great, but --
but I think it was a sort
of a poor choice on my part
to structure it that
way that first year.
So I was sort of
learning as I went.
I decided to teach the
class the second year,
which was the fall of 2012.
And I kind of shifted
some things around.
And what I decided that year was
that I actually wanted the
students to produce a website.
And a lot of that
was based on a lot
of the Facing History
curriculum and sort
of what they were learning.
So, this is what they produced.
And what I asked them to
do was just consider a lot
of the free lines that
Milton's talking about.
So, not only the story and
the history because, you know,
one of the things I learned when
teaching high school students,
especially in the
History Department,
we lay a lot of stuff on them.
And then they say, "Okay.
I got the story.
What do you want to do with it?"
And we don't actually ask
them to do anything with it.
In high school, we sort of
say, "Understand the history
of slavery and understand
oppression
and understand hierarchy
of power."
And then we say, "Go
and change the world."
But there's not a lot of
like in-between with that.
And so one of the things
I asked them to consider,
which Milton talked about
-- if I scroll down.
Can we scroll down?
[Inaudible] Oh, I'm -- okay.
So they looked at what
Milton talked about,
with sort of examples
of transitional justice
around the world, with sort
of other shameful acts.
I don't know if it
will pull it up.
So, they looked at
Rwanda and genocide.
They looked, certainly,
at the Holocaust.
And they looked at other
forms of commemoration
that other societies have used,
to sort of redress
parts of their history.
If I go back.
And so, from that,
I asked them to come
up with their own commemoration
for the history of sterilization
in the state of California.
What they thought would
be, to their mindset,
the sort of most appropriate
way for California.
And they knew a little bit about
sort of the governor's apologies
from previous years and whatnot.
So, this is what they
actually came up with.
And so, this was sort
of a graded project,
putting this website together.
I asked them to present it to
a bunch of different groups,
including Milton, so that
kind of present their work.
And then, a group of
them decided they wanted
to do more with it.
And so, one of the
things I've also learned
about teaching this history
is, it taps into a lot
of things students at 18
years old already feel.
A huge sense of social justice.
Wanting to make their
learning public and, frankly,
having it be more
about their teacher.
And they're also at an age
where they really want to fit in
and that whole concept of
being fit and who gets to fit.
And who gets to sit
in the cool section
of the cafeteria
and who doesn't.
And who sets those norms and
how do you know that they exist?
A lot of that -- this story taps
into where they're
kind of living.
So, they decided they
wanted to make it public.
So, what they did --
I think it's this one.
No. [Inaudible] The students
submitted their proposal
to change.org, which is
-- this past January --
which is a social activist site.
It's a little bit of a
slow slog, as you can see.
We only have 250 supporters, and
it's been up for eight months.
What's great about
this, like if I look
at Jonathan Chernogers
[phonetic] --
he's at CAL right now -- their
work lives beyond the four walls
of the high school classroom.
And, frankly, beyond their
tenure in high school.
And I think there's something
special about that for students.
So, they've made
their learning public.
This may never --
this may be it, right?
That might be where it
ends and they get 250.
That wasn't the learning
for them.
That wasn't, you know, I mean,
it would be ideal to get 5,000.
But that wasn't the essence
of the learning for them.
Now, you can still sign it.
Shameless plug.
But you can still
sign the petition.
So, they -- and they used
-- let's scroll down here --
they used the FAIR Act as
their rationale for why --
so their proposal
is to include it
in the California state history
textbooks, that the story
of eugenics, the sterilization
-- the State of California --
deserves to be in
those textbooks.
So, they drafted this proposal.
If it hits that number,
it goes to the governor
and the State Board
of Education.
So, that was last year.
And so, this year, I've decided
that my class currently --
we're actually just beginning
our eugenics unit right now --
they're going to
write the curriculum.
So, they're going
to study textbooks.
They're going to study old
biology and history textbooks
and look at how aspects
of this were treated then.
And then, they're actually
going to craft a whole chapter,
to teach the history and, again,
whether that goes anywhere
or not, I don't know.
We've got a contact
person with the State Board
of Education, so we're hoping.
But I kind of think of it as
sort of the, I guess for me,
the what, the so what
and the now what.
And sort of for me, as a teacher
too, I think it's important
to leave people with
a few takeaways.
So, if I guess I can
save any takeaways,
is that if there's any way
to structure assessments,
that it's subjective.
They're hard to grade and
they're really subjective.
But there's any way,
where really the kids are
determining the trajectory
of it, and any way to make
it public, even if it's not
about your class, even if
the grading period has ended,
it's where sort of the intrinsic
motivation for learning comes.
And I didn't know that, as
somebody who used to love tests.
I didn't know that until I sort
of got into this predicament,
if I didn't really know a lot
of the curriculum of these years
and had to sort of wing it.
And it produced, actually,
really wonderful things.
So, thanks.
>> Thank you, Kate.
[ Applause ]
So, now, we're going to
leverage the magic of technology
in this case and bring in Dr.
Gregor Wolbring, from Calgary.
So, give us just a
moment of transition.
>> Only fair you should
also have to see my photo.
>> All right.
So welcome, Gregor.
>> Hello.
>> That's so good.
>> Welcome.
>> Okay.
Okay, so you want me to start?
>> That would be great.
>> Yeah, but, Gregor, we
can see all but your chin.
>> Who needs my chin?
[Inaudible] I try to hide that.
Okay, now, let's see.
Do the people have handouts
on my PowerPoint or --
>> No, but I'll send it around.
>> Okay.
>> Hold on, I'm going to
go in your face, Gregor.
Which way should I move?
>> Okay. Okay, then I start.
And since there is no
PowerPoint on the screen, right?
>> That's correct.
>> Correct.
>> So I guess I have to
rely on that you all look
at whatever computer you
have and whatever handout.
So, first I would like to thank
the organizers, of course,
for getting me in by Skype.
As travel becomes so
problematic nowadays, I mean,
we just had the Los
Angeles thing again.
Right? So, my talk is
really about ableism
as a conceptual frame,
which was a history, present
and future of eugenics.
And I will show that
ableism is not just there
to question eugenics, but
ableism can be used, actually,
as a construction, as a tool, as
a positive tool, to simply bring
out a different narrative, which
might limit the use of eugenics.
Now, in my second slide, I
normally introduce my students
and if you have the
handout, you'll see that.
They have a nice logo.
They have a nice [inaudible]
and then it says
underneath [inaudible].
They came up with the name
and it's interdisciplinary
research team of students
from first year and their
grade years all the way
to Ph.D. students.
Half of them are
supervised by me.
And over time, more
and more students join.
So, by now, half of them
are actually supervise
by different Ps.
But they're simply was a
group where the PR experience
and simply to exchange stuff
and to learn to collaborate.
And the PR senate
is a part of it.
It's just the students.
I have one other one
visit, Jesse Hendricks,
who is a second PR
to join the group.
Then such [inaudible] have is,
in essence, we are 16 people,
by now and you see
a lot of pictures,
which are all smiling people.
And now, let's go to the talk.
Right? And for those -- first
I have to set a little bit
of the stage with what I
understand eugenics is.
And you will find that in
a paper [inaudible] one
of the team published in
the beginning of this year.
So, eugenics is an
investigation under which men
of a high type were used.
That is an official definition
from 1883 from Galton.
7 Another one from
1904, also Galton,
is to bring as many influences
as can be reasonably employed
to cause the useful
classes in the community,
to contribute more
than their proportions
to the next generation.
Now, this mission
of eugenics is more
and extends far beyond
segregation
and sexual sterilization,
which are the two practices
we often talk about,
especially around
the history eugenics.
Now, then, we have two
different versions of eugenics.
We talk mostly about negative
eugenics, because, again,
history stories are mostly
sterilization and so on.
Or even when we look at --
talking today about
genetic testing
and it's mostly negative
eugenics.
Right? But we have also
something called positive
eugenics, which is aimed
at increasing the number
of desired phenotypic
or genotypic traits,
within a population.
That's a 1917 definition.
Traditionally, positive
eugenics was achieved
by encouraging those
with desirable --
Traditionally, positive
eugenics was achieved
by encouraging those
with desirable traits
to get produced with
one another.
In the future, positive
eugenics might be achieve
through the synthesis of --
If I said something
wrong, I should know.
>> Gregor, I've got
your contact,
just in case it goes out again.
>> Okay.
>> And would you like me to pull
up the PowerPoint because I --
>> No, no.
>> Okay.
>> I mean, we don't have time,
because who knows how many
more seconds we have this.
Okay. So, positive
eugenics, I mean,
an increase in the future would
be achieved with synthesis
of desired genomes, from
scratch, synthetic biology,
in combination with
the artificial womb.
That's really the Holy Grail.
Right? Because when you
do synthetic biology
and you generate
genomes, you don't what
of this becomes viable.
And you can't really use
women constantly for that,
only then to have, I mean,
spontaneous termination
of the pregnancies.
So, you use artificial wombs
and it doesn't, I mean,
become viable, no
big deal, right?
You just throw it out.
Because many genes are impacted
by environmental factors,
elimination of environmental
factors
that impact genes negatively
also can be seen as fitting
with the aim of positive
eugenics.
And that gets back to
that definition of Galton.
So, positive eugenics is
actually going far beyond what
we normally talk about.
And it's the same thing
with negative eugenics.
So far, a lot of history
was sterilization.
The future will be really
about gene therapy or schematic
or germ engine therapy.
So, we intervene more, right,
to try to eliminate
negative pieces.
And so, then, my
conclusion from that,
which is in the paper
[inaudible] given Galton's
understanding of eugenics,
eugenic rules are not bound
to the past, nor is it required
that they only target
those we label, up to now,
as having deficiencies.
Eugenics thinking
can also be applied
to enhance humans
beyond the norm
of which you -- beyond
the normal.
So, for example, semantic and
germ engine genetic enhancement.
The only prerequisite is
that these interventions
give an advantage
to the beyond the normal
enhanced over [inaudible],
that this advantage is doable
and benefits the
stock in the end.
And, this is really
were my area is.
I look, really, at the future
and where these, I mean,
enhancements -- new
versions of eugenics.
So I deal very little with
history, but this piece we have,
in essence looked at the
history, to the future
and looked at arguments.
And you will find that
selling of human enhancement --
we really use the same
arguments that we use
to sell eugenics,
the historical part.
Now, we go to this
ability stuff.
Ability expectations are one
driver for eugenic practices.
The ability expectations are
here, for the time being,
the term "ableism"
was coined was
in the disability rights
movement, in the 1960s and '70s.
And it was really coined to be
used similar to sexism, racism.
In this case, it was to
highlight the obsession
of the legs, people with the
legs and the lack of willingness
to accommodate the
ones without legs,
just to use legs as an example.
But in essence, any body
deviation was, in essence,
seen as problematic
and so, that's --
and ableism was coined
to show the obsession
with certain body-related
ability expectations.
And then the disablement
which comes with it,
the lack of accommodation.
Right? And body-linked ability
expectations were, of course,
one avenue to promote and
justify eugenics, right?
Burden, cost too much and so on
-- could use all kind of stuff.
However, ableism goes beyond
body ability expectations.
Ableism is [inaudible]t
of the most socially
entrenched and accepted -isms.
In one of the biggest in areas
for other -isms,
like sexism, right?
We know that, step one,
nationality is important.
Step two, women are irrational.
Step three, you can't vote.
Right? That was, of course,
an argument used with --
when the Suffragette
Movement tried
to get women the right to vote.
That was exactly
their reasoning.
Right? Men came first.
That was an arbitrary
ability they found important.
Then they came up arbitrarily
that men have rationality
and women don't.
And then, the conclusion
was therefore,
women can't do certain things.
Alright? Racism we do
as the law of cognition.
We like the bell curve.
Again, the senior citizens
in the room, like me.
I mean, where like the, you
know, the group bell curve.
We're really saying, "Well,
some ethnic groups are more
intellectually cognitive able
than others."
And James Watson, right, the
hero of the Biotech Movement --
[inaudible] went sour, because
he used once too often the
argument that certain ethnic
groups have less abilities,
cognitive abilities than
other ethnic groups.
And then, you can use
[inaudible], ageism.
Right? There was a time when
we cherished the elderly,
because they were
full of wisdom.
Now, of course, we have Google
and Elderly Adjusted
Research Allocations problems.
Right? And we can go on.
We can talk about
speciesism, right?
We say, "Well, I mean, animals
are not cognitively able,
therefore we eat them.
And therefore, of course, it
comes as a rebuttal, "Okay,
so we've tried to develop
animal enhancement,
so it becomes sentient,
so because once their
cognitive able,
then we can't eat them anymore."
Right? And then we can go
on with environmentalism.
And then, we have some
abilities which play directly
into the eugenics productivity
and competitiveness.
One way, or one reason
why eugenics
around body abilities work
so well, because to use well,
they have to be productive.
And if you're not
productive, I mean, well,
you're just a burden, or
you have to be competitive.
And, of course, we
still use productivity
and we still use
competitiveness.
Right? And that will
sell enhancements --
that makes you in the womb, who
do not have the newest update
to your eye, of course,
so unproductive,
so not competitive
and so impaired.
And then, of course, I have the
new eye and the newest version
and then, I become, in
essence, the one who is on top.
So, ability expectations
are simply one aspect
of culture used by
social entities
to relate to each other.
When humans relate
to this ability-based
and ability-justified
understanding of oneself, right?
We have a lot of people who
simply can't accept themselves,
because they don't
have certain abilities.
One's body, a lot of it, which
are relationships with others
of one species, like
other humans,
animals, environment, right?
Countries also do that.
Right? Countries that have
a high GDP see themselves
to be better able for the
population than others,
so this judgment is
constantly there.
All right?
And I would say, of someone's
use of negativity, we could,
for example, put a lesson I
want you, really, to take home.
We use ableism in a
positive by saying,
"We really want a social
structure which is equitable."
Right? For example, they say,
"This is my ability expectation
of my fellow human beings."
And that would, for example,
say good-bye to eugenics,
"because I can't see
eugenics equitable,
short of that we
get rid of anyone."
Well, they would
be happy to, right?
So -- and that also means
that you can really look
into ability expectation and
how they relate to each other.
Somehow, reinforcing that
certain ability expectation
which will reinforce equity
ability expectation, as us,
which are, I would say
are detrimental to it,
like competitiveness and
others that might be new to it,
like whether you have
black hair or green hair,
doesn't do anything to the
competiveness expectations.
Right? So, there's
a lot of dynamics.
And this was developed by
the disability communities,
this whole ableism thing.
And it was used by no
one, because it comes
out of the disability
community and people say, "Well,
it has no implication for anyone
else but the ones without legs."
Right? And of course, this
is actually the Holy Grail
of academic and new angles,
where you can go to any field,
because it hasn't been done yet,
and you can get many
publications,
because it's all new
and no one gets it.
Right? And where are
the socialists picking
up on the ableism and so on, or
the anthropologists or whoever?
None of them.
If this would have been used
by the Women's Movement,
you would have had, for
decades, people crawling all
over the ablesism concept.
But lucky me, no one --
I just came from the disability
community and no one ever worked
on it more or less, besides
some disabled, we have people --
and, so, I can write all
I want and it's all new.
So, the ones who actually
get the point are the
gaming industry.
And there was a game called
"Deus X: Invisible War."
Really cool game.
And as the disk goes
in there, conversation
between Alex D. and Paul Denton.
And it goes like that.
Paul Denton, "If you want to
even out the social order,
you have to change the nature
of power itself, right?"
Question mark.
"And what creates power?"
Question mark.
"Well, physical strength,
legislation maybe.
But none of those is the
root principle of power."
Alex D., "I'm listening."
Paul Denton, "The
ability is the ideal
that drives the modern state.
It's the synonym for one's
worse, one social reach,
once election, in
the biblical sense.
And it's an ideal that needs
to be changed, if people are
to begin living as equals."
I don't know, I mean, right?
It could be me who
has written that.
Alex D., "And you think
you can equalize humanity
with bio-modification?"
Paul Denton, "The
co-modification of ability --
intuition, of course, but
increasing eugenic treatments,
cybernetic protocols,
now biomarks,
has set the side effect
of creating a self-perpetuating
aristocracy
in all advanced societies.
When ability becomes
a public resource,
what will distinguish people
will be what they do with it --
intention, dedication, integrity
-- the qualities we would choose
as a banner of the
social order."
I mean, I could have
first given you that slide
and not have given
any other talk.
I mean, it's all self-evident.
And in Star Trek,
we know, right,
humans have very bad
ability expectations,
how they play themselves out.
Two of the Vulcans came down
and first contact happened.
And then humans started
to behave.
No Trekkie in the room, huh?
Again, so sad.
[Inaudible] Yes, I'm done.
So, okay, so, in essence,
my conclusion is to deal
with eugenics, one has to
deal with ability expectations
that support eugenics,
negative form of ableism.
One has to push from a set
of ability expectations,
such as equity, that
are irreconcilable
with eugenics thinking.
Positive use of ableism.
And now, if you have the
handout, you see a little dog
with a cup, which is also --
I mean, it has also the
logo of the dog on it.
And that's my group.
So, your questions?
>> Alright.
[ Applause ]
>> Okay. So, thank
you, thank you, Gregor.
So what we're going to do now
is we're actually going to move
into some table discussions and
then we're going to pull back in
and then we'll have an
opportunity to respond
to their conversations,
in about 40 minutes or so.
So, I'm going to give
folks directions and then,
we'll move to our
table discussion.
You're sowing the spirit of
sort of harvesting those nuggets
and goodies that you've been
procuring at your tables,
I'd love to hear
from some folks.
And some of the, sort of
the gems that have surfaced
in your conversations
at the tables.
Questions, comments, thoughts?
Raise your hand;
[inaudible] on my way over
and we'll get the
conversation started.
>> We've been talking a lot
about ableism, opportunity,
good learning environments.
Do we want to say
"learning environment,"
or do we want an effective
learning environment,
and can we have both?
And I think that the whole
thing about triggers was one
of the things that catalyzed
that discussion for us.
And so the dynamic between
opportunity and danger
and safe spaces and comfort
zones I think is something
that we're all looking at
in terms of our teaching.
>> That's a great start.
Move on over.
Do you next.
>> We talked a lot
about education.
Not so much awareness,
but education on eugenics
in general and what it is.
There was a couple
of us, including me
that didn't even understand
or know what eugenics
was until today.
And the work that I've been
doing with corporations
and stuff like that and teaching
them how to include people
with disabilities, I've
learned and been told
that it's really difficult to
get different groups together
for diversity initiatives to
learn about black history month
or disability awareness
employment month.
And eugenics to me seems to be
a common denominator for all
of these different things
that we want to correct,
or we want to do better at.
Because it encompasses all
these sore spots in the society
that this public perception
has and understanding
where we came from, what
the root cause analysis is
for where we're moving toward
as a society and why we want
to eliminate these things.
And I think is really
important to start learning
that at an early age,
and I'm really glad
that the high school
students are championing that.
And I think that you guys
should go before the State
Rehabilitation Council
in California,
and I think that you
should go up to Sacramento
and really push that,
because that's going
to be really awesome.
And that's the best way to
really start moving forward
in the direction
that we want to go.
Again, it's not about
solving problems;
it's about creating
what we want to achieve.
And I think that's awesome.
>> Okay, thank you.
Be right back.
Go ahead.
>> Thank you.
No, we discussed a number
of things over the break.
And we started talking about
intersectionality and sort
of the question of, "How do you
teach about intersectionality?"
"How do you get people
to understand
that at different levels
and at different contexts?"
We talked about the power
of personal narratives
and about how they can be very
important to social change.
And how do we make these
personal narratives part
of a broader conversation,
and how do we use
that rod-or-prod conversation
to affect policy changes?
And I think that's an
interesting question.
And so we talked about
the history of eugenics
in California and how
things like documentary film
or performance art or things
like that can be a way
to educate people on these
issues and to help them
to see it in a different light.
And one other thing
that was brought
up that I thought
was very interesting,
and I want to note very briefly,
was the concept of transhumanism
and kind of neo-eugenics and
how a lot of people think
that we should be trying
to improve humanity
according to a utopian vision.
That may be problematic
for a lot of other folks.
And what was sort of interesting
to me about that being brought
up is that, perhaps because
we have a lack of positive,
exciting, new visions from a
social perspective about how
to transform our society --
maybe we're more focused on how
to transform our bodies,
individually and collectively,
because there's not
as much social energy.
And so I thought
that was interesting
and worth mentioning.
>> Thanks.
That's excellent.
Really stoked about that idea.
>> I'm not going to try to
summarize everything we talked
about at the table, but one
thing that came up today was
about cultural damage.
And in this last presentation
where Patty was talking
about cultural work, that
definitely came up for us
as a really powerful
and positive way
to address internalized ableism,
as well as to kind of deal
with some of the feelings
of being discouraged
and just the heaviness
around the topic of eugenics.
There was a concern raised,
though, about whether some
of the cultural work
under performance
does include invisible
or non-apparent disabilities
and whether people can
resonate with that.
One other thing that I wanted
to mention was, we talked about,
where are these discussions,
and where is this work
happening in the community?
And unfortunately, I
think a lot of us feel
like it's not happening,
that a lot of disability
advocacy groups don't have
capacity for it or aren't
doing it for whatever reason.
And we started brainstorming a
little bit about social media
or other things, but
obviously there's a lot
of people here today
from different venues
who are really interested in
exploring not only how we think
about these ideas, but
this last part about,
what are the implications in our
work, whatever our work may be?
And so, that we have some
interest with everyone here
in exploring, how
do we continue that?
>> Great. Thank you.
Now I've got a request
over here.
Others? As I think
about my next position?
Oh, got you.
>> Our group discussed about the
five Ds: dependent, delinquent,
degenerate, defective
and deficient.
And we realized that
that was a lot of people.
That's it.
[Laughter]
>> Thanks a lot.
>> That's great.
>> [Inaudible] and then over.
>> Hello. Thanks for
the conference today.
I've enjoyed it.
I just want to add that
eugenics historically has always
presented itself as
being based on science,
and a lot of that science is
still being practiced today even
though the eugenic conclusions
don't necessarily flow from it.
But actually what the science
is is actually pseudo-science,
because it's based on running in
the family, which is not caused
by genes necessarily, and twin
studies, I mean, those as all
of you know are out there
pervasive in every field.
The twin studies show the
strong genetic inheritability,
blah, blah, blah.
And this is pseudo-science
because twin studies are based
on completely false
theoretical assumptions
that even twin researchers
know are false and justify them
in incredibly bizarre ways.
So that's really a kind of a
point that I just kind of wanted
to make that eugenics is
based on false premises,
false science, fake science,
pseudo-science, twin studies,
and it's not just wrong,
but it's fake science.
And so I just wanted to kind
of point that out historically.
Thanks.
>> Thank you.
Others?
>> Okay, so a couple of, a
few highlights from our table.
There were some points about
expression, going forward,
what to say, how to say it.
So use of humor, use of
non-traditional exposition
and performance was of
great interest here,
connecting scholarship
and imaginative writing.
There is the idea to consider
the structures of education
because if education has been
central to eugenics all along,
then we need to consider how
people are being taught now
and ultimately Milton,
thinking really big,
was talking about well
where does the movement
begin, how does it begin?
So at Table 14, clearly.
[ Laughter ]
There was the idea
that it's necessary
to explore what Gregor
brought up,
this idea of exploring the
links between ableism and power
between ableism and eugenics
and being more specific
about what forms of ableism,
what kinds of ability
are enshrined.
And there was also
some discussion
about what positive values
to offer in response.
In other words, what can we say
that we stand for as opposed
to simply saying this is
inequitable, this is wrong,
this is based on fake
science, but what are we,
what good uses of
science do we see?
What values do we hold
up in counter-poise
to those problems that we see?
So.
>> Great, thank you.
I've got one over
here across the room
and I think we'll have time to
circle right back to Jessica.
[Inaudible] these last two.
I won't step on your
feet, I promise.
>> So we waxed philosophical
on, in some areas and we decided
that sometimes it's hard
to determine who is abled
and who is differently-abled
because it depends
on your perspective.
If you're a member of
a certain community,
for instance a deaf
community, you might feel
that you're perfectly
abled because things,
you can accommodate the world
just fine and that the people
who are not deaf are the ones
that are otherly-abled,
differently-abled.
So it depends on
your perspective,
and then that has all sorts
of ramifications when you talk
about eugenics and
choosing whether
or not your children
would have the same traits
as you would have.
We also talked about
the fact that eugenics,
the history of eugenics is
embedded in our language
and in our images and it's
really hard to pry that out.
And so a good way to start
is to simply work on language
and references and things,
words like moron and idiot
and where those things
come from, and retarded,
and make sure that you can
incorporate that into classes
or into a unit and the students
can do a lot of research
that will make them
more aware of things.
And above all, I think,
we decided that we have
to be comfortable moving
forward, teaching eugenics
without knowing everything
about it.
That we have to kind of jump in
because it's going to be hard
to be an expert before,
but we can become more
expert as we teach it.
And so we just have
to put our big boy,
big girl pants on
and move forward.
>> Great. I think we've
got time for one more
and then we'll return to the
panel to get some responses.
>> Thank you.
Just a quick comment which is
that, in the light of trying
to understand how this
history of eugenics is still,
it's not just history,
that it's with us now.
Another group that
has been targeted
for involuntary sterilizations
is trans-gender people
and trying to get
legal sex change.
There's countries that
require them to be sterilized,
so I just wanted to
put that out there
as another group
that's been targeted.
>> Moderate: Great.
Thank you.
We appreciate that.
So turning it back to
the panel to respond.
Is there anybody who'd like
to jump in and address some
of those questions
more immediately?
So I see you're ready
to go, Patty,
so why don't you kick us off?
>> I appreciate the last remark
because it kind of reflects some
of the conversation at the table
that I was sitting at which one,
I don't know, maybe this
is ultimately like battle
of the frameworks, I don't know.
But you know how eugenics
is an overarching framework
to address multiple kind
of on-the-ground atrocities
and then it was also brought up
at the table, what is the "it"
when we're talking
about eugenics?
Like how, because people
are unfamiliar with that,
with the framework, with
what eugenics policies
or practices even are, and the
word many people haven't heard.
And to me there are
larger frameworks
that hold eugenic practices...
which are frameworks of white
supremacy and of enforced gender
and normativity, enforced
hetero-normativity, and if we,
and I think that when we're
working with youth, for example,
it was brought up how do
we talk about it to youth?
Well, youth may not know
the frame of eugenics,
but youth certainly
know, I mean,
people have heard of racism.
We can contextualize racism and
white supremacy and we can start
from the farthest frame out
in talking about this as one
of the methods in which, and I
mean, you know, in terms of the,
we were talking at our
table about the way
that the eugenics gets loaded
and tied conceptually
to Nazi Germany.
Well, in fact, if we
can expand that out,
because if we're
talking about another
of the greatest atrocities
in this century,
the commodification of Africans
and the trans-Atlantic
slave trade,
that was horrifying and recent.
And it was another,
there are both positive
and negative eugenics
as a result of that.
And so we can tie it to
broader frames if we're willing
to actually engage with
the truth, in my opinion,
that we live within white
supremacy, that we live
with an enforced
gender normativity,
enforced hetero-normativity,
as well as ableism,
and within those
frameworks then I feel
like in the education work that
I've done it's a lot easier
to talk about eugenics
because then it becomes more
of a program and method, right?
Yeah. [Inaudible]
And someone asked,
I think at the back table,
just about a specific question
about the performance
and around if people,
is that right, Jessica?
Around people with apparent
or non-apparent disabilities?
Yeah, so yes, it's actually
much easier to get people
who are willing to perform
that don't have non-apparent
disabilities
and we have quite a few people
because when you're like myself
with an apparent disability,
you don't like to be stared at
and you don't want to be
on the stage typically.
It's taken me years to
become comfortable, years.
I mean, Marcie can attest,
I would be like "Uhhhh,"
a few years ago like
it's quite difficult.
So it's much easier for
people that present --
oh, my tongue is
doing it again --
that present normatively to
be willing to be on the stage.
And, yes, we do have both people
that have apparent
and non-apparent.
So.
>> Great. Kate or Gregor,
do you want to respond
to any of those questions?
>> Okay, yeah, I will.
To the question about
intersectionality,
and I think a lot about
that with my students
and for some it may seem
like an oversimplification,
but I attended a
conference a number
of years ago called the
White Privilege Conference.
It's not a celebration
of white privilege.
It's an acknowledgement of it,
in addition to looking at sort
of other types of
privileges beyond race.
And one of the speakers
presented in a way
that I think is really
a tangible for students
and so it's the one that I
use, and her analogy was sort
of the ambulance analogy.
And she said there's two
cars in an intersection
and in one car is sort
of the homophobic person
and in the other car is
somebody who identifies as LGBT,
and there's a car accident.
And she says sort of the
feminist ambulance drives on by
and says, "It's not my issue."
And the civil rights,
African-American
ambulance drives by
and says, "It's not my issue.
That's a gay issue."
And her point was that all of
the ambulances should arrive,
and that if that happens,
then with any types
of oppression you have multiple
groups working together.
But to sort of teach it
as though this is my issue
because I'm a feminist but those
other ones aren't really my sort
of activist issues,
then you're not getting
that intersectionality
at all and then that's
where the movements
cannot come together.
And so it's sort of one of those
things I say to my students,
it's like whatever sort
of identifier you have
or whatever ambulance you're
in, you should always go.
And you shouldn't bypass it.
So that's how I think
about intersectionality.
>> Great. Gregor, can we pull
you into the conversation?
>> Sure. Well, I mean, the short
answer is everyone read Animal
Farm and so segregation
never works.
And if it's in the
human rights movement
and someone thinks they're
more hated than others, I mean,
well the pigs didn't
win in the end.
[Laughter] Right?
So any kind of Animal Farm
philosophy does not work,
but it's just reality
and I think the ableism stuff
just allows people to get
out of the ghetto and, right?
I mean, I published
a piece in 2012
where I said [inaudible]
ableism more in order to get
out the ghettoization
of disability studies,
which no one feels relevant
because it's only
disabled people
and it doesn't relate to anyone.
Right? And it's really not true.
I mean, our stuff is
really like [inaudible] lens
which is partly applicable
to any group
and any topic, whatever we want.
And we see this coming,
we have, for example,
[inaudible] equal ability where
people try to link animal rights
and nature and disability rights
together, so there's stuff.
That's their first
conference in New York
and they have a Facebook page,
if you just search equal
ability you will find that.
So I think the move
to operationalize more
the ability lens in order
to bridge all these divides
and to really get away
from this Animal Farm
obsession we have.
>> Great. And I don't know if
you were able to pick this up,
Gregor, but I know that
the framework of ableism
that you asserted was really
a topic of conversation
at a number of the tables, so
thank you for that contribution.
>> Well, it better be.
>> So a couple of
things I was thinking
about in hearing the comments.
One of the things that sort
of caught my mind is this idea
of triggers and I
think there are some,
if I could just make a
suggestion of a couple of books
that I think are really powerful
to think about the consequence
of being triggered
or the consequence
of navigating these
contingencies
that are associated with our
identities on a daily basis.
Right? So Claude Steele's book,
Whistling Vivaldi and Other Ways
in Which Stereotypes Affect
Us is a really powerful read
and I think it helps
us get a sense of the,
just the cognitive demands of
navigating our identities puts
on us in various different
ways on a daily basis.
And I think as we
begin to think about,
how do we create safe
spaces to learn together,
I'd like to plug
another book if I can
and that's Identity-Safe
Classrooms: Places Where We Can,
I think it's, I don't remember
the subtitle, but it's places
where we can think and learn
together or something like that.
That's by Dorothy Steele.
So those are two useful pieces
that I strongly recommend
to most educators.
I'll shamelessly plug this book,
I brought it up here as a prop
and never sort of showed it,
but it's our resource book.
It's something that we use.
And, again, one of the things
I'd love to do is be able
to take this, today's work as
really a starting point and call
to action for me personally.
I think within our
organization these issues
around LGBT community,
disability, and quite frankly,
gender, there are
echoes of it in our work,
but it's largely underdeveloped,
and so it's a really
good opportunity to begin
to harvest the brain trust
that we've created here today
and begin to think
about, how do we include
that into those narratives?
I think the last thing I'll
say and then we'll sort
of maybe push forward into a
little bit more conversation,
is how do we put the histories
and dialog with each other?
And I think it's a
really interesting time.
I know that Alexandra Minna
Stern's book, Eugenic Nation,
was one of the things that kind
of flipped my lid and got me
into the rabbit hole of
eugenics in the first place.
I think she asserted a framework
that I found particularly
generative.
So now I'm beginning to
think of cross-histories
and what's powerful about that
is you can see the patterns more
distinctly, but also
the distinctions,
and I think it gives us a
better way to understand how
to strategically sort of
approach these issues and define
where these issues are embedded
and how do institutions
replicate them?
Because if we can see how
the ideas got put into play,
we can then actually
develop a strategy for how
to develop a counter-narrative
and how to uproot these things
as they live in institutions.
And so for me, I think those
are really important big ideas
and potential next steps.
And then how do we
create a structure
to continue the conversation
and to house the knowledge trust
so that we can disseminate
it more strategically
and more effectively?
So, other thoughts from the
panelists in response to some
of the questions
that were prompted
or things you didn't
have an opportunity
to share that you'd like to?
I think we've still
got a few moments,
about five minutes left.
>> I'm good
>> Gregor, Kate, Patty, any --
>> Gregor: Well, I
have no book to show.
It's very hard to [inaudible],
but if you go to the websites,
just Google me and you'll find
more than you ever wanted.
>> Yeah, he did provide some
great links and so we hope
to get those to you so you
can do some reading about some
of the theoretical frames
he's proposed today.
>> And there will be a book, an
article coming out hopefully,
well, it should be out
hopefully this year in Journal
of [inaudible] Animal
Studies which is dealing
with ability privilege where
I try to make the linkage
between animals and
environment and to ableism.
I mean, I just had a piece out
on equal health where I more
or less dismantled the equal
health movement by being again
where they are limited in
their approaches and so on.
So once you start, once
you can apply ableism
to nearly everything, I mean,
it's just very beautiful stuff
and you can use it in class.
I mean the thing is just having,
I mean write an exercise asking
the kids their top 10 abilities
without limiting
just to the body
and ask what they
see as important.
You will see a diversity
of ability expectations
and have them simply
negotiate the conflicts
between their different
ability expectations.
It's easy to do within
a classroom to highlight
because it's mostly, these are,
I mean internal things you don't
even come up with as an ability.
But you have these expectations
that you [inaudible]
"I" dot-dot-dot and lining up
in front of the [inaudible].
But once, I mean it's
easy to do this exercise
to really highlight for the
students how ability expectation
conflicts even within
the classroom.
>> Great. Other sort
of closing thoughts?
>> I mean, I'm really, and
the idea of intersectionality
and how do we move that forward
and that you put out, Milton,
I mean, it makes me think
unfortunately that's not the
structure of most
university settings.
I mean it's just not how things
are [inaudible] necessarily --
well, not necessarily, but
they certainly are [inaudible].
And at our table we were talking
about, again, advancing the work
and ultimately when we, to
me it, any of the work has
to be tied to organizing sites
of actual organizing amongst
people as opposed to only kind
of the frameworks were.
And within the organizing,
community organizing world,
kind of social justice,
progressive left in the U.S.
at least, there is a
framework of intersectionality
which is jelling more
and more and more
and allowing the collaborative
cross-movement work
that we've been doing
and I think
that it's very easy doing
some of that work myself.
It's pretty straightforward
when I'm working with youth
to talk about, or anybody, to
talk about intersectionality
because most of us aren't
in a single identity.
That's just not the reality
of how most people are.
And even if someone is
[inaudible] gendered,
heterosexual, white,
male, over 50,
that doesn't mean he always has
all power in every situation.
He is likely going to be
employed, in which case, I mean,
we have to look obviously
at power relations.
I'm eating the mike.
We have to look at power
relations and how it's both,
it's both, we can
observe power relations
and power negotiations both
at the interpersonal level
and at the
institutional-structural level,
and so even if people can't
structurally have power,
they have experienced not
having power interpersonally
and can then expand that out.
And so when we break it down, I
think, at least in a training,
it depends on who
you're training,
but I think it is
very possible to break
down intersectionality
into a pretty, I mean
we do it in community
organizing all the time,
so there's no reason why
academia can't do that.
>> Right. Kate?
Thank you, Patty.
Kate?
>> I guess the only other
thing I'd say is I remember
when I was here when
Paul Longmore,
when this institute was
opening and that was sort
of the first time I was
exposed to the lens of sort
of able-disable through
the study of history,
I remember being in high school
and learning about sort of race
as a lens and being like really
impassioned and really indignant
and really, and then I
learned about gender as a lens
and I was really passionate,
I was really indignant,
and then it was just like wow,
I didn't learn about that,
and it only happened also
because I had him
as a professor.
I'm sure there's a lot of
people in the graduate school
that didn't happen to
have him as a professor,
and so that may not
have ever been a lens.
And I just find that with
the high school students,
they're really ticked off
that it's not taught sooner.
They're like, why are we
only learning about this now?
And it really does
beg the question
of who gets to tell the story.
For me as a historian who
gets the tell the story
and what we pick and choose
and what we prioritize
for them to learn.
And sort of at the end of
the day this is still one
of those things where
we're like,
can we fit it into
the curriculum?
In the larger narrative and
what the kids are telling us is
like absolutely, you should
fit it into the narrative,
and why haven't you
done it sooner?
So it's just, it's a lesson
that I'm learning
every day from them.
>> Great. So thank you.
In the spirit of revolutionary
acts, I'm wondering
if I can do something pretty
simple and maybe a way
to sort of move forward.
So how many of you in the
room who are activists
or educators would love to
be connected with teachers
that are teaching this
history in the classroom?
Alright, so teachers that are
here, how many of you would love
to be connected with academics
and activists [chatter]
so I think we've got in terms
of academic sort of hands
up I think there are probably
at least 20 and then in terms
of teachers, probably
at least 12.
Thank you.
Thank you for the
heads up on that.
So one of the things you
can do is to seek each other
out as we move into the
next session of our evening,
which will actually
be some nutrition.
>> Yay.
>> So, physical nutrition,
food rather than
intellectual nutrition.
So with that said I want to
introduce Emily Smith Beitiks
who is the Associate Director of
the Paul K. Longmore Institute
for Disability Studies.
She's done a lot of work helping
to coordinate all the
different pieces of the puzzle,
navigating the technology,
maintaining human connections,
and caring for a little one
who we have had an opportunity
to see several times, both
virtually and in person today.
So I just want to hand it over
to Emily and say thank you sort
of explicitly, thank
you for your work
and making this a great day.
[ Applause ]
>> Emily: So, I promise
to keep this brief
because I've been intensely
dictating time everywhere,
so I can't be a hypocrite
about the time.
Yeah, all the signs
are up there.
So just a few takeaways
and thank yous.
I recently met someone
through the Longmore Institute
that explained to me that
because of their disability,
looking back recently
in history,
nobody would have
lived to adulthood.
Due to sort of medical
advances and biotech advances
that they can now live
and navigate society.
And yet looking forward,
they said that they again
saw the disappearance
of their impairment and their
condition due to efforts
to erase and prevent
people like them.
So I think this illustration
speaks to the timeliness
of this conference
and the topic at hand.
Eugenics history
risks being forgotten
in the historical memory at
a moment when we need it most
to prevent its re-emergence.
I hope we can leave this
conference motivated by the fact
that so many people
came together
to discuss this heavy
and complex topic.
Again, there was a
waiting list to get in.
It was so exciting
for us organizers
to see how immediately receptive
people were to this topic and,
as it's been said before, a mix
of people, educators, scholars,
activists, performers.
So we hope that this
day is the springboard
of a conversation because,
of course, believe it or not
in one day we didn't
solve that whole thing.
We heard the ways that these
final panelists are working
to make change, to
bring eugenics history
out of the shadows, and
to prevent a neo-eugenics
from emerging, but we'd love
to hear all of your ideas
about the ways that we can
continue this conversation
following today's event.
So I ask that just,
dinner is outside,
but that you just take a brief
moment to grab an index card,
jot down an idea you
have, any sort of thoughts
on what could happen next.
How might we continue
the conversation?
How might we support
the development
of a network for collaboration?
How can we help you
in your efforts
to make your perspective heard?
And I'd say really importantly,
how can we promote
positive visions
of science and biotechnology?
Our position is so
frequently in the negative,
what we're against,
and we need to shift it
so we can make conversations
about, what are we for?
So please write something
down and leave it
in the center of your table.
Also leave the notes that people
have been taking throughout the
day in the center
of the table and CGS
and Longmore staff will
collect all of that.
Another sort of -- if you
didn't take notes, that's fine.
I'm already hearing oh
no, we didn't take notes.
So I've just heard endless
links: you've got to check
out this link and
read this book.
Let's also consolidate those
and share those because so many
of us are educators that
want to, need material
or whatever sort of
medium we're working in.
So I guess I will volunteer.
You can send me your links,
send me your suggestions,
or write them down on the
index cards and we'll make sure
that they get out to
everyone who is here today,
as well as the waiting
list people
who weren't able to join us.
And so some thank yous.
Once again, I'd like to
thank the College of Liberal
and Creative Arts, the
College of Education,
the College of Ethnic Studies,
sponsorship from professor
of history, Trevor Getz.
The organizing committee who I
was extremely grateful to get
to work with: Alexandra
Stern, Milton Reynolds,
Rob Wilson, Marcy Darnovsky.
Thanks to Provost Sue
Rosser for opening comments
and Longmore Institute Director,
Catherine Cudlik [phonetic],
and to all of our
panelists who came from near
and far to participate.
Thank you to our amazing
table facilitators
and we can take a moment to
give them a round of applause.
[Applause] Wonderful.
Thank you to CGS Staff,
[inaudible] with Living
Archives, and to Longmore Staff
who helped us all pull this off.
And lastly thanks to
all of you for sticking
with us throughout the day.
But it's not over,
it's not over.
We're going to have dinner.
We're going to get to
continue the conversation and,
importantly, I really
urge you to all join me
for the evening film
screening of Fixed,
The Science Fiction
of Human Enhancement.
I've seen several, I've seen
several cuts of it early on
and I guarantee it is a film
you will not want to miss.
It really covers so much
of what we've been talking
about here today in a very
provocative and interesting way.
So the film screening
will not be in this room.
We need a change of venue.
It's very stuffy in here
so we're going to move
to 133 Humanities and
we'll kind of all,
around 6:00, caravan that way.
But if you get lost and
separated from the caravan,
there are instructions for how
to find the Humanities Building
that should have been passed
out to you and, if not,
they're at that registration
table.
So we'd like to begin
that promptly at 6:30.
So one last time, put
those notes and send links,
and here's to a time when
people with disabilities,
along with many other
marginalized people,
don't need to have
a conference to talk
about their right to exist.
So we'll end at that.
[Applause]
