“Celebrate disabled and crazy”-this is the motto under which the Pride Parade Berlin has been taking place since 2013, arising from an initiative of ak mob and the AK Psychatriekritik.
The alliance writes on its website about itself, its work and use of terms:
“We don’t use “disabled” as a derogatory term. “Disabled” names that people are excluded, disadvantaged, handicapped by social conditions. Here are a few examples: There are still too few ramps and elevators, too little money for sign language interpreters, hardly any texts in Braille or plain language.
Many associations and some laws consider insanity (so-called “mental/emotional disability”) to be a subcategory of disability. We use both terms because we believe that the differences in experiences of exclusion and oppression are too great to lump them together. At the same time, people have different experiences even within these categories. Moreover, one does not exclude the other.
Ultimately, we find that making people aware of differences and commonalities is what enables them to work together in solidarity. ”
Speeches from the last parades and news can be found here, a playlist with great, short videos from PRIDE PARADE 2017 can be found here.