Work in the Intersections: A Black Feminist Disability Framework

Abstract

Black feminist disability framework allows for methodological considerations of the intersectional nature of oppression. our work in this article is twofold: to acknowledge the need to consider disability in Black Studies and race in Disability Studies, and to forward an intersectional framework that considers race, gender, and disability to address the gaps in both Black Studies and Disability Studies. By employing a Black feminist disability framework, scholars of african american and Black Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Disability Studies have a flexible and useful methodology through which to consider the historical, social, cultural, political, and economic reverberations of disability.

Policy as Punishment and Distraction: The Double Helix of Racialized Sexual Harassment of Black Girls

“…Ableism creates an ideal human—arguing that only normal bodies, minds, and behaviors are desirable and that all others should be remediated or segregated (Campbell, 2014). In a system of white supremacy, ableism and anti-Black racism work together to situate whiteness as normal, and Blackness and Black bodies as abnormal (Bailey & Mobley, 2019). In schools, this means that anti-Black beliefs influence how Black girls are positioned and (not) supported in learning and behavior (Hines & Wilmot, 2018).…”

Identity integration in people with acquired disabilities: A qualitative study

“…Race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class all explicitly intersected with disability status for our participants, which we have not done justice to in this paper. Issues of intersectionality are vitally important in the study of people with disabilities, yet continue to be underexamined (e.g., Bailey & Mobley, 2019; Bell, 2017; Devlieger & Albrecht, 2000; Erevelles & Minear, 2017; Johnson & McRuer, 2014). Perhaps most salient are the ways in which the relative financial security of our participants powerfully impacted their experiences with acquiring a disability.…”

They Told Me My Name: Developing a Deaf Identity

“…This is important because FDS does not assume disability to be static or a master status, and instead assumes it is always intersecting with other markers like race, class, gender, and sexuality. That is, the lived experience of disability taken up in FDS builds on long‐standing Black feminist scholarship centering intersectionality (Collins 2015; Crenshaw 1989), and particularly the ways in which disability is intertwined with race, class, citizenship, gender, and sexuality (e.g., Bailey and Mobley 2019; Erevelles 2011).…”