April 15, 2026 - 20:44
Crip Camp was a eye-catching documentary about the pioneering of the disability rights movement from Camp Jened. One of the first things that stood out to me was how utopic Camp Jened was for those with disabilities. Rather than being confined to institutions that would give them little to no freedom, Camp Jened was unique and its residents were free to actually live their lives. I found that the mentioning of the crabs incident is similar to mentioning of sex life in Good Kings Bad Kings, which highlights characters as having lives outside of just their disability. Oftentimes, we see representations of disabled people as center around their disability itself. Their sense of community in the camp is great and everyone is looking to help each other, especially when it came to resolving this incident.
Another key moment was during the San-Francisco sit in. The government retaliated by shutting down much of the buildings supplies such as their water, but the Black Panther Party provided support to the sit-in participants by providing them with hot meals for numerous days. This is key part of intersectionality of social justice movements and how minorized groups stand up for one another during difficult times. It was great to see Section 504 getting passed, making discrimination of people with disabilities in federally-funded programs illegal.