COVID Mitigation Philosophy

Disability Justice Statements

Inspired by the Disability Justice advocates that have come before us, especially Patricia Berne, Aurora Levins Morales, David Langstaff, Leroy F. Moor Jr., and all those who participated in Sins Invalid, Live Oak has a commitment to making explicit our Disability Justice philosophy and its evolution over time. Here is a link to the 10 principles for Disability Justice that came out of Sins Invalid, which inform our framework.

At Live Oak we commit to becoming increasingly communal, building a community that is led by staff and guided by the needs and experiences of those most marginalized.

When any accommodation, modification, and/or policy shift is requested, leaders within Live Oak will use that request to shine a light on a gap, bringing resources and policy to that gap based on the needs expressed by those most impacted.

Most recently, this included the creation of our updated COVID mitigation policy. When community members informed those in leadership at Live Oak that our former COVID mitigation policy left community members excluded from the office and left the most immune compromised people unsafe in our space, we took this as an invitation to do better and to more fully see the ableist biases that led to this reality.

At Live Oak we understand that we are all socialized into systems of oppression that value some body minds over others. We welcome the chance to see the waters of intersecting systems of marginalization that impact our lived experiences uniquely based on our particular makeup of identities and life experiences. Rather than falling into the traps of defensiveness, guilt, avoidance, or shame, we commit to creating a range of mechanisms for receiving feedback about our biases so we can continue to build a world in which we are all safe and able to engage fully in our society.

Live Oak holds a commitment to cross movement organizing and intersectionality. The specific demographic that we hope to uplift are those most marginalized (BIPOC, disabled, LGBTQIA++ people) are at a higher risk to become disabled. We understand that intersecting systems of oppression have the impact of disabling and unaliving people in a wide range of forms. Live Oak’s efforts are not only about inclusivity, but rather, understanding that disabling is at the core of all systems of oppression. Neglecting ableism is to misunderstand the fullness of all other systems of oppression.

We commit to holding the complexity of conflicting access needs, being with the tension between needs and coming together to find creative possibilities. We understand that we are working towards our collective liberation, which means that we cannot leave anyone behind.

With this in mind, we commit to a practice of not shaming people within our community for getting it wrong, making a mistake, or not knowing. Rather, we will practice loving truth telling, prioritizing building our relationships with each other so we can offer loving feedback from a place of connectedness and care.

We commit to building on the legacies of intergenerational cross-community partnerships that have imagined a world of possibilities far beyond our current reality.