Definition of crip

This is probably the most contentious word that is plastered all over our social media, and is indeed the word that caused the complaint in the first place. So here are some things that are useful to know about this word.

Crip is a reclamation of the word “cripple” which is often used as a slur against disabled people.

Crip does not just reference people with visible disabilities. Any disabled person can use this word if they so choose, including people who are neurodiverse, and/or who have invisible disabilities.
Crip is meant to be provocative. If the word makes you uncomfortable, good. That is what it is supposed to do!
Crip tends to denote a political ideology that is leftist, against neoliberal ideologies (AKA capitalism and consumerism), and critical of mainstream institutions and trends.
Crip can be a verb. It is possible “to crip” something, which essentially means looking at oppressive, exclusionary aspects of pretty much anything, critiquing them and ultimately shifting perspectives on them. A stellar example of this is our upcoming project Unsightly Drag, where we get blind people (usually excluded from this highly visual art form) to do drag. (Queer blindies… info and application form is here: https://bit.ly/30QNFCZ )

Critiques of crip

There are a lot of people who don’t like this word for various reasons. For the sake of time and clarity, we are going to highlight three.

Elitism: many argue that interacting with concepts of “crip-ness” tend to be more available to people who have access to education. This means that claiming crip can also reinforce other types of oppression - most specifically racism and classism.
It’s worth noting that this type of oppression stems from white crips appropriating and not crediting the language developed by disabled people of colour. For info on this, see below to follow Leroy Moore who actively identifies as crip and discusses these issues at length.
Fracturing the community: many argue that because of the potential privilege of those claiming crip, this perspective does not accurately reflect the experiences of disabled people. As a result, sitting in this more radicalised perspective fractures the disabled community which, let’s face it, is always under various amounts of tension anyway.
Associations with gang violence: many people, particularly those located in the USA, will find use of the word crip triggering because they will associate it with an LA gang called The Crips and a time in the USA where gang violence caused a lot of grief and trauma. It is worth noting that many academics and disabled POC are conscious of the correlation between the crip gang and the crip disabled community, and have used discussions around this to highlight how gang violence, a topic that is usually dominated by discussions of race and class, is absolutely also directly related to disability.

So why are we using this word?

Quiplash (aka Al and I) are aware of the limits of the word crip, and understand that there is truth to the criticisms. However, our stance is that all words are limiting, and are up for interpretation. Unsurprisingly, everyone who claims the word crip will have a different interpretation of what it means and how to use it. For us, at its best crip means:

Intersectionality*, and taking space for those of us who face multiple lines of oppression at once - for me it’s being a queer, blind. cis woman. The sh*t I get is never just about one of those aspects - it’s all of them all at once.
Denoting our political and ideological position. We know not everyone will like what we do or what we say, and that’s fine! We like remaining provocative and rebellious where we can.
It allows us to critique what we do, and leaves us open to critique about what we do. This means we’ll always be getting better.

In general, it’s worth noting that we did not invent the word crip, nor did we invent any of the other words we are using. These are concepts we are building on based on communities we feel represent us best that have come before us.

We hope this is helpful. If you like this, stay tuned for more!

* We recognise the creator of this concept Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who originally coined it in the context of black women in colonised countries.

Some helpful things to look at for more info:

Carrie Sandahl is a crip academic who has a very accessible lecture on what crip is and what it does which you can watch here: vimeo.com/24992332
If you want a somewhat dense but interesting read, go for Robert McRuer’s Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. This book breaks down the connection between disability and gang violence really clearly.
A less dense but still academic-y book is Alison Kafer’s Feminist Queer Crip. This is probably one of my favourite academic books ever written, just FYI.
Checking out anything by Leroy Moore, particularly Kriphop Nation (kriphopnation.com) or his theatre company Sins Invalid (sinsinvalid.org) is definitely worth your time.
Lynn Manning’s performance of Weights gives insight into the connection between gang violence and disability. Info for that can be found here: (extant.org.uk/projects/weights/)
Eli Clare’s book Exile and Pride is all crip poetry that is pretty amazing.

Tools we use

Read-O-Meter, reading time estimator.
Hemingway App, word processor and proofreading tool, estimates reading level.

Rude quips, episode 1: the wrong kind of cripple

As a result of this complaint, we’ve been reminded that, though we love our little bubble of like minded quips, not everyone is going to get where we’re coming from. So we decided to break down some of the lingo for ya’ll. 👇🎓👅

Definition of crip

Critiques of crip

So why are we using this word?

Some helpful things to look at for more info:

Tools we use

Al Lander