Untangling Race And Disability In Discourse Intersectionality Summary

In “Untangling Race and Disability in Discourses Intersectionality,” Nirmala Erevelles discusses the intersectionality between race, class, gender, and disability based upon the critical race theory. Between Critical Race Theory scholars and Disability studies scholars, the “critical assumption [of] race and disability are social constructs.” Erevelles believes that Critical Race Theory scholars are wrong for “mistakenly [conceiving] disability as a biological category,” whereas disability studies scholars analyze “disability as a socially constructed category that derives meaning and social (in)significance… that frame social life.” Race can be seen as a social construct as to contrast and compete against one another. Disability holds another

Under an “incipient capitalist society,” individuals with disabilities are seen as “a threat to the normative society order.” Instead of integrating disabled individuals into society, they are placed into segregated communities such as special education schools. The special education bureaucracy can be seen as similar to “Jim Crow and eugenic ideologies” as to use “complex machinery of pseudo-medical evaluations, confusing legal discourses, and overwhelming paperwork administered by a body of intimidating professionals.” Disabled individuals are considered to be a problem and “disrupt the ‘normal’ functioning of schools.” Disability is considered as a hindrance to a “productive” and “normal” society and must be kept separate. Disability increases vulnerability to violence because labeling individuals give them the associations with

Anti-Black Sanism is the the intersection of racism and sanism particularly against people “who identify as Black, African, or of African descent.” Anti-black sanism can be rooted back to anti-black racism. Based upon Canadian society and statistics, anti-black racism functions as a way to “preserve systems of whiteness and power and dominance based on a false perception of white superiority.” However, the problem is highlighted in regards to the health system because “Black/African people ‘do not go to hospitals for fear of misdiagnosis or for fear of being misunderstood due to lack of English proficiency.’” This problems lies within the root of racialized institutions. Black people experience discrimination in the education system which impacts their proficiency in English and later causes them to fear the health system. Anti-Black racism compares the norms of whiteness to those that are not. Sanism, like anti-black racism, compares those who are sane to those who are disabled or “insane” with the idea of oppression in mind. Anti-Black Sanism can be traced back to the 1850’s during the times of slavery. Slaves were diagnosed with “drapetomania” which caused them to flee from their owners. However, this brought about dehumanizing treatments