Claiming Identity as Self-Care —feat. Andraea Lavant

OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallas

This week, Off-Kilter is wrapping up our ongoing series digging into why in the famous words of Audre Lorde, “self-care is political warfare. A recurring theme uplifted by several guests throughout this series has been the importance of bringing your whole self to the work—a phrase that, like so much within the topic of self-care, has become watered down enough in recent years that it’s about as likely to spur eye rolls as genuine interest in many circles.

So to dig a little deeper beneath the surface of what it really looks like to bring one’s whole self to social justice work, Rebecca sat down with the brilliant Andraea Lavant, a longtime disability justice advocate, to delve deeply into the subject of claiming one’s identity, and what that looks like as part of self-care. We had a far-ranging conversation about Andraea’s own journey to claim all parts of her identity as a black, disabled, queer woman, and how that ultimately led her to start a strategy and communications firm focused on culture shift and building a society and an economy where disabled people of color belong.

For more:

• Learn more about and connect with Andraea’s firm, Lavant Consulting

• Follow Andraea on Twitter @andraealavant

• Here’s the Off-Kilter episode feat. writers Alex Ashley Fox and Emily Ladau about the harms that come from “masking” to fit in at work, for autistic as well as neurotypical people with and without disabilities

• Here’s the Off-Kilter episode feat. Social Security Works executive director and We Act Radio cofounder Alex Lawson about tapping into your own inner weirdo (in the best possible way) and finding the technique that works for you

• And here’s the Off-Kilter episode that memorialized Judy Heumann, godmother of the disability rights movement