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The gentle soul and thoughtful man I know as Councilman Chris Hinds was able to take the moment of personal humiliation and struggle and turn it into a vibrant teachable moment for millions of people.
You may not have seen the news or you may have forgotten all about it by now. Last month, Denver City Councilman and candidate for re-election Chris Hinds was forced to crawl up onto the stage for a scheduled debate or forfeit the matching election funds from the city. The story drew attention not only locally but throughout the country and even globally. Councilman Hinds has used a wheelchair since 2008 when an accident left him paralyzed from the chest down.
Many people have wondered why any person would feel forced or compelled to respond as he did to the barrier presented. I didn’t. Our society remains grossly and intentionally uninformed about what it is like to face physical barriers due to a disability. We passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA, 29 years ago yet we still build and maintain most buildings and even our cities to accommodate people without physical disabilities. Often, until a property’s owner is confronted by a legal challenge to become ADA compliant, barriers remain unchanged.
I wasn’t in Denver when this week’s barrier-busting occurred. I was sitting in my daughter’s home relaxing on the couch when my daughter asked me if I knew anything about the disabled man she saw crawling on that stage. What? I knew who it had to be when she asked that question. Chris Hinds is the only man in a wheelchair I know who is actively campaigning right now. I pulled up the story, and when I saw and read the piece, I was dumbfounded. I was also angry and horrified. How could a venue known to celebrate the diversity of the Denver community never have needed to accommodate anyone in a wheelchair before? A dancer’s dream, that stage has launched careers and helped break cultural and economic barriers. Yet on that evening, no one had even considered a person in a wheelchair needing access. That was more than an oversight. It had never been necessary for that stage to allow disabled people to dance.
\u201cA theater\u2019s lack of wheelchair accessibility forced Denver City Council member Chris Hinds to hoist himself onto a debate stage on Monday. \n\n\u201cI felt like a circus monkey,\u201d Hinds said. https://t.co/CZAHf8R8ot\u201d— The Washington Post (@The Washington Post) 1676639651
Yet, the gentle soul and thoughtful man I know as Councilman Chris Hinds was able to take the moment of personal humiliation and struggle and turn it into a vibrant teachable moment for millions of people. Undoubtedly, that particular venue will rectify the lack of access to their stage. They have already said so. It remains to be seen if the wider lesson for stages and performance venues everywhere will be truly absorbed and learned. In 2023, it ought not be necessary for any disabled person to point out that need.
Chris said today that sometimes he thinks people view the disabled as "less than" other elected leaders when they advocate for the disability community as if it's the only issue for which they are capable of advocating. Funny thing is, I see Chris as more able than most elected officials to truly understand what makes a community more fully integrated for all its people. Most disabled people understand that being highly competent in as many ways as possible is the only way to be seen and heard over the often unconscious and immediate impact their physical limitations make so obvious to the non-disabled. Even people who consider themselves compassionate can be unaware of the dynamics of their own reactions to those who are disabled.
Disabled men and women are candidates for office like Chris Hinds. More need to run, and more need to be elected. Disabled men and women are also speakers, dancers, painters, sculptors, authors, business leaders, and more. It turns out disabled people are actually complete and full human beings. And until we can actually embrace our diversity, we are all disabled by our prejudice and our arrogance.
I was at a community meeting this week with Councilman Chris Hinds and candidates Tony Pigford and Sarah Parady. Beforehand I had written a note to Chris, and I read it to him there for everyone to hear:
February 25, 2023
I have had scoliosis since I was in my 20s. It has been progressive, and doctors told us in the 1990s that I would be in a wheel chair by the time I was 55 years old. I have fought with walkers, canes and more for many years to keep myself walking. It hurts. I cannot do the things I used to do. But when I am left to hoist myself into the back of an uber ride in a huge GMC truck as my husband pushes on my ass, I feel humiliated and alone. It’s not very ladylike or even decent to feel like your body won’t do something and therefore you cannot do whatever that thing is.
I was sitting in my daughter’s home when she asked me about a news story she was seeing. She mentioned your name, Chris. I quickly read the story and saw the photo and pounded my own leg with rage. My throat hurt and I was there with you, trying so hard to do the thing I could not do – and I was broken. Then you turned it into something others might learn from. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and the crookedness of my back.
Chris, you are a hero. My hero.
Peace and power... together,
Donna
My hope, my humble ask is that everyone who reads this essay will share it and donate to the effort to make sure these wonderful people are part of making sure every human being in Denver is valued and protected equally. A great city deserves no less. Great people do too.
A federal judge late Friday issued a temporary order barring the Denver Police Department from using projectiles and chemical weapons such as tear gas against peaceful demonstrators, condemning the conduct of some officers against protesters across the nation in recent days as "disgusting."
"The time is past to rely solely on the good faith and discretion of the Denver Police Department and its colleagues from other jurisdictions," wrote Judge R. Brooke Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in his 11-page order (pdf). "The Denver Police Depart. has failed in its duty to police its own."
"People have an absolute right to demonstrate and protest the actions of governmental officials, including police officers."
--Judge R. Brooke Jackson
The restraining order, which took effect immediately, comes in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of four Denver protesters who said the use of "pepper spray, pepper balls, rubber bullets, flashbang grenades, and tear gas" by city police during a May 28 demonstration against the killing of George Floyd violated their constitutional rights. Jackson's ruling came just hours after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, a Democrat, imposed a 30-day ban on police use of tear gas, which is banned in warfare.
"If immediate relief is not granted, plaintiffs' speech would be chilled and outright denied over the next several days or weeks of demonstrations," Jackson wrote. "Indeed, irreparable harm has already occurred in the form of physical injury and the suppression of speech."
"People have an absolute right to demonstrate and protest the actions of governmental officials, including police officers," Jackson continued. "It is one of the many freedoms on which this country was built... Citizens should never have to fear peaceful protest on the basis of police retaliation, especially not when protesting that very same police violence."
While Jackson's order was described as "extraordinary" and applauded as a positive step that should be replicated nationwide, it is not without loopholes. As the Colorado Sun reported, Jackson's order allows Denver police to use chemical agents and some projectiles against demonstrators "if an on-scene supervisor at the rank of captain or above specifically authorizes such use of force in response to specific acts of violence or destruction of personal property that the supervisor witnessed."
Two for-profit prison operators lost a combined $10.6 million in contracts after a progressive councilwoman convinced her fellow members of the Denver City Council to end the city's involvement with Core Civic and the GEO Group.
City councilor Candi CdeBaca, who won her seat in June after campaigning on a Democratic Socialist platform, organized community members to speak out Monday against the two companies' contracts with the city, under which they have long operated six halfway houses in Denver.
The companies also run the majority of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) immigration detention centers, where children and adults have been subjected to neglect and abuse under the Trump administration and where at least 24 people have died since President Donald Trump took office.
"We've watched these large entities gobble up smaller providers with public dollars and little to no transparency or accountability," CdeBaca told her fellow council members.
As Ryan Grim reported in The Intercept Thursday, CdeBaca called on members of local groups--including the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, the ACLU, and Black Lives Matter--to speak at the city council's meeting.
"We've got to quit feeding the beast of for-profit in our criminal justice system," said Denise Maes, policy director for the ACLU of Colorado.
"Will my family end up in one of the GEO and CoreCivic concentration camps that profit off of us?" added community member Alma Urbano, who has DACA status.
After hearing from the advocates, seven of CdeBaca's 12 colleagues joined her in voting to end the contracts.
"I am blown away," CdeBaca told The Colorado Independent. "I have a newfound respect for my colleagues who showed immense courage and determination tonight in one of the most challenging votes possible."
CdeBaca acknowledged that a just transition away from the GEO Group's and CoreCivic's operation of the halfway houses is necessary for the sake of the 500 former inmates who are currently living there. The end of the contacts could mean some of the residents will be sent back to prison while others may be paroled. About 100 inmates who were scheduled to arrive at the halfway houses may now have longer prison stays.
The city should transition toward local control of the halfway houses over a six-to-ten month period, CdeBaca told The Intercept.
"I am very concerned about the 500 beds that we jeopardized by this vote, and I want to see a plan to make sure that we transition out of these contracts in a way that is just for the residents of these facilities," she said.
CdeBaca's success in convincing the Denver City Council to vote against the two companies is a "signal of the [Democratic Socialists of America's] rising influence," Grim wrote, "and the willingness of mainstream politicians to follow the lead of organizers and activists making a stark moral argument."
Others also applauded CdeBaca for leading the city's fight against the for-profit industry and the Trump administration's use of the GEO Group and Core Civic to commit what immigrant rights advocates have decried as human rights abuses, while enriching the two companies.
\u201cStill think local elections don\u2019t matter, can\u2019t have significant impact? \n\n Denver City Council kills contracts with private prison giants https://t.co/jt3XVzHxjH\u201d— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg) 1565270461