Thread by @nolan_syreeta

Thank you again @riley_ilyse for inviting me to guest lecture in your course. Speaking on intersectionality and inclusion on disability in higher ed was amazing. Watching a Zoom webinar afterwords of an Angela Davis event, the joy turned to despair as disability was left out. 1/

There is a Black healing space afterwords, but there is no healing in those spaces for me. I mention Black and Disabled. I have said words that don’t belong together, that don’t make sense, that evokes a reality that they don’t want to realize. We don’t fit in that truth 2/

Black people are raised up strong and resilient because of everything we face in racism. Brought over as slaves we work twice as hard to get the same rights and opportunities as white people. I work twice as hard because I am a woman, yet 3/

I find myself called to work 4x as hard because I am disabled. @RootedInRights published this remarkable article from Aubrie Lee rootedinrights.org/the-hardest-pa… 4/

I want to highlight a part of this article “How much do I and my Disabled comrades have to educate, to struggle, to die, before your ignorance counts as willful? When does “I just didn’t know” become “I just didn’t care”? 5/

Why is it hard for Black & Disabled to exist together? Why does the Black Feminist Disability framework feel so revolutionary? Why does intersectionality stop with disability? Why must we exist to be excluded from narratives of #BlackLivesMatter? Do #BlackDisabledLivesMatter? 6/

Why is simply the question that I have. I noticed during #DEHEM that we had less engagement from Black and #DisInHigherEd. To be so systematically silenced and unseen in higher ed, maybe it was hard to claim it during the event. I find myself with little community as a Black 7/

person with disabilities. I am so thankful for @Tinu @DrSamiSchalk @moyazb @imobley1 @Imani_Barbarin @anjalifp who are like role models in being Black and Disabled. I am thankful for @sandylocks creating the concept of intersectionality as it is a critical consideration for me 8/

I am really thankful for @moyazb and @imobley1 proposing the Black Feminist Disability Framework. 9/journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

I have some questions and please retweet to amplify these polls. #BlackInX movements, little help please. If you are Black and deal with chronic emotional or physical disabilities, do you consider yourself disabled? 10/

Do you feel that being Black that it makes it harder to connect with a willingness to call yourself disabled? 11/

Do you feel that there is more that needs to be done in the Black community to center disability justice and awareness along with racial justice? 12/

If you are black disabled or not, do you see disability as a bad thing with no positive attributes? 13/

I think the impacts of disability, good & bad, are not understood. I think the disability community is not well understood. I think that self acceptance is such a beautiful process that not many black and disabled people have support to walk through. Acceptance feels radical 14/

Do you feel it is harder to be Black and Disabled in higher education? 15/

Do you feel welcome in Black spaces as a person with disabilities who is also Black? There is a Black healing space after the Angela Davis event and I skipped it. 16/

What change do you want to see in regards to Black and disabled people? 17/

What questions should I have asked? 18/

What is your story? If you don’t want to share openly, you can always DM me and I can post your anonymous response here. 19/

Sorry for this long thread. I literally am in pain after watching that event and going into a flare up. Maybe dinner will help. Thank you for listening and engaging. Please retweet this post especially the polls above. I appreciate each of you! 20/20

Update: dinner didn’t help and I have no spoons to launch the medication search. I told cold medication. I think the cold that was coming now stopped, but my muscles are in a lot of pain. Laying in bed with my phone...