From Wedges to Bridges: Why a Reimagined Democracy Calls for Intersectional Narratives
Re-imagining Democracy calls for narratives that will shift our collective imagination toward solidarity and justice. Authoritarianism thrives on division between communities because societal fracturing prevents us from organizing and collaborating with each other toward a shared vision of liberation and justice. This is why wedge narratives — stories and messages that pit us against each other — about trans people, immigrants, and Black and brown people are being amplified by the far right via its different media platforms.
Our movements need to counter these wedge narratives with ones that drive solidarity between communities, sectors, and organizations. We need intersectional narratives that will emphasize how our fates and freedoms are interconnected, how systems of oppression share the same roots, and how solidarity and collaboration is the only path forward.
In this Q&A conversation with Kenrya Rankin, we highlight the need for intersectional narratives through the work of her organization, Disability Culture Lab. We unpack how interdependence and autonomy can be complementary, lived principles for all of us if we shift disability narratives to invest in winning together for a shared and abundant future. When we understand the systemic roots of oppression, we gain a deeper awareness of the ways our challenges — and our hopes — are interconnected and get closer to advancing solidarity narratives. We also explore key takeaways from Disability Culture Lab’s Disability Community and Movement North Star Memo, which will be released this September.
Kenrya Rankin is Managing Director at Disability Culture Lab and an award-winning author, communication and narrative change strategist, journalist, editorial consultant, and disability and racial justice advocate. A Black, disabled, queer mom, Kenrya creates content that amplifies the lived experiences, advocacy, and labor of people of color to shift the narrative around who deserves liberation, joy, justice, and dignity. As an editorial veteran, her work has appeared in dozens of national publications and has been translated into 21 languages. She has authored five books and previously served at Mozilla Foundation, Race Forward, Megaphone Strategies, and at Reader’s Digest, Latina, ShopSmart, and Uptown Magazine. Her next book, Saving Ourselves: How We Survive Medical Misogynoir, hits bookshelves in 2027.
Disability Culture Lab (DCL) is a nonprofit media and narrative lab created to build strategic communications infrastructure by and for the disability community. Founded in June 2024, DCL exists to fight ableism, celebrate disability community and culture, and build the power of disabled people. DCL uses media, arts, and public education to shift stories, narratives, and culture around disability to win material improvements in the lives of disabled people. The org elevates, convenes, and resources disabled organizers, creatives, and leaders connecting the dots between disability and other social movements.
DCL’s mission is to shift the narrative on disability from fear and pity to solidarity and liberation, and to move the needle on ableism from indifference to action. DCL’s programs invest in the power of disabled leaders to change stories, and therefore systems, across every major issue area. DCL’s theory of change is that if it builds strategic communications infrastructure by and for the disability community, it can achieve big narrative and cultural change, which will lead to material improvements for disabled people. DCL grounds its work in disability justice principles and the reality that all forms of oppression are disabling.
As we reflect on the country’s 250th year of Independence, what does reimagining Democracy mean for those working at the intersections of disability justice, racial justice, and other issue areas?The imagining we did for the disability community and movement resulted in a vision for a new world where democracy is more than a future dream and where we are all free. The full accounting lives in our Disability Community and Movement North Star Memo, which will be released in September, but one of Disability Culture Lab’s biggest takeaways from the project is that diversity alone isn’t enough to resist rising authoritarianism: we need interdependence. We need interdependent communities, and we need culture shifts and policy that promote that interdependence to push back the fascists. But interdependence doesn’t just happen; it must be built intentionally by promoting cultures of radical inclusion over simple accommodation in organizations, in neighborhoods, in policy, and in our movements. When we have that, we’ll be on our way to creating that new, reimagined world. Here’s a sneak peek of five points from the memo that illustrate what that world will look like for all of us:
1. We’d live in inclusive interdependent communities, that we choose for ourselves, where everyone belongs and has autonomy and control over our own lives.
2. All disabled people would have access to the care we need, for ourselves and our loved ones. We would be allowed to work, save, and marry freely without tax or penalty; and our benefits would be tied to need, not work, income, or savings.
3. We would have more than accommodations. We’d have radical inclusion policy, culture, and design everywhere — from social movements and boardrooms and media to culture and education and democratic processes. That means we would proactively build inclusive spaces and communities that work for our bodyminds, rather than waiting for expensive legal accommodation requests to force access.
4. Everyone would have enough to not just survive, but to live and thrive, regardless of disability. We deserve housing, food, transit, meaningful work, community, and joy regardless of our ability to labor for a wage.
5. We would have deep funding for access and care, and the abolition of all carceral systems, including institutionalized health care settings such as forced nursing home and psychiatric facilities, prisons and jails, immigrant detention centers, guardianships, and the family regulation system.
Why do we need intersectional narratives? (i.e. for folks working in racial, economic, health, gender justice - why must we make sure we're incorporating disability justice lens in our work?)
While disabled people have always existed and disability isn’t inherently good or bad, there are many people whose disability story starts with harm that stems from systemic oppression. That’s why disabled people in the United States are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, other people of color, queer, trans, immigrants, women, and also low- and no-income.
Not because there’s something wrong with us. Not because our bodyminds are broken. But because institutions and individuals use policy and practice to oppress people, whether it’s for profit, for convenience, or just because they hate us. And those intentional acts of harm in turn create disabling health and economic disparities.
That’s why we say that oppression is disabling. Capitalism is disabling, racism is disabling, queerphobia is disabling, ableism is disabling, all of it. That’s also why every social justice issue is ultimately a disability issue; the end of every oppression story is disability if we’re lucky, death if we’re not.
That understanding is key in this moment, as we face rising authoritarianism in the United States. But the solution is clear: When every form of oppression is disabling, disabled people are a key constituency to fight back and win against fascism. And integrating disability justice principles — particularly intersectionality, leadership of the most impacted, commitment to cross-movement solidarity, and interdependence — into all our movements and the narratives we promote is key to winning. Living into the values of disability justice is how we build a new world that values all oppressed people, including those of us who are disabled.
What does narrative change/power mean to you in relation to the work of Disability Culture Lab?
At DCL, our mission is to shift the narrative on disability from fear and pity to solidarity and liberation. We chose narrative change as our framework because we know that bad stories lead to bad policy. The stories the current Administration tells about disabled people — that we’re fakers and takers and incompetent and that if we can’t perform labor and capitalism in the ways they want us to we don’t deserve to live — have paved the way for dangerous policies, including cuts to disabled children’s education, history’s largest cut to Medicaid, attempting to eliminate Supplemental Security Income benefits for nearly half a million disabled adults, and pushing to further institutionalize people with mental illnesses, and challenging disabled people’s right to live in our own communities. But we also know that good stories lead to good policy. And good policy is what we need to win material improvements for disabled people in this country. So DCL is dedicated to creating the communications infrastructure we need to tell those good stories.
What values/deep narratives undergird your narrative work at Disability Culture Lab?
Disability Culture Lab grounds our work in the ten principles of disability justice as defined by Sins Invalid and the reality that all forms of oppression are disabling.
What are your narrative priorities that we should all be amplifying?
One of the ways we uncover good stories at DCL is via North Star Visioning, a collaborative tool that helps groups and movements determine narrative priorities and focus their work around achieving shared goals. The result is coordinated forward movement that helps us defend our communities and collaboratively build the world we want to see.
And because the Disability Community is under attack, we need to do more than just block, defend, and resist — we need to actually build the better, more accessible future that we want to live in. And to do that, we needed to develop a true north star vision for what justice looks like for disabled people in the United States. So we brought together more than 40 disabled advocates, creatives, organizers, cultural workers, academics, policymakers, and researchers from a range of backgrounds, communities, and identities from across the United States to craft a collective vision for winning that we can all organize, create, and build around together. Over the course of six 150-minute future dreaming sessions between October and January of this year, we developed a set of liberatory narratives we want to see take hold. These are the narrative priorities that will drive the work of both the Disability Community of Practice that created them and Disability Culture Lab over the next year:
1. Interdependence builds joyful communities resilient to hate and fear. Disabled people are great caregivers, and we have equal value whether we are giving or receiving care. Interdependence, and the radical inclusion that comes with it, is critical to making our communities strong.
2. Disabled people are worthy of dignity, solidarity, and respect just as we are. We deserve everything we need to survive, thrive, and lead and contribute meaningfully — whether or not we contribute to capitalism.
3. The U.S. government is pushing a eugenic agenda — disguised as a health movement — to kill and institutionalize disabled people and mass-disable even more people they deem undesirable.
What advice would you give to folks who want to support/engage in work of changing narratives around disability justice?
Gather your people. Now more than ever, we have to join forces to win. Amplify the narratives developed in your movement and prioritize working across movements so that we can win on multiple fronts at once, because just as none of us is just one thing (I’m a queer, disabled, Black parent — so many things!), none of us lives single-issue lives. So winning requires us to fight on several fronts simultaneously. Together.
