Preparing A Lecture on African Americans with Disabilities in the 21st Century: A Few Random Thoughts
Delores Fisher
How does one choose
and cultivate identity when emerging from complex realities that defy
stereotypical definitions of self hood? Where does one find how to “be” in today’s
technological electronic miasma?
What happens to the
“me” of my life when I realize a nebulous sense of not belonging, an intersection
of multiple realities[i]
with a pinch of additional apparent quirkiness attached to my marginalized physical
presence which does not graph onto the surface of twenty first century being that
embodies the beautiful “it"?
Sadly, our most best friend
at dawn’s light and day’s night--the Internet-- has become a hotbed pillow talk companion
for oppressive/aggressive Antonin Artaud theater
of cruelty.[ii] It’s
common place now. We are each other’s objects. Perhaps . . .
Alternative bloggers work to inoculate against
such objectification. We sweat to create a space, a nurturing ground of dialogue
in which to discuss/touch complex real lives. An Internet space is being forged
to provide contemporary North American and diasporic Blacks with disabilities whose
lived experiences extend beyond pop culture's common caricatures and simplified
broadcast media’s docu-histories conflated images that mold us into one
monolithic, uni-dimensional African American presence.
True, twenty first African
Americans have some commonalities, share a few similar world views across,
class, gender, religious beliefs, and political ideologies; however, despite pop
culture representations, African Americans with disabilities are a diverse
people with layers of difference at the intersection of gender, spirituality,
disability, class, age and yes, race.
Granted, our able
bodied/people with disability conscious culture warriors like Tavis Smilely and other Black
journalist/ commentators Soledad O'brien and Don Lemon, project images counter to
biased “cookie cutter” racialized essences. Add able bodied/ people with
disability conscious culture talk and
entertainment culture warriors—Kevin Frazier, Wendy Williams, Queen Latifah, Byron
Allen, and Arsenio Hall, (Thank you soooooo very much Arsenio for returning to
late night TV. It was brief but beautiful)---are conscious disruptors of who
and what we should say, do, and be.
It is refreshing.
Reality television
programs and a plethora of Internet sites also provide alternative Black
presences. They rarely address disability. Many of these fictive, often negative,
stereotype-affirming productions result unfortunately, in uncritical binge watching
and praise for extreme, exotic, spectacular lives. The fleshed out T.V.
personas fulfill a role model function for impressionable youth and young
adults who look for an identity to define themselves, imitative the fictive media
personas playing the screen “dozens” in our twenty-first century "screen image as sign must = who you are" world.
And for young
African Americans with few role models or stereotypes with disabilities . . .
to paraphrase Gil Scott Heron “their revolutionary identity search just ain’t
being televised.”[iii]
Internet
videographers and bloggers like me try to contribute oppositional inclusive
conversations on our electronic discursive learning field. Easy access fairly
inexpensive mobile multiple media technology with tap screen App specific
"portals" provide a rich landscape into which to deposit counter
images that present a futuristic image or two of possibility to potentially
dispel caricatures, confirm commonalities beyond degrading demonized
stereotypes while affirming difference. It’s
a new frontier for Afrofuturists to manifest community. A New World A Comin’ at last?[iv]
Are we succeeding? Hmm
. . . . .
A friend once said,
“But Delores . . . there's a little bit of truth in all stereotypes. That's how
they are created." I wanted to remind him that stereotypes can be negative,
positive, and on occasion, neutral. Have we all really chosen to expect life’s
reality to reveal a lurking malevalent dark side to everything? Perhaps I’m
over reacting, past specters, “haints” echoes of Black folks who already left
the quarters.[v]
But let me ask . .
. .
What determines pop
culture fascination with either exotically different or cosmetically acceptable
people with disabilities in general? Why is there an ongoing historic absence
of images that reflect diversity within the
disabled community’s diversity, excluding medical texts, film, fiction, news
and television broadcasts?[vi]
Lastly who has
vested interest in maintaining “the absence?”
When I limp down an
urban street, no matter how well dressed, why is it that mainly majority
culture people walking towards me occupying the entire sidewalk do one of three
things if I look in their direction as I approach? 1. glare/stare 2. smile
uncomfortably, 3. grudgingly move to one side, clutch their purses or place
their hands over their hip pockets, 4. walk into me hard enough to push me off
balance as I try to make my body as small as possible to share the sidewalk?
I used to think perhaps it is race based
behavior. Our conversation didn’t exactly go like this, but I do remember the
subtext in my mind when one friend suggested:
“It’s not all race
based. . . “You are Black. You do use a
cane. In a small isolated space, or on an urban street at night, canes are
potential weapons. Of course people feel threatened.” As I, an older female adult
limpingly leaning on my support, walk
towards majority culture people . . . my cane and I become transmorphed, a
unified entity, a Black ominous weapon.
[vii]
Did I not mention
that this takes place on open city streets and in sunny daylight too? Ouch!!!!
Well, here’s a few
newly discovered sites that are creating that space I mentioned earlier:
Afrofuturist along
with insightful traditional scholars, bloggers, and just plain folks are making
that space. In the vernacular “They be talkin.”
Some acquaintances
say that I should less reactive, ignore my discomfort, "Toughen up because we
all have challenges." That's just life. "Go with the flow." But it’s cumulative years of micro-aggressions
that’s irritating.[viii]The
above resources prove that to remain crippled, invisible and . . . silent is
not my only Afrofuturist twenty first century option.
A little random angst
on a Tuesday San Diego morning,
Delores Fisher
End Notes
[i]
See Margaret Wangui Murugami “ Disability and Identity” Disability Studies Quarterly: The First Journal in the Field of
Disability Studies. 29 No.4, (2009): NP. Also see Elias Mpofu and Debra A.
Harley: Racial and Disability Identity Implications for the Career Counseling
of African Americans With Disabilities, RCB 50, No.1 (2006): 14-23.
[ii]Antonin Artaud and James O. Morgan “ The Theater and Its Double” Tulane Drama Review vol.2 # 3 (MIT
Press, 1958). Translation from French to English is by James O. Morgan.
[iii]
A reference to Gil Scott Heron’s spoken word piece: “The Revolution Will Not Be
televised”
[iv]
Roi Ottley. A New World A-Comin: Inside Black America. (Boston:Houghton-Mifflin
Co., 1943.)
[v]
A nod to Mark Fisher. The Metaphysics of Crackle: Afrofuturism and Hauntology”
dance cult: Journal of Electronic Music Culture, Special Issue on Afrofuturism.
5, no.2 (2013): 42-55.
[vi]
Topics and issues that surfaced in a post-secondary graduate class at San Diego
State University taught by Dr. Bill Piland circa 2003
[vii]
Yea, it’s an Afrofuturism alien-alienation-tecno reference : 1980s transformers
cartoon shows and its recent film revenant
[viii]
Thanks to Dr. Sharon Elise, CSU San Marcos and other presenters at the at the 2013
CFA Equity conference for expanding my concept of aggressions and oppression. http://www.calfac.org/equity-conference
Comments
Post a Comment