Fat Elephant

Fat Elephant

University of Michigan Mad Justice Lecturer Sings Her Discontent

M Dowling

A lecturer at the University of Michigan sings about her discontent while teaching Marxist social justice there in a clip below. And, as we now heard from Abdul El Sayed, Michigan is Arab America. Where she fits into Arab America, we cannot say.

This clip is funny, which is what she is into: comedic music to help her survive the “white-supremacist imperial-capitalist cis-hetero-patriarchal hellscape.”

Her name is Laura Yakas, and she has a PhD in Anthropology and Social Work. Here are some of her papers (via ResearchGate).

  • Anti-Ableist and Disability Justice Pedagogies in Social Work Education
  • Compulsory Monogamy Is Disabling
  • Love Is Merely a Madness
  • A mixed methods analysis of cannabis use routines for chronic pain management
  • Beyond Ramps, Curb Cuts, and Captions: A Call for Disability Justice in Social Work
  • Woke and Weary

She is part of an LGBTQ… collective.

It’s a Mad Mad Mad World

Academically, she has said she feels most at home in the critical disciplines of Mad Studies and Disability Studies. This connects to her passion for Disability Justice and Mad Justice!  She is also a performing artist, and I have been nominated for a Fringe Festival award for her radical anti-oppressive musical comedy!  (leounion.rg/blog)

She says, “I am proud of my radical comedic music – I couldn’t survive this white-supremacist imperial-capitalist cis-hetero-patriarchal hellscape without it! It is cathartic, and it is also my opportunity to educate outside of the classroom. I sing about the very same topics I explore in my classes – basically, if you take my social justice class, subtract the articles and slides, and add swearing and singing, you get one of my shows!” (via leounion.org/blog)

Mad justice (often linked with Mad studies, Mad pride, and the psychiatric survivor movement) refers to frameworks of human rights, liberation, and community accountability created by and for people identified as mad, mentally ill, neurodivergent, or experiencing psychosocial diversity. (via disability debrief)

The hope of mad justice is to globalize the idea. They reject medical models.

If only they would believe the science.

 

Image: AI Grok

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