Question for disabled people who have organized- well, pretty much anything:
Has putting your energy into making existing things accessible or building your own thing from the ground up been more rewarding for you?
I'm mulling over a project about music accessibility and I'm wondering which way to go. Try to make the existing shows and venues more accessible, or build something specifically by and for disabled people?
What do you think?
In my experience both have merit, but it depends on which frustrations you have capacity for while in the process. Fighting against existing structures was so demoralizing, but then the changes, even small, do make an immediate impact, though still within the bounds and rules of the institution. I got burnout out in those spaces, because I’d often have to watch the changes I fought for get eliminated after a year or two. Creating something new left space for something more truly access-centered, but was such a long start-up cost of money, time, spoons, etc. However, the end result was so rewarding, and there was more autonomy in all parts of the process.
my personal preference as of late has been to build things specifically by/for disabled people, but mostly because it's sometimes totally demoralizing to try to make existing stuff more accessible (especially alone, if it's more of a shared burden then it might be less exhausting, just my personal experience). both ways are important i think!