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2. Personal conversation with Paul Longmore, San Francisco, CA, June 2000.

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Introducing White Disability Studies

A Modest Proposal

Chris Bell

My modest proposal is inspired by a popular television program airing on the Chicago PBS affi

li-

ate. “Check, Please!” gathers three “ordinary” residents who, aft er selecting their favorite restaurant,

anonymously dine at all three establishments, then gather in a studio to debate the relative merits

and shortfalls of each culinary venue. During one episode, the trio included a self-styled bon vivant

whom I will call Dorian Gray. Dorian, while sharing his observations about a Chinese restaurant in a

south Chicago suburb, expressed his unadulterated amazement at the composition of one particular

entrée. “Th

e shrimp were artifi cial!” he bemoaned, dread contorting his facial features into an expres-

sion of unrecoverable distress. Th

e individual selecting said restaurant as his favorite—I’ll call him

Bubba Gump—blinked nary an eye at this revelation. Instead, Bubba stoically intoned, “If it looks

like a shrimp, and it smells and tastes like a shrimp, it’s a shrimp.”

Bubba Gump’s matter-of-fact rejoinder to Dorian Gray is, I think, indicative of the whiteness of

Disability Studies in its present incarnation. Th

e fact that Disability Studies is marketed as such when

it is in actuality an artifi cial (read: limited and limiting) version of the fi eld does nothing to prevent

it from being understood as Disability Studies, which is what Bubba, by extension, apprised Dorian

of. I contend that it is disingenuous to keep up the pretense that the fi eld is an inclusive one when it

is not. On that score, I would like to concede the failure of Disability Studies to engage issues of race

and ethnicity in a substantive capacity, thereby entrenching whiteness as its constitutive underpin-

ning. In short, I want to call a shrimp a shrimp and acknowledge Disability Studies for what it is,

White Disability Studies.

In contradistinction to Disability Studies, White Disability Studies recognizes its tendency to

whitewash disability history, ontology and phenomenology. White Disability Studies, while not

wholeheartedly excluding people of color from its critique,

by and large focuses on the work of white

individuals and is itself largely produced by a corps of white scholars and activists. White Disability

Studies envisions nothing ill-advised with this leaning because it is innocently done and far too dif-

fi cult to remedy. A synoptic review of some of the literature and related aspects of Disability Studies

bears this out.

“Vital Signs: Crip Culture Talks Back”

is documentary was fi lmed during a conference on Disability and the Arts on the campus of the

University of Michigan. Th

e fi lm is distressing because of its absence of non-white individuals. Given

the absence of people of color, I suggest that a signifi cant number of myths and misconceptions about

who/what is constitutive of disability or “crip” culture are bolstered and reinforced in the fi lm.

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Chris Bell

276

No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement

In his introduction, author Joseph Shapiro refers to the disabled community as the largest minority

community in the United States, with more members than communities tallied by race, ethnicity, or

sexual orientation amongst other socially-constructed identity categories(7). What interests me is

Shapiro’s obfuscation of divisions within this ostensibly-largest minority community and his insinua-

tion that the disabled community is a monolithic one, struggling against the same oppressors, striving

for identical degrees of dignity, recognition and cultural representation. Such a characterization is a

limited one that does not consider or address the rich diversity within disability communities—racial

and ethnic diversity, for example.

A Matter of Dignity: Changing the Lives of the Disabled

Comprised of a series of interviews with disabled people from various life strata, the dearth of people

of color in the text is as undeniable as it is fl agrant. In order to prevent this text from surprising the

unexpecting reader, it might be a good idea to acknowledge that whiteness is positioned as its center.

Doing so would make for a much more accurate description of who/what is represented.

Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity

In her well-known text, Simi Linton describes Disability Studies by stating, “Th

e fi eld explores the

critical divisions our society makes in creating the normal versus the pathological, the insider versus

the outsider, or the competent citizen versus the ward of the state”(2). Th

e reader should recognize

the dichotomous line of thought here, the binary fashion with which Linton makes her critique. At

the very least, it should be understood that many white disabled people have cultural capital by virtue

of their race and are, therefore, more on the inside than they are on the outside. As an insider, Linton

appears unaware of her positioning, and it is that unawareness that is one of the hallmarks of White

Disability Studies.

Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body

roughout this text, Davis takes whiteness as a norm. From his discussion of the desirability of the

Venus de Milo to his examination of the protagonist in “Born on the Fourth of July,” Davis’s empha-

sis on whiteness is undeniable. Th

ere is, to be sure, nothing wrong with this focus (aside from being

egregiously misleading with regard to which communities and subjectivities are constitutive of “dis-

ability”). I only wish Davis had broadened his source materials, or at the very least opted for a more

accurate title e.g., Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the White Body. Moreover, it matters

that an excerpt from this text is reprinted in Th

e Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism, the ostensible

Bible of literary studies. Th

ose readers coming across this excerpt will necessarily receive a distorted

view of Disability Studies as a result of Davis’s focus on whiteness.

Queer Disability Conference

Near the conclusion of the fi rst day of this conference that convened in San Francisco in June 2002,

I met with approximately thirteen other self-identifi ed queer and disabled people of color during a

caucus session. Our conversation focused on our individual and collective sense of exclusion based

on race and ethnicity.

We could not fathom how the conference organizers—every one of them a

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277

Introducing White Disability Studies

white person—could publicize this conference in numerous international contexts and venues—draw-

ing participants from Finland, Australia, and the United Kingdom among other nations—but fail to

devise and implement an outreach plan that would attract people of color and other marginalized

groups within the queer and disabled communities in the local Bay Area. We also could not under-

stand the overarching mentality of many of the attendees, perhaps best expressed by a remark made

in a breakout session: “Being disabled is just like being black, so society should stop hating us and

give us our rights.”

Society for Disability Studies Annual Conference, 2005

During the business meeting at the conference’s conclusion, the people of color caucus presented a list

of action items to the membership in an eff ort to shore up the marginal presence race and ethnicity

had at the conference (despite the fact that the conference was themed “Conversations and Connec-

tions Across Race and Disability”). Although the hour-long conversation that ensued was collegial

and productive, I cannot help wondering, drawing on my experience at the Queer Disability Confer-

ence,

how many times these questions of inclusion and exclusion have to be raised by people of color

to white individuals? As I averred during the business meeting, “I’m tired of being one of the few to

point out what should be obvious.”

Modern Language Association (MLA) Conference on Disability Studies and the

University

Convened on the campus of Emory University March 5–7, 2004, the conference is notable at the

outset for the sheer whiteness of those who presented. A quick glance down the list of presenters (as

published in PMLA in 2005)

bears this out. An additional concern is the content of what was shared

during this conference.

In his address, “Disability: Th

e Next Wave or Twilight of the Gods?,” Lennard Davis, thankfully,

speaks to the white nature of Disability Studies: “Disability studies has by and large been carried out

by white people” (530). He is grossly incorrect, however, in the follow-up assertion that the fi eld will

benefi t from “the disability studies book about the African American experience of disability” (ibid).

To be sure, there is no singular, structuralist African American experience of disability and it is im-

prudent to advocate for one. Davis is further incorrect when he insists that said text must incorporate

the recent “post-race” debate. Placing strictures on a text is foolish, especially when the strictures

themselves lack intellectual value and integrity.

In “What Is Disability Studies?,” Simi Linton includes an instructive albeit telling example to il-

lustrate the diffi

culty of answering the titular question:

A few years ago, a controversy about the golfer Casey Martin and the golf cart captured a great deal of

attention. Martin petitioned the PGA—the Professional Golfers’ Association—for permission to ride a

golf cart in pro tournaments as an accommodation for a mobility impairment. When the PGA turned

him down, Martin took the case to court. It was eventually deliberated in the Supreme Court, where

Martin prevailed. Th

e most signifi cant outcome of the debate, I think, is that the discussion came down

to the question, What is the game of golf? Some people said, If he rides a cart, that’s not golf. I’d like to

know, then, what golf is and who has decided. (519)

As I mentioned, the example is instructive, but also rather telling: GOLF?! Come on! I challenge

the reader to name one non-white golfer . . . Okay, now name one non-white golfer besides Tiger and

Vijay.

On a more serious note, as I read through the collection of essays and presentations from the Emory

conference I am concerned with how oft en each scholar cites the other, revealing an uncomfortable

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7/11/2006 10:07:58 AM

Chris Bell

278

incestuousness about Disability Studies. Th

ese individuals seem unwilling to step aside even briefl y and

let someone else have the (proverbial) microphone for a moment. Granted, if the MLA calls, there is

appeal in the form of professional legitimacy. But I also suggest that there is appeal in giving someone

else a chance to speak to the issues embedded in and examined by Disability Studies, in asking who

will be there and fi guring out who should be there, as well as who has not been asked and why. Th

failure to do so practically ensures that the silences, namely those concerning race and ethnicity, will

not be addressed and will continue.

* * * *

If Disability Studies as a fi eld had taken a refl exive look at itself at some point, particularly with regard

to its failings in examining issues of race and ethnicity, there might not be such a glaring dearth of

disability-related scholarship by and about disabled people of color. As it stands, Disability Studies

has a tenuous relationship with race and ethnicity: while the fi eld readily acknowledges its debt to

and inspiration by inquiries such as Black Studies, its eff orts at addressing intersections between dis-

ability, race, and ethnicity are, at best, wanting. Disability Studies claims to examine the experiences

of a vast number of disabled people, yet the form that representation takes is, far too oft en, a white

one. Th

is is by no means a sporadic occurrence. Quite the contrary, the slights occur habitually and,

as the preceding examples prove, in various contexts, from published works to conferences. I think it

is essential to illuminate the fragile relationship between disability, race, and ethnicity in extant Dis-

ability Studies, arguing not so much for a sea-change in this formulation, rather for a more defi nitive

and accurate identifi cation of the happening.

What follows then is my ten-point scheme (pace, Mr. Letterman) on how to keep White Disability

Studies in vogue and instantiated as disability praxis. Given the fact that well-intentioned individu-

als are inclined to ask what can be done to “make things more diverse,” I have purposely craft ed the

following as a series of “do nots.” By doing so, I hope to shore up how presumptuous it is to position

the subaltern as the all-knowing savant insofar as issues of diversity; requesting defi nitive answers

from that person when the answers might best come from within, following an extended period of

rumination.

10. Do not change a thing. Let’s keep doing what we’re doing. Let’s remain fi rmly rooted in this

wave of disability, consciously opting not to move to the next. Let’s continue to acknowledge

white individuals as the Disability Studies core constituency.

Do not outreach to communities

of color or participate in their events when the opportunity to forge connections arises. Do not

solicit for a themed issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on race, ethnicity and disability

and

if by chance said issue should be produced, make sure that it occurs only once; that there are

no eff orts to ensure that these intersections are spoken to throughout future iterations of the

journal in a non-“special issue” context. In sum, do not change a thing. Continue to fetishize

and exoticize people of color as subalterns by constantly focusing on their race and ethnicity,

but not that of the white subject.

9. Do not address ethnicity, rather continually focus on race. Many Disability Studies schol-

ars—and people in general—are unwilling or unable to pick up on the cultural signifi cance of

ethnicity in contraposition to what some are (erroneously) convinced is the biological foundation

of race. Regardless of where the two concepts spring from, the fact is that they are distinct. It

becomes problematic then when all that comprises ethnicity gets collapsed under the umbrella

term of race. As a fi eld White Disability Studies has no stake in this process and therefore should

do nothing to address it.

8. Do not consider that, as Stuart Hall has explained, “Cultural identity is not an essence but

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