By: Leroy Moore
I was born in 1967 as a Black boy with a physical disability. I have observed everyone’s progress especially White disabled people in education who were the first ones to get teacher’s assistance to being employed as directors in non-profits. Also saw White disabled people advance to national boards to the White House. Even when programs were made to get people of color involved, like outreach in the 1980’s to today’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion somehow the face of it is not our faces. It’s incredible to see organizations that had executive directors who were problem reshape and rebrand themselves. I have seen funders starve out Black disabled orgs or Black parent groups while giving thousands even millions to White lead disability national orgs that continue to get funding to do outreach.
Internationally there were beautiful Black disabled movements and parent’s organizations until they became a threat to mainstream disabled movements so their little amount of funding would go away so they had to close their doors. Today there are streets and buildings named after White disabled leaders. On the big screen we have seen disability documentaries with White main characters. We even have national reports on issues facing Black/Brown people like police brutality authored by White people. In Disability Studies we still can say that the late Christopher Bell’s 2006 essay, “Introducing White Disability Studies: A Modest Proposal is still true today in 2024?
Back in the day I used to carry with me the late Frank Bowe’s, Disabled adults in America: a statistical report drawn from Census Bureau data Paperback – January 1, 1985 because it had a special report on race and disability. I carried around the report on the status on Black disabled people to show people the high unemployment rate of Black disabled people especially Black disabled women. What is sad is very little has change since that report in 1985. Lastly witnessing the kidnapping of the work of disabled people of color mostly elders from Atlanta Georgia shout out to Rev. Calvin Peterson, Kate Gainer, Lois Curtis to whole movements like Disability Justice in Berkeley, CA.. But what’s so frustrating is that we, Black and people of color disabled activists are supposed to stay quiet and be happy for the crumbs but if we talk about it then we are cancelled or label all sorts of name still in 2024! Now I’m 58 years old witnessing the same cycle even in the middle of getting a Ph.D..
Remix of Kendrick Lamar’s song, Not Like Us to Everyone Except Us!
