Race and Dis/Ability 10/28/20

In this weeks text, Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability, the argument of the authors, Annamma, Conner, and Ferri, begins with the assertion that aspects of Critical Race Theory and Disability Theory ought to be combined into one new theoretical framework that analyzes race and ability in the same capacity. Citing the 1920's essay, Racial Intelligence, by W.E.B. Du Bois, DisCrit illuminates the way anthropological physiognomy shapes hegemonic views of  the intellectual, socitial, and moral growth of persons of color and those with disabilities. In his work, Dubois relates how scientific racism was used to portray African Americans as being of inferior intelligence, through post-mortem examinations of human brains, in order to justify slavery, segregation and inequalities around the world. Marking people of color with the stigma of possessing developmental conditions, akin to those who are disabled, and therefore, not fully human. 

Annamma, Conner, and Ferri, maintain that in the American School System segregated special classes are disproportionately populated with students of non-dominant racial and ethnic groups. The article contends that many of these students have been labeled as having learning, intellectual disabilities, emotional or disturbance disorders relying on the subjective judgement of school personnel rather than biological facts. The DisCrit framework seeks to examine the processes in which students are simultaneously raced and dis/abled and adduces seven tenants to explain the position of the authors. In this post, I will focus on the tenants which evoked considerable reaction and contemplation for me; tenants one, five, and six. 

Tenant One

With the first tenant, DisCrit focuses on the way racism and ableism interdependently circulate to uphold the ideals of normalcy that are postulated by societal and popular culture. These dominant ideologies place value whiteness and able bodiedness. The authors argue for a rejection of the idea that whiteness and able bodines is a goal that should be worked towards, as opposed to focusing on the strength of the individual because of their differences from the norm. I relate the postulation that whiteness and able bodiedness are valued in American culture to Leslie Grinner's SCWAMP framework introduced to me by Dr. Bogad in Digital Media Literacy in the summer of 2019. During this class activity we were asked to contemplate and compile ideas about how we knew whiteness and able bodiedness are valued in culture. Like the collage below that turned up in a google search for popular culture I conducted, many of the responses included ideals which glamorized white, aesthetically pleasing, and able bodied individuals. 

(This collage represents the ideals of American Culture. The majority of the images selected by its creator represent infallible whiteness. Meanwhile, 2/3 of the images of people of color are painted as either dangerously thug like with a hint of crazy (Tupac), or someone who was aspiring to appear as white as possible (Michael Jackson).)

Tenant one of DisCrit further contends that students are labeled at risk because they are of color.  This prompted me to wonder who is placing these labels? Why are they in classrooms if they are making these determinations solely on their prejudices or the basis of color? Is there not a process where Dr.’s are evaluating individuals before these labels can be attached? Could a service be established that takes an unbiased approach to special education placements?  How can we prevent teachers with racist opinions from entering classrooms? 

Tenant Five 

The focus of tenant five is the legal, historical, and ideological aspects of Race/Dis and how they are used to deny rights. Further, there is White to Black hierarchy instigated and fueled by science to claim that some have less capacity for intelligence. This propelled the creation of policies and programs to discourage reproduction within poor, colored, and racially mixed populations. Sterilization was forced upon those considered feeble minded. This included eastern european immigrants and the poor. 

The DisCrit framework contends that pseudoscience created these constructs and contemporary assessments uphold them. During the reconstruction period in America, these constructs were used against freed slaves to propel the idea they were lazy or mentally ill if they refused to work, not considering if it was because the conditions were dangerous. Codes were then created to criminalize actions such as vagrancy, absence from work, or insulting gestures only for blacks. These ideas coincide with those perpetuated in the documentary The 13th. In this film, it is proposed that in order to continue to oppress blacks, convict leasing was created to continue free labor. The smallest infraction, some which would not have constituted an infraction for a white person, would send a person of color into the criminal justice system. Also, much like the creation of the code mentioned in DisCrit, the film The 13th elucidates the creation of initiatives like the war on drugs, and three strikes policy which impressed crimality to the behaviors of people of color and imposed stricter ramifications for colored people than those of their white counterparts. 

Tenant Six 

With this tenant, the DisCrit framework portrays ability and whiteness as a property which affords economic gain to those who possess it and disadvantage to those without it. Arguments to break these constructs historically have had people trying to be perceived as able-bodied and white, yearning to pass for white. (I again think about the plight of Michael Jackson). 

Additionally, this tenant discusses the concept of interest convergence. Interest convergence, according to NYU law professor Derrick Bell, is the idea that “the interest of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites. Bell ventures that evidence of this can be found in the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v Board of education. In order to find out more about how it related to Brown, I researched and discovered the article Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma. In this essay Bell states; “I contend that the decision in Brown to break with the Court's long-held position on these issues cannot be understood without some consideration of the decisions value to why not simply those concerned about the immorality of racial inequality but also those whites and policy-making positions able to see the economic and political advances at home and abroad that would follow abandonment of segregation first the decision help to provide immediate credibility to America struggle with communist countries to win the hearts and minds of emerging third world peoples at least this argument was Advanced by lawyers for both the n-double-acp and the federal government and the point was not lost on the news media Time Magazine For example predicted that the international impact of brown would be scarcely less important than its effect on edge of the education of black children and many countries where us prestige in leadership have been damaged by the fact of u.s. segregation it will come as a timely reassertion of the basic American principle that all men are created equal” 

To read more of this article, click the image below and use your RIC username and password to sign into Jostr. 

The DisCrit framework states that changes will only be made if they result in benefits for all. An example supplied was when sidewalk widening was instituted across the country because it not only appeased the demands of the disabled, but was great for able bodied parents with strollers. DisCrit goes beyond when the interest of the dominant align with those who are of color and makes visible the way the same label can affect different races differently. Example: White students receive supports that propel their lives, while a colored student is segregated and stigmatized, distancing them from opportunity. 

Going For A Walk 

Annamma, Conner, and Ferri's work connects nicely with the video in this week's assignment Going For A Walk. In this film, American Philosopher, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor partake in conversation about the societal perceptions of  the disabled. Their conversation hits on how physical access has allowed more disabled people to get out, and I could not help but relate the addition of larger sidewalks and access ways for the disabled being added because, as the framework of DisCrit proposes, it benefitted all. It was interesting to hear Sunaura speak of how physical accessibility had helped society gain exposure to the disabled leading to more acceptance. Sunaura states that physical leads to social. This correlation between the the addition of accessibility measures and "normalization" of disabilities in the minds of the abled got me thinking about my father, the timing of when these measures were enacted, and the age group of those who have started to view the disabled without reproach. 

On September 11, 2015, my first year as a middle school science teacher, my father had a massive hemorrhagic stroke.  He required a craniotomy in order to survive, but even the operation would not guarantee he would retain all of his capacity. Despite being warned he may have been confined to a wheelchair, my brother and I both approved the procedure. I wondered to myself why the doctors thought paralysis might be a reason to forgo the surgery and let him pass that evening, He was my father, my super hero, and no disability was going to change that in my mind. My father made it through the surgery, and maintained his language, memory, and faculty, but had become a paraplegic, with his left arm and leg being paralyzed. From that day forward, his perspective of his worth was decimated. He would ruminate over his own perceived inabilities and lament about how virile he had once been. His mental health suffered, and he wished himself dead everyday until he past just before Christmas last year. This video made me consider how ideology and the perceptions of the the disabled during his generation indoctrinated him to believe his condition rendered him worthless. While my generation has had more exposure due to increased accessibility, and possibly gained more acceptance. I simply valued him virile or disabled and wished everyday that I could have changed the way that he saw himself. Like Sunaura said, we all need help, we are all interdependent. My father could not stand that he had to rely on me for everything, and did not realize how much I needed him. He was not able to think about what his body could do, only it had been in its ideal form. The very concepts Butler discusses during her walk with Sunaura.