pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-04-11.pdf, 6
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2018-04-11 | 6 | ITEM 2-A COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MINUTES OF Wednesday, April 11, 2018 6:30 p.m. Karen Nakamura: Now there are two effects of police violence that make it a disability issue. One is the disparate impact of police violence on racialized communities, African American and Hispanic, especially young men, and then the other is mental illness and Police violence. When you look at those statistics you see the people who are getting injured and killed by police violence are African American young men and young men with mental illness. And so we need to think about that I think as a disability issue. And then one of my final slides is thinking about addiction. Part of the complexity of the ADA when it was signed, Jesse Helms put in small addendum to the ADA that created a whole group of people who are not considered disabled. Some of them sort of make sense. Pyromaniacs, he didn't want as people with disabilities but he also included Alcoholism, he also included trans sexuality and bisexuality. But these were all carved out as particular named exceptions to the ADA. Karen Nakamura: At this point at ADA plus 28, let us rethink why don't we consider, particularly addiction, substance abuse, to be a disability and what would it mean for our disability policy, either out in the City of Alameda, Alameda County, if we seriously thought that people who were addicted were disabled, if they were our people, what is our responsibility as the disability community to addicts? And how does that change what policy means, what access means and so forth. And my final slide is the question, why don't we do all of this? And I think much of it is because of fear. We, in the disability community, we have, and I'd identify myself as disabled, we have gotten to a place where things are relatively stable, but at the same time I think all of us are also realizing that there is a real risk of backslide. That regardless of what your disability is, things don't seem to be getting better. They're stable, but falling behind. And I think there's a great amount of fear that if we include the other categories that we'll continue to lose. Karen Nakamura: And I think part of the reason why I joined Cal and part of the reason why I joined the Haas Institute is because it was taking a brave next step, which is saying absolutely not. The only way that all of our civil rights movements are going to succeed is if we say that the issues that face African-Americans, that the issues that face the addict community, the issues that face undocumented immigrants, the issues that face folks with mental illness, these are all in some ways disability issues and disability issues are very much part of the same issues that they face. And that they in their communities shouldn't say, "Well, if you're an African-American person with a mental illness, well why don't you just go over to the other organizations that just deal with mental illness?" No, but we need to do a better job of both networking and accepting that we have a responsibility for all of the other minoritized identities and think seriously about how we can incorporate them when we rethink our policies. Thank you for your attention and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to break for questions, but I'm open for questions now. Jenn Barrett: Yes definitely, if anyone has any questions? Jennifer Roloff: I have a question. Thank you for the presentation, that was very enlightening. When you bring up some of the disability issues, you said diabetes can lead to amputations, and asthma, air quality issues, does addiction lead to people with disabilities and does diabetes lead to people with disabilities or are you looking at diabetes and addiction as disabled, you're disabled with those anyway? 04/11/18 Page 6 of 18 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-04-11.pdf |