Black Lives Matter and Racial justice

International News

UN Forum Acknowledges People With Disabilities of African Descent in Recommendations (Aug, Minority Rights Group)

DisCrit Expanded a collection of essays where “a diverse group of authors engage in inward, outward, and margin-to-margin analyses that raise deep and enduring questions about how we as scholars and teachers account for and counteract the collusive nature of oppressions faced by minoritized individuals with disabilities, particularly in educational contexts.” (2022, TC Press)

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Thailand

Pushing for rights: Senah Deesa-eh at the UN

“Malay Muslims with disabilities face the compounded effects of being from an ethno-religious and linguistic minority and face wide-ranging violations of rights from health to political participation. Malay Muslim women with disabilities are made particularly vulnerable, owing to multiple and intersecting discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, language, religion, and disability” (May, Minority Rights Group International)

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Netherlands

Never Seen “is a documentary produced by Naima Abdullahi that offers us a glimpse into the life of Nimco Hersi and shows how she navigates Dutch society as a Black deaf woman” (Jan, Casco Art)

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United Kingdom

Racism worsened Covid health outcomes for Black Disabled people “The Commission’s findings highlighted a number of issues including the difficulties faced by members of this community in accessing public health information, the government’s lack of engagement with Black Disabled people who the report says also experienced discrimination when accessing social services.” (Jul, The Voice)

‘Government Just Made it Worse’: COVID’s Disproportionate Impact on Disabled People of Colour Revealed. (Feb, Byline Times)

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United States

Book review of The Mark of Slavery Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America. “The Mark of Slavery is an important development for histories of slavery and disability, importantly using analysis of gender to foreground disability in the history of slavery.” (Sep, H-Net)

Accessibility lawsuits bring slow wins for disabled city residents “Lawsuits over inaccessible sidewalks, transit, libraries, and other public infrastructure are costing cities millions. But for disabled people of color, they may be the only route to equity” (Jul, Prism)

Disabled people of color continue to fight for accessible housing Housing insecurity compounds intersecting marginalizations for disabled people of color. Affordable, comprehensively accessible housing can help (Jul, Prism)

Juneteenth and the legacy of disabled Black slaves “Finding firsthand accounts of disabled, enslaved African Americans proves to be a daunting task, but it is evident that many were unable to leave forced labor camps after the Civil War ended and remained within the institution of slavery (or its rebranding, sharecropping).” (Jun, AWN)

Imani Barbarin: My Experience As A Black Woman With Cerebral Palsy I Didn’t Think I’d Make It Into Adulthood (Mar, Refinery29)

12 Black Disabled Activists and Advocates You Need to be Following (Feb, World Institute on Disability)

Ableism, racism, and the quality of life of Black, Indigenous, people of colour with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “When BIPOC with intellectual and developmental disabilities lived in regions of the United States which were more ableist and racist, they had a lower quality of life, regardless of their demographics.” (Feb, Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities)

Black Disability Justice Syllabus. “An opportunity to honor the legacies of Black disabled artists, thinkers, activists, and leaders and a tool for future work.” (Feb, Sins Invalid)

Police Brutality: A (Speech) Disability Concern. (Feb, Communication First)

Racial Justice and Disability Justice: The Complex Journey (2022, Non Profit Quarterly)

A short history of people of color and the disability rights movement. an interview with Jennifer Erkulwater:

“Not only did activists in the 1970s fear that assertions of racial identity would divide people with disabilities from one another, but throughout the 1980s activists posed disability rights as the antithesis of welfare, at a time when the term “welfare” became deeply racialized. [...] White activists with disabilities sometimes argued that Blacks had to sit at the back of the bus, but the disabled couldn’t even get on the bus.” (2022, URevolution)

Racial disparities persist for disabled youth in spending on services for California children and teens with developmental disabilities. (2022, Los Angeles Times)

How Disability Exacerbates Anti-Blackness: Anti-Blackness and Ableism Led to Ryan Coogler's Arrest (2022, ARD)

Discussion of the book Mark of Slavery and its exploration of the intersection of slavery and disability. (2022, Disability Insider)

Asian Americans with disabilities are often overlooked. A new youth-led group aims to change that. (2022, NBC News)

Black Disability Politics a book from Sami Schalk “explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present [...] this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement.” (2022, Duke University Press) See an interview with the author on Essence.

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Brazil

The Situation of Black People with Disabilities in Brazil “The historical context of the black population with disabilities in Brazil is underpinned by the history of enslavement and the impacts of colonization that last until today.” (Mar, Minority Rights International)

A report on the situation for black and other marginalized persons with disabilities. (2022, Minority Rights Group)

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