What's My Story?
About Sulaiman R. Khan — سلیمان راشد خان
- My (current) Disability Identity is: Disabled1/wheelchair user.
- My (current) pronouns are: he/him/him.
Multiple Award-Winning Disabled AF: Founder, Speaker, and Activist. Adventurer and continual WIP (Work in Progress). Creating relationships, stories, and joy.
Image Description: A smiling, joyful Sulaiman (wholeheartedly Disabled AF, British-Pakistani man with buzz cut black hair), sits in his power wheelchair for a portrait by the Brand By Me team. He wears a rainbow mesh jacket and black shirt with bright pink flamingos underneath. A yellow "Black Disabled Lives Matter" badge via his dear friend Jennifer White-Johnson. A pure silver chain pendant made by his late Nanaji (maternal grandfather) when Sulaiman was 15. It says “Raja Sulaiman” in Urdu after Nanaji's name for him. Sulaiman wears this pendant to remember and honour his late Nanaji, his ancestors, and descendants. Sulaiman understands (and respects) that he is the link from his ancestors to his descendants.
Daringly integrating Disability. I radically always centre Disability (and Disabled people, especially Disabled People of The Global Majority or colloquially “people of colour” like me), daringly. I believe in the imagination of Disability and always doing everything in service of Disabled people for our collective liberation.
A Regenerative Leadership and Regenerative Being Custodian, I'm a socially conscious Disabled Entrepreneur and a Disabled Oracle. The anti-ableist and Disability liberation maestro, I’m the radical, badass Disabled friend and lover you wish you had.
Through my infinite imagination within limitations, I use my intersectional, anti-ableist, and Disability Justice lens, as Founder and Chief Radical Officer of ThisAbility® Limited. ThisAbility® Limited works with socially conscious brands to tackle deep-rooted ableist systems to enact Disability Justice. Our mission is to help these brands divest from ableism and shift from socially conscious to socially impactful by integrating Disability culture. In doing so, ThisAbility® helps to reset cultural standards (values, beliefs, and narratives) and catalyse a fundamental paradigm shift toward Disability liberation.
We are Certified B Corporation™, proudly owned by a Disabled Person of the Global Majority. Our business may be limited in name, but we are unlimited in imagination.
The igniter of hearts creatively, a British-Pakistani Disabled wheelchair user3 adventurer, a continual work-in-progress, and a multiple award-winner, I love to create relationships, stories, and joy. A highly acclaimed, sought-after radical speaker—I'm a joyful activist from my first breath, with every breath until my last breath.
With over four decades of lived experience of Disability and over a decade and a half of experience with the creative industries, I'm fierce in working to daringly integrate Disability (and, in turn, Disabled people) in everything I create.
I'm infinitely a radical with Adrak (ادرک), Haldi (ہلدی), Zafran (زعفران), and Chambeli (چمیلی) badassery. Sexy, spicy, and sacred existence. Always.
Ultimately, my life’s work and goal are to create radical, infinite, interdependent ecosystems of care (and curiosity) design, Access Intimacy for collective liberation, and acts of daily Revolutionary LOVE®.
Read the Full Bio (Google Doc)Footnote 1
I use Disabled interchangeably with Crip (a term only to be used by the Disabled community and in no way by not-yet-Disabled people) as I’m done making my Disability palatable for an ableist world. I don’t wish to erase my Disability or Disabled identity nor be a part of the “overcoming Disability” and “Disability Paradox” narratives — I haven’t “overcome” my Disability; I have overcome ableism and ableists.
I prefer not to use problematical person-first language such as “person with a Disability”, and I am not keen on using ableist language such as “differently-abled,” “handicapped,” “wheelchair-bound”, or “special needs” that worsens my internalised ableism. This is my personal choice and may not reflect all Disabled people nor the whole Disability community across the world. We are all on different journeys in our Disabled identity journey, and that’s okay. If in doubt, ask the Disabled person directly.
Footnote 2
People of the Global Majority: coined by Rosemary M. Campbell-Stephens MBE is “a collective term that first and foremost speaks to and encourages those so-called, to think of themselves as belonging to the majority on planet earth. It refers to people who are Black, African, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or, have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities'. Globally these groups currently represent approximately eighty per cent (80%) of the world's population, making them the global majority now, and with current growth rates, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic, they are set to remain so for the foreseeable future. Understanding that singular truth may shift the dial, it certainly should permanently disrupt and relocate the conversation on race.” (R. Campbell-Stephens, 2020). This aligns wholeheartedly with my Disabled AF, British-Pakistani existence.
Footnote 3
I am wheeling away with zero tolerance to your ableism, racism, patriarchy, anti-blackness, anti-fatness, colonialism, capitalism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, classism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, hegemony, heteronormativity, carceral ideology, anti-abolition, subjugation, supremacy, toxicity, and all systems of oppression. You can put it where the sun doesn’t shine. And I have never been able to walk whatsoever and don't ever want to walk, so as a power wheelchair user, “wheeling away” is my cheeky take on “walking away.”
Do not follow the path. Go where there is no path to begin the trail.
— Ashanti proverb (Ghana)
Beyond Work
Sulaiman. Graduate BA (Honours) in Advertising & Brand Communication at UCA Farnham. Creative Collaborator: An Exploratory Storyteller and Adventurer. A multiple award-winning mind. Ignited by creativity, technology, regeneration (beyond sustainability), design, justice, collective/community care, collective/community healing, activism (even before it became a hashtag, primarily Disability Justice and Environmental Justice), storytelling, rest, interdependence, love, and collective liberation.
Some examples of subjects that I have come across and become fascinated in include:
- Neuroplasticity in creativity.
- Cyborg anthropology.
- Edwardian culture.
- Japanese mythology.
- Mobile creativity (my undergraduate dissertation topic).
- Disfluency.
- Post-digital creation.
- Documentary film.
- Travel/new cultures.
- Universal/industrial design.
- New technologies.
- Human behaviour.
- Science/medicine.
- Depth Psychology.
- Human stories/storytelling
I strongly believe that the more input you collect, the more output you can connect. That's the core of having original and innovative ideas. Get in touch if you're interested to chat, and maybe share an adventure or two. "I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are." — Toni Morrison
Onwards and Upwards!
Get in Touch
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
— Maya Angelou