Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice \u0026 Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai

Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice \u0026 Art Activism of Sins Invalid Reviews

• 
  Danika at The Lesbrary

  This is a history of Sins Invalid, a disability justice performance project founded in 2006 in San Francisco. It explains how they got started, but more than just recounting, it explores the ideas behind Sins Invalid and why it became such an important outlet for people. It discusses how the mainstream disability rights movement as well as disability studies as an academic framework centre white disabled activists.
  
  This is part history, part manifesto, bringing in so many different voices. I especially liked a chapter that discussed how Sins Invalid reclaims beauty for disabled bodyminds, but also gives space for another disability justice perspective that beauty is an unsalvageable concept based in restriction and oppression, and that it is more freeing to reclaim Ugly as a concept.
  
  I highly, highly recommend this and Care Work to anyone and everyone. It left me with a lot to think about, and I can’t wait to learn more.
  
  Full review at
  the Lesbrary.
• 
  Sarah Cavar

  I don’t think I’m the audience for this — there wasn’t really anything new presented, it is more an amalgamation of conversations existing in queercrip / DJ networks published as a book. Also, I’m beginning to realize / fall way out of love with the particular, sugar-sweet writing style a lot of, I guess, “Bay Area mutual aid organizer” types tend to use. I think it could be effective and welcoming to a new queercrip, but again, didn’t work for me and where I’m at.
• 
  Neha

  this is going to live in my messy, disabled, still-persisting heart and bodymind forever.
  
  great entry-level introduction into disability justice/Sins Invalid, recommend for everyone disabled or not. covers multiple topics within disability justice including artmaking, sex/pleasure, community, and rest. starring places to come back to and revisit has my copy of this text looking like a cosmos.
  
  some lessons in this book have seared themselves into my brain and will resonate in me in everything i do. rest is active and productive (and revolutionary). decolonize beauty to include every bodymind imaginable. community is how we survive - this is the biggest one for me and this book feels like a disabled mentor holding my hand/cradling my cheek/patting me on the back/cheering me on with every word. crip community is survival, crip community is revolutionary, crip community is love. i look forward to finding crip community in my own life.
  
  what an incredibly reinvigorating, hopeful way to start 2024.
• 
  Hannah Silver

  Glad to know about all of Sins Invalid's work and ethos. The writing style was a little weird for me at times, but registers as heartfelt.
• 
  leah geisler

  My loves of the performing arts and Disability Justice align with this empowering, all-encompassing history of the group Sins Invalid.
  I had already read a bit of this book in my Disability Theatre class, and disabled activists such as Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Patricia Berne were familiar faces. What makes Kafai's take on Sins Invalid so particularly impactful is how she centers almost exclusively on the perspectives of queer Black and Brown disabled people, yet the ideas discussed apply to so many different communities.
  If you are completely new to the principles of Disability Justice, I do not recommend starting here (Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha or Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau are a great start). Kafai's mention of bodyminds and the ten principles of Disability Justice are not laid out at length; there is a level of assumption that the reader will read this knowing at least some about it already.
• 
  Lanika

  Loved it so much. Understand that it is a thesis and yet! Wish the language were less academic. How rude of me.
• 
  Mansi

  Both a history of Sins Invalid and Disability Justice manifesto. I was really excited about this, but did not enjoy the writing style and found it to be extremely repetitive.
• 
  Kora Dzbinski

  "we are storytellers. we are protest. we are crip kinship networks vast, bold, and soft."
  
  ending the year with this book was an exhale, for a breath i didn't realize i was holding. another world is possible. i love you all so much.
• 
  chirpingwrens

  A must-read for any disability justice activists, Crip Kinship reads like a love letter and manifesto for queer, disabled bodyminds that live in ableist, heteronormative, white-centric, patriarchal, capitalistic world. Kafai details the history behind Sins Invalid as a disabled arts movement, and dreams and crip-centric liberated zones the organization creates to center marginalized lived experiences of crip, femme, queer people of color.
  
  I knew what Sins Invalid did from references in my past readings, but this was the first book that gave examples of their diverse performances. I was particularly enamored by the description of Mat Fraser's performance; he kicks and falls repetitively as ableist attacks boom in the theatre, and in the end, his body falls to the ground and is dragged off stage. There is an old youtube recording of his performance that I watched after. I've always wanted to find these performances online, but they have always been obscure to find. Sins Invalid's performances are also a way of remembering and fighting constant erasures of crip futures. Crip erasure is as recent as 2016 and malicious, as shown by the case when a former employee of a residential care facility in Japan killed nineteen disabled people "for the sake of society."
  
  I also took note of Sins Invalid's access suggestions for mobilizations. This was particularly relevant for me, because I remember when I attended Seattle's women's march the day Roe v. Wade was overturned, there were loads of access issues (i.e. marching up a steep hill, speakers being drowned out by loud noises, etc.) that made me wonder how to mobilize movements and marches while keeping access in mind (also, how some pro-choice people use narratives of disabled infants to further their cause - how do you reconcile being disabled and supporting pro-choice when this narrative runs rampant within the movement?). I feel like most able-bodied people often eschew access accommodations because it gets messy, but as Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha describes it, "Disability Justice, when it's really happening, is too messy and wild to really fit into traditional movement and nonprofit industrial complex structures, because our bodies and minds are too wild to fit into those structures."
  
  Overall, I learned and reviewed a lot of things from this book. It was great to learn in-depth about each aspects of Sins Invalid's disability justice principles elaborated in a concrete, heartfelt ways.
• 
  Jen (Remembered Reads)

  Crip Kinship provides a fantastic overview of the Disability Justice performance project Sins Invalid. With an examination of the concept of storytelling as active followed by descriptions of certain performances (many of which are available in whole or in part on YouTube for those interested), it's a great introduction for anyone new to the project or people wanting to look back on the project so far.
  
  It is written in a style that is a bit jargon-heavy, and sometimes the use of language leans towards the poetic, which can be lovely but also makes it somewhat less broadly accessible than a more straightforward style might have been. Some audiences will benefit from having their ideas of how language "should" be used challenged, but others will almost definitely come away confused. But of course that's always going to be a challenging balancing act when it comes to storytelling in this style.
  
  The one thing I wished had more focus was the few notes on things that could have been done better. There are passing mentions of things like an intern mentioning that an event wasn't accessible to neurodivergent attendees, or one individual being dragged into acting as a secretary for another - but there's never enough detail for anyone working on their own art/activism project to take away tips for avoiding the same issues.
  
  Still, if you're interested in Sins Invalid (or just Disability Justice or just performance as activism) it's well worth picking up.
• 
  Gabe Dulecki

  Hmmmm… I struggled a lot with this book, and learning that it was adapted from a thesis makes a lot of sense as to why. A lot of the language is very academic and verges on being inaccessible. I do think the dive into the history and politics of Sins Invalid was done well, but I do wish there had been more about their performances because I really enjoyed whenever there was a snapshot of a performance and its intention.
  
  One thing that drove me absolutely bonkers and made me consider not reading the book at all was how when someone used multiple pronouns, rather than switching between the two, the author wrote out both of them every single time?? I did appreciate that ever time a new person was introduced their pronouns were listed, but one example I wrote down was “this topic came up for patty when she/they reflected on the administrative work she/they do.” HUH!!!! I fr almost dnf’d because this was so hard to read lmao
• 
  April

  Very powerful. I did find myself craving more descriptions of the various performances; to get a better understanding of more of them and experience them on the page (much of this book seems to assume you've already seen/attended these performances and are familiar with them).
  
  However, even lacking that, this was a strong call for the powerful need for dedicated crip spaces and gave me hope for a future imagined in the pages wherein our bodyminds can obtain the accommodations needed as a given, as a community of "of course" instead of a hushed and shameful "ugh, what do you need now?".
• 
  Rxmee

  Liked the Sins Invaljd story and history - not so much written style. The books preface says that this book has a wide audience including "people who have just learned what ableism is" and I would disagree. I don't think that's a problem, but at least baseline understanding of disability justice principles, familiarity with Sins Invalid's work and name recognition of disability scholars needed to get something out of the book (which again, fine, but wouldn't recommend for a such a wide audience).
• 
  Liz

  While at times a heavy read, CRIP KINSHIP by Shayda Kafai never felt inaccessible or overy dense -- particularly for those (like me) not terribly familiar with Disability Justice, or the intersection of activim and arts. As an educator, I am more familiary with the Disability Rights movement. I appreciate how CRIP KINSHIP is grounded in examples from the Sins Invalid project in San Diego, as well as the extensive bibliography which is a good starting point for those interested in learning more about Disability Justice, feminism, abelism and the intersections with racism, classism and more.
• 
  Anna

  A beautiful historical account of Sins Invalid and its creators & community members work in sharing their stories and ideas through art and performance as disabled queer people of color. My favorite discussion comes near the end of the book regarding "crip doulas", and the role of guiding & supporting each other in the often hostile world around us.
  
  Grateful to have found this piece and Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
• 
  Zen Lara

  I love all of the concepts but I found myself wanting more accessible language. It reads easily enough if you're already embedded in social justice and more specifically disability justice spaces, but if these concepts are new to the reader, the wisdom and the nourishment is just left on the page, unsavored.
• 
  Laura Sackton

  Read my review of this brilliant and generous book here:
  https://booksandbakes.substack.com/p/...
• 
  Barbara McVeigh

  4.5
  
  “Welcome to our queendom, kingdom, queerdom, multibodied universe…Tonight, we will be new maps of celestial beings…” page 137.
• 
  Tricia Friedman

  A must read
• 
  liv wiley

  what a powerful and important read
• 
  Jesse

  Deeply inspiring, if a little meandering and repetitive at times.
  I love Sins Invalid SO MUCH 💗
• 
  Hilary

  Thank you Arsenal Pulp for an ebook of Shayda Kafai's Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid, out in November ♥️
  
  In 2005, queer disabled activists of color came together to name Disability Justice. A year later, Sins Invalid began as a crip-led performance project of resistance, one that centralizes artists that have been historically marginalized, particularly by the mainstream and single-issue disability rights movement. Using art activism, Sins Invalid creates spaces of healing, where crip bodyminds can be free and recognized. They use radical storytelling as a way to resist an ableist world and reimagine new ones.
  
  Slow down, rest, Shayda writes to us. This book is meant to be savored, loved as deeply as it loves you. Thank you for your radical storytelling, Shayda, in writing this book, and for documenting these histories so that they may be told to and shared with generations of our disabled communities.
  
  Full review:
  https://www.instagram.com/p/CUsX3iwFwH_/
• 
  Jung

  [4 stars] An exploration of art, activism, and disability justice as told through the history of Sins Invalid. I think this is a decent introduction to Sins Invalid's work for those who aren't as familiar with it, and also a useful overview of disability justice theory. Some of the language felt overly academic, which wasn't surprising when I realized the book was likely adapted from a dissertation, while other sections included language common in social justice activism space but maybe not non-activism daily life. Recommended for those interested in the role of art and cultural work in mobilizing social change, readers who enjoy oral histories (and similar), and anyone who's heard or seen the term "disability justice" but wants to learn more about its origin, meaning, and tenets.
  
  Goodreads Challenge 2022: 22/52
  Popsugar Reading Challenge: character uses a mobility aid
  Feminist Reading Challenge: about disability
  Nonfiction Reading Challenge: social history