"The Quest for Humanity"

    The authors of the Dis/ability Critical Race Studies: Theorizing at the Intersections of Race and Dis/ability, hammer the idea that a person's identity does not neatly fit into one category.  And if you're a Black or Brown person, it becomes even more complicated to truly see... race and dis/ability are socially constructed and intertwined.  In my opinion, the following quote by Bennita Love, author of We Want To Do More Than Survive, sums up the key ideas of this week perfectly: "We who are dark are complex--we are more than our skin hues of Blacks and Browns. We intersect our moonlit darkness with out cultures(s) language(s), races(s), gender(s), sexuality(ies), ability(ies), religion(s). 

    Historically, "Black and Brown bodies were viewed as less developed than white bodies, more 'primitive' and even considered sub-species of humans" (Trent, 1998). These types of theories that are built on white supremacy ideals are used to justify the mistreatment of people of color: from slavery to murder. "That was then," we say but it still happens today. It may not be straight forward as before because today it is concealed through the different labels, procedures, policies, interactions, institutions of  education, housing as well as historical, social and political structures that are currently in place.  Take education, for example, any non dominate body, racial, linguistic or other is labeled, referred and placed in Special Education at disproportionate numbers than their white counterparts.

     Blacks, Browns and Dis/abled are continuously oppressed by hegemonic interpretations that dictate what a normed-able body is.  As Ladson- Billings noted, "When traits of whiteness and ability are seen as normal, everyone is ranked and categorized in relation to these points of opposition."  For example, in the video, Examined Life, Sunaura Taylor talked about how hard it is for people in the cafe to accept when she does things with her body that is not normally used for a specific purpose: in her case, picking up her coffee with her mouth instead of her hands. Why is this a problem for the average American? because a culture has been created where difference has always relied on the fact that something else is the norm to the point that it's natural and normal for people of color and the dis/abled to experience social repressions.  Sunara exposed how the disabled have limited places to live, limited transportation, limited access to buildings etc.   She and Judith Butler brought the ideas of social acceptability to light by raising an eye-opening question: "When do you still count as a human?" And I'm searching for an answer...                  

    The inhumanity is that race and dis/ability are used to continuously marginalize people to signify that they are NOT capable in body and mind. Gut-wrenching facts: Statistics show that African American children with emotional/behavioral problems are 67% more likely than white students to be removed from school on grounds of dangerousness and 13x likely to be arrested. Bonilla-Silva states, the belief in superiority of whiteness has whiteness at the apex, blackness at the base and all other races falling in between; thus perpetuating the idea that race does not exist outside of ability and ability does not exist outside of race; each is built on the perception of the other. (Crenshaw, 1993) To shed even more light, please just take a moment and truly think about this: "To be a woman is not equal to being black, to be a black woman is not equal to being a white woman and to be a black woman is different from being a white woman with a dis/ability." Mindblowing...

    This notion of how race intersects with dis/ability is synonymous to what the authors of Law and Order in School and Society:How Discipline and Policing Policies Harm Students of Color and What We Can Do About It mentioned in their reading.  They confirmed that public education systems have become the New Jim Crow Laws by replicating and targeting students of color treating them as dangerous and in need of intervention and punishing them at much higher rates than their white or Asian counterparts, providing a preparatory school, that from an early age, normalizes mass incarceration by race.

    So, can there ever be a solution? Judith Butler proposed that maybe we should rethink the human as interdependency.  Does it make sense? Yes, as DISCRIT argues that disabilities are experienced in various ways as they intersect with race, social class, sexulaity and other markers of identity and Bennita Love professes, " For teachers to shy away from intersectionality, they shy away from fully knowing their students' humanity and the richness of their identities.  Mattering cannot happen if identities are isolated and students cannot be their full selves. Our complicated identities cannot be discussed or examined in isolation from one another." 

    The moral: To truly be seen in this country, society must embrace diversity and perceived differences and at the same time question the very norms that create differences. Then, maybe, just maybe, every abled body can believe in the mantra: indivisible with  liberty and justice for ALL!👀