Kripping Kendrick Lamar’ song, Not Like Us into a Black disabled essay, Everyone Except Us

I was born in 1967 as a Black boy with a physical disability. I have observed everyone’s progress, especially White disabled people in education who were the first ones to get teacher’s assistance to be employed as directors in nonprofits. Also saw White disabled people advance to national boards to the White House. Even when programs were made to get people of color involved, like outreach in the 1980’s to today’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion somehow the face of it is not our faces. It’s incredible to see organizations that had executive directors who were problem reshape and rebrand themselves. I have seen funders starve out Black disabled orgs or Black parent groups while giving thousands even millions to White lead disability national orgs that continue to get funding to do outreach.

Internationally there were beautiful Black disabled movements and parent’s organizations until they became a threat to mainstream disabled movements so their little amount of funding would go away so they had to close their doors. Today there are streets and buildings named after White disabled leaders. On the big screen we have seen disability documentaries with White main characters. We even have national reports on issues facing Black/Brown people like police brutality authored by White people. In Disability Studies we still can say that the late Christopher Bell’s 2006 essay, “Introducing White Disability Studies: A Modest Proposal is still true today in 2024?

Back in the day I used to carry with me the late Frank Bowe’s, Disabled Adults in America: a statistical report drawn from Census Bureau data Paperback – January 1, 1985 because it had a special report on race and disability. I carried around the report on the status on Black disabled people to show people the high unemployment rate of Black disabled people especially Black disabled women. What is sad is that very little has changed since that report in 1985. In 1945, Congress declared the first week in October each year National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. In 1962, the word “physically” was deleted to acknowledge the needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. In 1988, Congress expanded the week to National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

In the latest employment numbers, notably, Black and Hispanic disabled people experienced higher unemployment rates in 2023—at 10.2 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. The unemployment rates of these groups are consistently above the average for disabled workers, due to the additional hardships of intersecting and compounding racism and ableism; they also reflect the disparities in employment seen in the labor market overall. According to Bowe in 1980:

The average disabled black adult is 42 years old, has less than a high-school level of education, does not work, nor is actively seeking employment. Income from all sources was under $3000 in 1980.

Strikingly, only one disabled black of working age in every 40 is a college graduate. This is only one-third the rate among nondisabled blacks and is just 29% of the rate among disabled whites.

So tell me why do we celebrate Disability Employment Awareness Month?

Lastly witnessing the kidnapping of the work of disabled people of color mostly elders from Atlanta Georgia shout out to Rev. Calvin Peterson, Kate Gainer, the late Lois Curtis to whole movements like Disability Justice in Berkeley, CA.

But what’s so frustrating is that we, Black and people of color disabled activists are supposed to stay quiet and be happy for the crumbs but if we talk about it then we are canceled or label all sorts of names still in 2024! Now I’m 57 years old witnessing the same cycle even in the middle of getting a Phd. They say that education is the key to success but it seems like someone changed the locks because before my ph.d. studies I interviewed five disabled people of color who were ph.d. students and ph.d. graduates and many were still unemployed. So once again why are we celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month?

Remix of Kendrick Lamar’s song, Not Like Us to Everyone Except Us to Everyone Except Us

By Leroy F. Moore

Sources

⁃ Disabled Workers Saw Record Employment Gains in 2023, But Gaps Remain. (Link)

⁃ Black Adults With Disabilities: A statistical Report Drawn From Census Bureuu Data 1980 (Link)