{"id":792,"date":"2021-07-23T15:23:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T15:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianapaulin.domains.trincoll.edu\/locating-black-autism\/?p=792"},"modified":"2022-07-08T02:29:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T02:29:32","slug":"black-womens-health-mental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianapaulin.domains.trincoll.edu\/locating-black-autism\/research-guide\/black-womens-health-mental\/","title":{"rendered":"19th & Early 20th Century Black Women\u2019s Health: Mental Disabilities & Sterilization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Isabelle Duval<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A brief telling of Black Disable History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Black autism advocacy stickers created by Jen White Johnson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Blackness and disabled-ness have a complicated, intertwined relationship as both concepts represent the antithesis of the norm; the norm is able-bodied whiteness. In a way, disable-ness is synonymous\/interchangeable with Blackness since anti-Black rhetoric inherently disables the Black body. During the antebellum era, enslaved and free Black folk lived through negative stereotypes of their race about their intelligence and mental capacity. Pro-slavers\/white supremacists argued that Black people were intrinsically disabled and, therefore, well suited for slave labor because they lacked the mental intelligence\/ability to care for themselves and to perform any higher forms of labor (producing something less tangible i.e. teaching students). As much as Blackness and disabled-ness intertwined during the antebellum era, Black people still experienced exclusion from the disabled identity; this stems from slave owners and how they would categorize enslaved folk with disabilities. Instead of evaluating Black enslaved folk under the standards of health and medicine, pro-slavers\/white supremacists put enslaved people on a binary scale of \u201csound\u201d and \u201csoundness\u201d. They did this to protect their revenue and property since a slave with disabilities can be deemed “sound” and sent to work. The binary system and exclusion from dominant medical society created the divide between Blackness and disabled-ness. Since attitudes surrounding the two identities blocked Black people from inhabiting disabled spaces, Black people with disabilities received worse living conditions compared to their disabled white counterparts. Postbellum medicine and care towards Black people with disabilities perpetuated the same attitudes surrounding disable-ness and Blackness. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Eugenics in the United States<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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When eugenics started in the United States in the early 1900s to eliminate “undesirable” traits within the general population through forced sterilization, the practice focused on people with disabilities and disproportionately targeted Black women. It denotes a change in the perspective of Black women’s bodies. The government shifts from using Black women’s bodies to repopulate slave labor to forcibly sterilizing them because they no longer create people who are \u201cvaluable\u201d to the nation. The government put itself as an authoritative\/dependable figure in the lives of Black and disabled folk under the stereotype that both groups are incapable of taking care of themselves. It is an untrue stereotype of Black people and disabilities that stemmed from slavery and misconceptions of mental\/physical disorders. The stereotype was powerful enough to get the US government to intervene in the reproductive health of a Black\/disabled individual. It is also coming from a time where women and folks with disabilities did not have the same rights as their able-bodied cis white male counterparts. To get the Black and disabled burden\/dependency off the state, the government used eugenics to stop Black women and people with disabilities from creating more people who might become dependent. Eugenics and sterilization happened because of the idea that disabled bodies are invaluable. The practice mainly targeted Black women because of the anti-Black rhetoric that inherently disabled the Black body. The government has a responsibility of taking care of its citizens, yet it perpetuated the idea that people with disabilities are burdens to the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Eugenics protest, circa 1971. (Southern Conference Educational Fund via UCLA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Research Outcome<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The goal of this research project is to look at Antebellum era to Civil Rights era texts to locate cases of Black people with autism because, as mentioned earlier, there is a divide between Blackness and autism. Black folk do not have the privilege of having all their identities recognized because of stereotypes surrounding Blackness and disable-ness. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Useful Search Terms\/key words<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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