This in from David Oaks:
Repeatedly, in the last two decades of his life, Rev. King said in
speeches and essays that he was proud to be “psychologically
maladjusted” to oppression, war and poverty.MLK said the “salvation of the world lies in the hands of the
maladjusted!”More than 10 times MLK said the world desperately needed a new
organization, the International Association for the Advancement of
Creative Maladjustment (IAACM)!As far we know, the IAACM never officially formed. Time Magazine
called it a “half joke.”
But last year, in 2007, MindFreedom International helped launch the
IAACM at its international conference as part of the “Mad Pride”
movement that celebrates the right to be nonviolently different, odd,
crazy, nuts, strange, weird, or whatever term society would like to
toss our way.
Who else could have intentionally and consciously formed the IAACM,
in reality, other than psychiatric survivors?
The Mad Pride movement asks you a simple question:
By MLK’s 80th birthday in 2009, what action will you take to show
your “creative maladjustment”?
For a decade “Mad Pride” celebrates each and every human being’s
creative uniqueness and right to be nonviolently different, including
we people who have survived the psychiatric system. Like Gay Pride,
Mad Pride events have included parades, theater, “bed pushes,”
concerts and more.
From the Inside Out:
In Portland we are fortunate to have a group called “From the Inside Out”. Led by Cathy Clemens, FTIO provides workshops and produces community events using interactive theater to explore issues and solutions related to mental health and it’s accompanying stigmatization. Based on the techniques of Theater of the Oppressed as developed by Augusto Boal, Interactive Theater participants create small plays that engage the audience in creatively changing the outcomes through active involvement with people who have mental health issues.
I will try to keep FTIO events posted as they come up. The group is currently working on planning for the coming year.
Reminder:
Mad Liberation by Moonlight is coming this Friday night, 1:00 a.m. PST on KBOO radio, 90.7 on your FM dial (to the left of NPR). Also streamed live on KBOO.org- set your alarm. This time your radio really is talking to you.
Martin Luther King on “Normalcy”:
“The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that
recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children.
“The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that
allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a
mighty stream.
“The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of
brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice…
“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with
itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be
a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the
day of [hu]man as [hu]man.”
-from MLK’s 25 March 1965 speech in Montgomery, Ala.
moon soup 