Johnnie Jae Featured in Disability Culture Lab’s “We’re Still Here: Fashion Against Fascism” Streetwear Collection
Disability Culture Lab’s new streetwear drop is a direct response to increasing attacks on multi-marginalized disabled folks and the disabled community at large. This collection is about community, resistance, and joy in the face of these attacks.
Over the past year, Disability Culture Lab collaborated with more than 40 disabled community members to envision what disabled liberation means, especially as fascism grows. Our Summer 2026 streetwear messaging draws from these visioning sessions, through collaborations with brilliant designers including Indigiqueer artist Johnnie Jae and Rebirth Garments’ Sky Cubacub. This line offers a glimpse of a radical future as we fight to get there as soon as possible.
One of the featured designs by Johnnie Jae carries the message “Oppression is Disabling.” The design challenges the idea that disability exists apart from other social issues. It highlights the ways systems of power create harm that affects people’s bodies, health, and quality of life.
“Oppressive systems disable people just as much as any injury or illness, and pretending otherwise does real harm. “Ableism is disabling. Racism is disabling. Colonialism is disabling. Queerphobia is disabling. Capitalism is disabling. These aren’t just metaphors. They are lived, physical, bodily realities,” said Jae.
“Being a disabled, queer Native woman means those identities don’t exist separately from each other, and neither do the various oppressive systems that make simply existing and getting the care I need harder than it should be. Until we start naming and treating systemic oppressive systems as the disabling events they are, nothing changes. Healing has to include dismantling the things that harm us in the first place.”
Jae is a Disabled Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw journalist, artist, and the founder of Red Pop! News, a media platform celebrating Indigenous joy, pop culture, and creativity across generations. Known as the “Brown Ball of Fury,” she brings sharp truth-telling, humor, and cultural insight to her work, challenging stereotypes while amplifying Native voices.
The “We’re Still Here: Fashion Against Fascism” collection reflects a growing body of research showing that discrimination, environmental injustice, poverty, inadequate healthcare access, and other forms of systemic oppression contribute to chronic illness, disability, and poorer health outcomes. The “Oppression is Disabling” design calls attention to those connections while urging people to recognize disability justice as part of broader movements for social change.
Disability Culture Lab created the Summer 2026 collection as both a statement and an invitation. At a time when disabled communities face increasing threats, the Disability Culture Lab hopes the collection serves as a reminder that disabled people have always built community, cared for one another, and fought for a better future.
The Summer 2026 collection is available now at https://shop.disabilityculturelab.org/.
CONTACT
E. johnniejaenm@gmail.com
Help keep Johnnie caffeinated and alive, while supporting badas journalism with heart, humor and a whole lot of sass.