This reading screams Nothing About Us Without Us in its tongue-in-cheek wit. It’s easy to just assume that Disability Studies encompasses all people with disabilities, but I’m not surprised by Chris Bell’s assertion that current Disability Studies is alarmingly White™. Disappointed, but not surprised. Even the 2002 Queer Disability Conference in California, it didn’t surprise me that Bell found the entire group of organizers to be White. It was as infuriating as it was unsurprising, though, given that the entire queer rights movement in America owes its life to women of color, at least one of whom was also a trans Black woman.
Then, Bell’s summary of the MLA Conference on Disability Studies at Emory University in 2004 was just laughable in that uncertain, hysterical way—the awkward, high-pitched squeaking laughter asking: Is this guy serious? when Davis talked about including the whole “post-race” debate. Race relations have been sinking faster than the Titanic with all the flagrant abuse of power that our current government gets away with, and its empowering of today’s rabid Neo-Fascist racists.
