Disability and White Supremacy

Abstract

It is widely known that Black Americans are significantly more likely to be killed by the police in the United States than white Americans. What is less widely known is that nearly half of all people killed by the police are people with disabilities. The aim of this article is to better understand the intersection of racism and ableism in the United States. Contributing to the growing literature at the intersection of philosophy of disability and critical philosophy of race, I argue that theories concerning white supremacy should take more seriously the ways in which it functions as a process and apparatus of making abled and disabled. I conclude by discussing why understanding white supremacy in this manner is a valuable coalitional tool in fights for social justice more generally.

A Continuum of Actions You Can Take Now to ADVANCE Disability Equity: A Report from the Field

“…Ableism is never experienced in isolation from other forms of systemic unearned advantaging and disadvantaging (Blaser et al, 2019;Clare, 2009;Kafer, 2013;McIntosh, 2012;McRuer, 2006;Reynolds, 2022); rather, individual experiences are uniquely configured and compounded. Mingus (2011) elaborates: "Ableism plays out very differently for wheelchair users, deaf people or people who have mental, psychiatric and cognitive disabilities .…”

“…Because theory can inform and influence lived experience, academics and activists continue to conceive alliance-building paradigms that avoid re-instantiating the human-value hierarchies we are working to dismantle (Alcoff, 1988(Alcoff, , 2015Moore Jr., et al, 2018;Price, 2011;Reynolds, 2022). To underscore this vital area of scholarship, we briefly proffer instructive examples of conceptual linkages among disability, gender, and race, with an important caveat: beware of the potential for reifying the "other" when metaphorically bridging the experiences of marginalized identities.…”

The Puzzling Place of Disability in Political Science

“…Critical frameworks analyze the ways in which ableism, xenophobia, patriarchy, heteronormativity, capitalism, and White supremacy work in concert to form interlocking systems that mark some humans as Other and then rationalize their subordination (Schalk and Kim 2020, 37-39;Cohen 1997, 442;Minich 2016). As such, DisCrit theorists argue, the disability/ability binary cannot be understood apart from other systems of categorical difference, which in turn contribute to disability's social meaning and material consequences (Reynolds 2022;Bailey and Mobley 2019;Ferri 2010;Erevelles and Minear 2010).…”

“…Historically, Whites have regarded people of color as inherently physically and mentally inferior, leading Reynolds to argue that disability in a person of color is socially unrecognizable because society must first recognize a human being as having equal worth and ability before it can see their body as "disabled" (Reynolds 2022). Disability Studies scholar Susan Schweik makes a similar observation when she likens disability and other forms of debility, uncleanliness, and menace to "white trashing," in which "bad Whiteness" is contrasted with "the nice body of good whiteness" (Schweik 2010, 185; see also Molina 2010;Stubblefield 2007;Shah 2006).…”

Beyond Good Intentions in Special Education Policy: Engaging With Critical Disability Intersectional Research

“…However, persistent racial disparities in special education make evident the intractable relationship between White supremacy, race, racism, and disability in the United States (Gillborn, 2015; Reynolds, 2022). The intersection of disability with race has a paradoxical dual nature of protection and marginalization.…”