Race & Disability
Race and disability are two completely different things, but sometimes they act one in the same. Sometimes people can also look up to those with disability (as previously mentioned in Unit One in our disability studies course). But let’s focus on what people look down upon. People look down upon those who are of color and people look down upon those with disability. All over the world but mostly in education. For example, the school-to-prison pipeline mostly contains those who are of color or those who are disabled. These people are “removed” from public spaces (such as schools) and sent into “isolation” (such as prison), according to Nirmala Erevelles in Crippin Jim Crow. They identify the school to prison pipeline as a “‘multidimensional process that funnels large numbers of minority students from the classroom into the adult prison system’” (82). When you think about this definition, what is the first thing that comes to your head? I can tell you that I think about how most of the prison system is mostly people of color. Yet, where do those who are disabled fall into this? In Julianne Hink’s Race, Disability and the School to Prison Pipeline, they talk about a boy named Amo who was looked at as disabled because he was having behavioral issues in the classroom. It got to the point where he had to have someone right there next to him in class to teach him how to control his behavior. The thing is, his behavior wasn’t due to some “disability” but because he was having problems at home. Hink claims in their article, “white students are more likely to be labeled ‘autistic’ than are students of color, while African-American students are at the highest risk of all races for being labeled with the broad term ‘specific learning disabilities.’” This is a very important quote in their article because it explains perfectly how race and disability are intertwined into the school-to-prison pipeline.
