My Voice Intertangled With Other Black Women With Dis/abilities and Tensions Narrated With Critical Disability Studies Colleagues in Education

• In Event: By Being HUMAN: A Collaborative Self-Study of Intersectional and Emotional Disability Narratives Within Higher Education

Abstract

Black women with dis/abilities (BWD), myself included, contribute a necessary voice in collective narrative inquiry, however, they are often implicitly and explicitly silenced. This research purports to explore how my own auto-ethnographic narratives is both intertangled with my research participants as well as with my critical disability studies in education colleagues. This process of collective auto-ethnographic work was messy, challenging, and generative as I illuminated the meaning of the narratives of my participants, critical friends, and myself.

When understanding the narratives of individuals with disabilities at their intersections, a holistic approach reflects a level of faith, emboldened by a desire to see efficacious social justice that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive for ALL people. Accordingly, I sought to make meaning of the purpose and function of my life through my own autoethnographic narrative research— to know my story, my passion, and my resolve. In graduate school, I recalled a childhood label (i.e., Speech and Language Impairment (SLI),) and wrestled with taking on another label/identity (Gold and Richards, 2012). As I continued to struggle, I began to say things to myself like, ‘You are so stupid. You can’t even write a sentence. You need to quit and go back to doing hair.’ I began to cry. Then I did what I had done, when I felt hard-pressed and confused by life; I prayed.’

My human-dignity was disrupted, nevertheless, my "narrative not only enhanc[ed] [my] understanding of African American women's educational opportunities and experiences, but expand[ed] [my] understanding of their lives and the society in which we live." (Kwakye, 2011, p. 37). So I fought to retain what I had gained spiritually—an appreciation of my holistic-self, my spirit-centered self and academic life, and acknowledge those of other BWD with dis/ability labels. Deficit ideologies are reified in spaces of power (Gainer, 2010). In my research, BWD experienced terrible and sticky truths (e.g. pathologization, disablement, and exclusion) of racial/dis/ability oppression that imposed whiteness and normalization practices within education. Simultaneous the terrible-ness and stickiness of these truths made lasting impacts, yet these dis/abled women, in their responses elevated their human-dignity through spiritual practices that subverted and pushed back against deficit master narratives and connected to the collective experiences of other BWD.

While reviewing the literature, BWD’s narratives and perspectives shined a light on how smartness and goodness are normalized. One BWD communicated how book-smartness was valued in school, and the street smartness devalued marginalizing urban youth (Hatt, 2016; Leonardo & Broderick, 2011). Another recounted the primary goal of her physical therapy (i.e., a special education-related service) as determined by her physical therapist—to walk—despite her comfort and efficiency with crawling and the sensitive nature of the therapy exercises. These women struggled with normative education experiences in my analysis of the five BWD participants in my research that echoes within my contributions to this collaborative narrative research.

Author

• Mercedes Adell Cannon, Indiana University - Indianapolis