Crip Is Not a Slur Here

This is a manifesto. An empowerment to reclaim disability language. I am a Freak. I am a Crip.

I titled this series (writing + video essays) "Crip and Frame" to connect disability and film. And I want to explain why I use the term crip, because it can feel uncomfortable at first.

“Crip” comes from “cripple”, a term that was used for centuries to insult people with disabilities and reinforce disability as something that needs to be fixed or cured, just like the term “Freak” that came with the Freak Shows. Just like other minorities, the disability activists and scholars also reclaimed this word that was historically used against them; it became something political.

Within disability studies, crip is a critical framework, and it signifies that there is no right way to move, see, hear, think, and live. It alleviates the pressure to accept mainstream society's definition of normality and the endless effort to adapt to inaccessible systems that define accessibility as a privilege, not a right. Crip theory invites us to understand disability as culture, and without the medical field. When I write from a crip lens, I am not trying to provoke controversy; I am simply exposing the world built against disabled bodies and how rethinking it can build a more accessible world.

Having written all of that, I do not support non-disabled people using it casually or as a joke.