Oppressed communities have had long and complicated histories with the medical industrial complex. From the continued targeting of disabled bodies as something to fix, to the experimentation on black bodies, to the pathologized treatment of and violent attempts to cure queer and trans communities. From the humiliating, lacking or flat-out denial of services to poor communities, to forced sterilization and dangerous contraceptives trafficked to young women of color. From the forced medicalization used in prisons today, to the days when the mental institutions used to be the jails, and the ways that “criminal” and “mentally disabled” are still used interchangeably. From the lack of culturally competent services, to the demonization and erasing of indigenous healing and practices. From the never-ending battle to control populations through controlling birth, birthing and those who give birth in this country, to the countless doctors and practitioners who have raped and sexually assaulted their patients and the survivors who never told a soul. From all the violence that was and is considered standard practice, to the gross abuses of power.
In flushing out what the medical industrial complex is, we are naming a system. We are calling attention to the systematic targeting of oppressed communities under the guise of care, health and safety.
Like other oppressive systems, there are individuals within the MIC that do good work. There are people working inside the MIC who see first-hand its bureaucracy and hypocrisy. They help many of us find loopholes, shortcuts and life rafts through.
As organizers, we need to think of access with an understanding of disability justice, moving away from an equality-based model of sameness and “we are just like you” to a model that embraces difference and confronts privilege. We don’t want to simply join the ranks of the privileged; we want to dismantle those ranks and the systems that maintain them.
Mia Mingus
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