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[Video description: Me, Talila A. Lewis, a dark brown-skinned Black young-looking almost-forty year old wearing a white linen loose-fitting stand collar button up shirt. I am wearing dangling multi-colored teardrop earrings, a geometric multi-colored beaded Guna Yala pulseras/bracelet on one arm and a silver bracelet with a heart dangling on the other arm. I am wearing a coblat/Frida Kahlo Blue durag with a creme pinchfront cowboy hat. I am seated in front of a white wall.] I was deeply honored to have been invited to share a few words during Patty Berne's Celebration of Life today. I will share more as time progresses and look forward to supporting with Patty's Legacy Work. For now, I just want to share this video as a form of respect for and to my Elder, now Ancestor, Patricia "Patty" Berne. Presente. "WE HONOR US." - PATTY BERNE Humble thanks to all the people who worked so hard to ensure that Patty's Celebration of Life was so memorable and special. Sending my deepest condolences, comfort, and compassion to Patty's families, loved ones, and all of our communities. Eternal gratitude to Patty for their offerings, love, care, encouragement and support. To learn more about Patty and to review some of Patty's heartwork, please see the resources below this transcript. ROUGH TRANSCRIPT, COMMENTS FROM TALILA A. LEWIS: [tips hat] Talila A. Lewis here. I bring greetings from The Deep South, El Negro Sur, of what is colonially known as the united states. I feel very honored to have been invited by Patty's families--families plural--communities, organizations, to share just a few minutes of words, just a few minutes! [chuckles gently]. Um . . . this has been very difficult; and I just feel very honored. I've had . . . Well, first giving honor, honor to The Divine Creator Spirit Ancestors who are the head of my life; honor to my family and everyone who has poured into me, including Patty, to ensure that I can be WHO I am, WHERE I am, AS I am. [deep exhale] I've had the privilege and honor of sitting at the wheels of Patty and learning with and from Patty, organizing with Patty in various formations over a span of more than a decade in different contexts. And it has been truly an honor and privilege. I can say with certainty that I would not be who I am without Patty’s love and encouragement and support and care. [signs *back in time* then pauses] I don’t want to tell too many stories. I was gonna tell y’all about the last time I was with Patty, but I wanna…I’ll hold that…for now. One of my first interactions with Patty: Patty reached out to me over a decade ago after I created an offering and put it out into the world. Patty's work and offerings were a huge influence to this offering. And Patty reached out; and I was so shocked because I studied Patty's work and knew who Patty was, but certainly didn't think that I would ever just have a random reach out from Patty. And they reached out and said…they offered gratitude and encouragement. And I said, “you honor me,” or something to that effect; and Patty wrote back: “We honor Us.” And, I really . . . I certainly was raised in that Tradition [signs concept *generational/tradition*] without, without those specific words; and to have those specific words put to the practice of honoring one another has been something that's really stayed with me for all of these years. And it's the story I tell to most people about Patty when I'm first talking to folks about what I'm rooted in and what Patty was rooted in. It was not performance. It was praxis. And in a time of great performance, one thing that I can say about Patty is that Patty embodied--praxised [chuckles], practiced what they preached. Loved so deeply so generously so freely; wanting nothing in return, except that we honor one another--that we honor and take care of one another. And I'm just so grateful to have shared timespace with Patty in this realm. I'm grateful that I will be able to call upon Patty for guidance as time progresses. And as my time nears an end . . . [smiles noting wanting to say more] I just want to offer heartfelt condolences to Patty's family and loved ones and to our communities. And I want to call us back to our humanity, to ourselves, to our communities, and call us into our power in this time--call us back into our collective power in this time. Thank you and I look forward to more conversation.  Image of Patty Berne in an off the shoulder vestido huipil blanco with red orange green flowers. Patty's jet black curly hair covers her shoulders, and she is wearing silver necklace and bracelet hammered metal. The headrest of Patty's wheelchair can be seen a bit in the background with the quote below. “Disability justice was a reaction to the ways that the U.S. disability rights movement “invisibilized the lives of peoples who lived at intersecting junctures of oppression – disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others.” -Patricia “Patty” Berne, Co-Founder, Executive & ArtisticDirector of Sins Invalid LEARN MORE ABOUT PATTY BERNE (living list; will grow with time):
REVIEW SOME OF PATTY'S HEARTWORK (living list; will grow with time):
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This is a June 8, 2025 reading of a piece I created and published with truthout.org in fall 2019. I consider this piece to be one of my most important offerings during the 20-teens. The piece can be found in English text in full here and in spoken English here. The editor created the title, "Trump's Rule Attacking Disabled and Low-Income Migrants Has Violent History". I have a number of titles, but will share the following title here, "Public Charge: The Current Move to a Permanent Underclass of Migrants has its Roots in American Enslavement." These were some of my notes from 27 Jan. 2020 about this piece: "Today the US Supreme Court decided to allow this administration’s “public charge rule” to move forward (while litigation continues against the rule). The rule targets migrants, disabled, negatively racialized, low/no income, working folks. The public charge rule literally replicates laws that were used to separate Black enslaved families and limit/control movement, migration, freedom of Black folks (mostly elderly, disabled, no/low income Black folks) in the 1600s-1800s in the US. Public charge laws and public charge rules have wreaked havoc on the most marginalized communities since the 1600s. In no uncertain terms: these laws and policies are the embodiment of intersected racism, classism, ableism. They are DEADLY. Generationally. Racism, classism and ableism depend on and give life to each other. Ignore this truth at all our peril. Know your history. It is present. Some excerpts from the piece:  imgage of me, a Black person with dark brown skin smiling in a forrest with the sun peaking through behind me. I am wearing a bright neon scarf with a blue beanie over that scarf and a blue kuffiyeh to the left of my image are the words: “…The goal is to artfully obscure the true adversaries (authoritarianism, capitalism, imperialism, all forms of oppression) by enacting policies or engaging in practices that quell dissent and sow discord within and across communities….” -Talila A. Lewis ". . . U.S. 'immigration' policy was not established to attend to a moral obligation to welcome diverse people to this land to pursue the 'American Dream.' Quite the opposite: U.S. immigration policy is part of a protracted sociopolitical project steeped in settler-colonialism that has long sought to expand and protect the white population’s settlement and dominance. The Naturalization Act of 1790, the first federal law dealing with 'naturalization' and national citizenship, held that the only 'alien' who could apply for naturalization is a 'free white person … of good character' who has occupied this stolen land for at least two years. . . Immigration laws that ostensibly prioritized family-based immigration, for example, have done so to 'reassure lawmakers who feared the law’s other changes would dilute the distinctly European nature of immigration to the United States'. . . . . .Settler-colonialists who violently helped themselves to millions of acres of land and Black enslaved people’s bodies and labor are not [im]migrants; and people indigenous to the Americas and those kidnapped from the African continent also did not 'immigrate' to the U.S. 'Immigration' exists because white European settler-colonialists committed genocide, forcibly removed millions of Indigenous people, created borders, and drafted policies to legitimize, formalize and legalize this violent appropriation. These truths are central to understanding the origin of the public charge, but, more importantly, to understanding 'citizenship,' 'immigration,' and the 'United States' as fabricated by white people for white economic, social and political gain. . . In this era of authoritarianism, there are concessions we simply cannot make. Demonization of any group that is intentionally made politically, socially or economically marginalized fans eugenics flames, stokes genocidal tendencies and emboldens white supremacists. Therefore, advocacy that supports migrants because migrants 'pay taxes,' are 'important to the economy,' 'do not have criminal records,' 'work, long hours for low wages in jobs that Americans won’t accept,' etc. only serve to reify the systems that we should be seeking to dismantle. People everywhere must ardently contest messaging that ties people’s value to their labor productivity or that establishes categories of inferiority and superiority of marginalized people. Migrant justice work must be intentionally rooted in anti-ableist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist frameworks. . . . . . Migration and the provision of public benefits should be supported because migrants are human and deserving of freedom of movement, residence and security. Further, the United States’s colonial-imperial capitalist legacy divests it of moral and legal authority to deny entry to humans seeking security — especially Indigenous people. There is more than enough wealth in this nation to ensure that everyone is cared for. Impoverishment is a political choice. In the face of a swiftly advancing global neo-Nazi resurgence, it is unwise and unsafe to cling to aspirational symbols of equality and hollow untruths. This nation must confront its past, which, in too many ways mirrors our present. To erase parts of American history that are difficult to confront is to acquiesce to white supremacy and invite its flood of injustice and terror to endlessly recur. Demands for migrant justice must uplift the inherent value of all people and be grounded in historical truths that center Black/Indigenous peoples’ experiences. Anything less increases opportunities for eugenics, plays into the boorish hands of a demonstrably authoritarian administration, and will result in yet more deaths." Today is John Wilson, Jr.'s birthday. As such, I must note that anything published about him that is not from/by Fria M. Wilson (Moore), Talila A. Lewis, or HEARD should not be shared. Ijeoma Oluo and HarperOne / HarperCollins's "book", Be A Revolution (edited by Rakesh Satyal) grotesquely misrepresents, disrespects, distorts, and commodifies John Wilson; his family; his friend and long-time advocate, Talila A. Lewis (me); as well as his political home, HEARD (an organization that I founded and directed for free for over a decade), and many other Black/Indigenous, disabled, queer, GNC/trans organizations, collectives, communities, ancestors & living peoples. Oluo is represented by Lauren Abramo of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC. We will be sharing more information here on Disability Visibility Project soon, but out of respect for John Wilson, myself, and our communities, we ask the public not support or purchase this book or support this publisher until they have taken meaningful steps to rectify the egregious harms against me, John Wilson, HEARD, the Harriet Tubman Collective, #DisabilitySolidarity, and the Black/Indigenous disabled people who the author "profiled" without notice or consent. Do not share any information from this book with the public and do not invite this author to your libraries, universities, bookstores, establishments to discuss this book. We will share more information about John Wilson, his family, HEARD, and myself in our time, in our own publications, and in our own languages, and our own "voices". In the interim, please learn about and share information that HEARD and I have created about John Wilson's life, case, family, and wrongful convictions of deaf/disabled people. If you want to learn more from social media, search the hashtags #JohnWilsonLives, #DeafWrongfulConviction, #DeafInPrison. Thank you. |
AuthorI dream incessantly of justice. Hoping to calm my mind & stir yours through this freedom space. Archives
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