POP Artist Highlight
Generation POP’s Laurén Green interviews Crutches & Spice
POPOUT zine: So I’ve got to know where did the name Crutches & Spice come from?
Imani Barbarin: It came from the saying sugar and spice and everything nice. I wasn’t going to claim the sugar though because I wasn’t going to be sweet about disability (laughs). I like being able to have my crutches in my online persona because I didn’t want to hide it while I was writing.
POP: So you and I met in Paris. What was your experience like abroad as a disabled black woman? I know you traveled to a lot of other places to like India even.
Imani: So my experiences were difficult. Grad school was the longest time I spent in Paris so it wasn’t a touristy thing anymore. It was very much a different mindset to be someone that actually lived there and it was really hard because I didn’t see very many disabled people in Paris.
I could count on one hand how many people I saw with a physical disability. It was hard to get around and hard to get people to understand that I don’t have the energy to do everything all the time, but I did love living in Paris and living abroad. India was really hard too because there was no accessibility infrastructure where we were staying.
POP: Right, people don’t think about those things. I know we talked about when I was in NYC. NYC is probably the least accessible city in the country and its New York City! I remember when I had first moved there a girl had died taking her stroller down the metro stairs and she died trying to take her baby down.
Imani: And that’s not uncommon. It’s really interesting because you have this idea of these places that are “lands of opportunity” are just completely inaccessible and it’s not just physical inaccessibility, it’s cultural inaccessibility too. There's a culture of having to work yourself to death, which isn’t great if you have chronic illness and people don’t tell their co-workers about their disabilities even though they need to. It’s a whole thing.
POP: So I wanted to talk about your recent growing popularity. You’re clearly becoming one of the biggest voices in the disability rights world right now and the Millennial/Gen Z activism world in general. Can you explain to those who don’t know you what your type of activism is and why it's so important?
Imani: Sure, I don’t know if I really have a name for my activism, but it’s definitely disability and blackness centered. Right as I started online trying to build my blog, I rarely saw disabled black women in particular and I think that growing up at the intersection of three major identities that certain groups expect certain things from me and they only want me to discuss that one thing in front of them. For example, when I’m all around black people we don’t bring up disability.
When I’m around disabled folks, particularly white disabled people, they say that talking about race is divisive. Then feminist faces kind of ignore both of those things. And I’m like well you don’t get to tell me which part of me you want, you either take it all or leave it. So I guess you could call it intersectional disability activism.
POP: Yea, you’re at the nexus of a lot of different things it seems.
Imani: Yea, and I think that now there’s a large cohort of black disabled people in general that are like “Hey, we’re here. We’re not gonna go anywhere” and Chadwick Boseman kind of showed that. I think people now are recognizing just how much disability and ableism plays a role in their life whether or not they have a diagnosis.
POP: Actually I loved that article that you wrote about Chadwick Boseman where you talk about being forced to minimize yourself from acting to writing you said:
“...I chose writing because people had to see and absorb my words before judging my body. I wanted to see myself represented and be seen as myself. But I was quietly and consistently asked to carve myself into pieces so that my wholeness would not be a distraction from my talent. And, let me be clear, I am talented.”
When did you finally feel like you could fully authentically express yourself and it would resonate with the outside world?
Imani: When I was in college, I went to a school that was based on Social Justice and one of the things that our professors allowed me to do was choose my own readings and choose who I wanted to absorb. So a lot of them were disabled writers and I was fascinated because things were finally clicking into place. Then I started realizing that all of these portrayals about disability were not even written by disabled people. These people have such a large control over my life and they have no idea who I am.
POP: To the point to where they’re writing about the life you’re living that they haven’t even experienced. When did you realize that what you were writing about was resonating with other people and actually waking them up? Because now you’ve grown so popular on Twitter you have nearly 75k followers and even AOC follows you at this point. So when did you feel like oh my god, what I’m talking about is having an affect on a broader audience?
Imani: Well it’s funny because I didn’t intend to write about disability for non-disabled people. I wrote it for disabled people who could identify with my experiences and they shared it a lot. I owe a lot of my presence to disabled people and I always try to claim them because I would be nowhere without disabled people.
POP: I know #DisTheOscars was one of your biggest hashtags that became an online movement. Did you envision it becoming so huge when you created it? What did you want to accomplish when you made the hashtag?
Imani: Some Instagram worthy photos (laughing). I think it was the first big hashtag that I actually planned out with vigor. I really wanted #DisTheOscars to be a conversation with disabled people about what it means to be represented, and how you can really think about writing characters that made sense to disabled people. I really wanted to make a big deal out of it because it was the Oscars.
POP: So let’s talk quarantine. A lot of people are saying it has let them explore their creative side more and they’re enjoying the downtime and a lot of people completely hate it and want things to return to “normal”. What’s it been like for you?
Imani: Really really stressful.
POP: Has it??
Imani: Yea, I mean being disabled and black then seeing the numbers of people dying that are black and disabled is devastating on a daily basis. We don’t even hear the numbers anymore which is a problem.
POP: Yea, with the numbers we have no idea.
Imani: And also working with a disability rights organization that is trying to put pebbles in a damn of all of this damage. You know feeling like you can’t do enough but at the same time you’re exhausting yourself. Then trying to make people aware of what they’re experiencing on social media and watching people throw disabled people under the bus in efforts to try to get back to “normal”. It’s a culmination of things where I’m just like when will the bleeding stop? I think that I just have to re-evaluate what I believe work to be. I’ve been taught my whole life that as a disabled person that work is the goal. It’ll keep me having money and also health insurance. We don’t question the system enough to say, “why is my health insurance tied to my work”. I’m just so tired.
POP: I know we’ve talked about that before in terms of you having all these creative projects going on so maybe it’s just that a 9-5 isn’t what you want to do for the rest of your life and that means giving up the luxuries of capitalism like health care.
Imani: And that’s the thing about capitalism. It brands human rights as luxuries.
Imani: And it means disabled people are stuck in poverty or stuck in jobs that are slowly killing them. There’s no in between or stability.
POP: Well I firmly believe that you’re someone that could help pave the way and show others that you can do something you love, you can follow your purpose and provide for yourself in every way possible.
Imani: Well thank you and I hope so. I think disabled people are really the innovators of a new society, but we’re also treated like sacrificial lambs. I just don’t want people to be sacrifices to capitalism or to a dream...
POP: In your article “#COVID19 Doesn’t Have A Moral Responsibility - That’s Your Responsibility”, you have a line that I really love that read:
“No one deserves this virus—not even those you hate.”
That alone is a super powerful statement, but you so generously broke it down even further to show how people think disability is some sort of curse for being a bad person. Can you unpack that more for us?
Imani: Yea, I think at the time it was Harvey Weinstein who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and he did horrifying things, but his diagnosis is actually emblematic of a bigger problem, which is the rate of COVID-19 in prisons. So if he gets it then there’s a ton of other people that get it as well.
POP: The way that you broke that down to point out what’s wrong in society’s psyche right now was great. When talking about disability so many people say “Oh, you’re such a nice young girl, you don’t deserve that.” What you’re saying is that you deserve disability if you’re bad, but it doesn’t work that way.
Imani: It goes back to all of our media representations. Even Lord Voldemort, he had a facial disfiguration and was a villain.
POP: There’s so many people! Captain Hook didn’t have a hand.
Imani: Villains are always disabled.
POP: Wow that’s so true.
Imani: Most villains have at least a visible disability or scarring.
POP: Even Scar!
Imani: Yea, literally Scar!
POP: Literally Scar from Lion King.
Imani: Yes. So disability isn’t a curse. It’s human diversity. It’s going to happen to whomever. I think that when you think about disability like a consequence of police brutality, like when you think about Jacob Blake and things like that we’re not wishing evil upon people. We have to stop thinking about disability like an evil. It is diversity. And there are disabilities that are devastating to people, but no one deserves it and it’s also very natural to have. Even things that are seen as bad sometimes are natural and I think we blame the individual rather than creating systemic change to include everybody. Why not create a society that is better for everyone to feel included and valued?
POP: Exactly. What are you hoping will come out of the pandemic?
Imani: I hope it ends (laughing).
POP: Soon! (laughing)
Imani: But really my first frustration was non-disability people getting the accessibility we’ve been fighting for. I kind of predicted this and it’s already starting to happen, but once non-disabled people got the accessibility we wanted they would make life itself inaccessible to us.
POP: Can you talk about that more?
Imani: Yea for instance, in order to open restaurants they’re putting tables out on the sidewalks so wheelchair users can’t use them. People aren’t wearing masks because they just don’t want to. There's a whole host of issues. So in any way society can fail disabled people, they are. But I really do hope that things become more accessible and stay more accessible because it does benefit everybody.
POP: What visions do you have for yourself in the future?
Imani: I just want to have peace. I wake up every single morning and the first thought I have is that I want to go home even though I am home.
POP: I know that feeling. I have that feeling all the time too.
Imani: It’s so hard because I am home. This is literally where I live, but I just want to find a place of peace, creation, and hope and not of productivity. I want to get rid of this idea that I have to produce to have value.
POP: That’s that capitalism brainwashing. We all have to work through that. I”m working through that too. Can you let us in on any creative projects you have underway?
Imani: I’m writing my first book. It’s called “If I Were You, I’d Kill Myself”.
POP: Whaaaa, wow. This book is going to pop off just from that title. Oh my God.
Imani: Thank you! I’m looking forward to it. I’m also taking acting lessons and writing scripts. Definitely more creative projects in 2021.
POP: Well we’re looking forward to so much from you Imani. Thank you!
Imani: Thank you guys.
Interview conducted by Space POP
MEET IMANI BARBARIN
Comms Director, Disability Blogger, Content Creator, Public Speaker, Model, Actress
