Remember: Black Women with Disabilities

In my last piece, I wrote about the oppression that comes with the cross-section of several identity and experience markers: being Black, being a woman, and being a survivor of sexual violence. In this post, as another approach to the intersectionality of identity, I explore the cross-section of being Black, being a woman, and having a disability. As an addendum to my profile on Haben Girma, an advocate for disability rights and the first deaf-blind graduate of Harvard Law School, I spotlight two other Black women with disabilities who are vocal about their identity.

Angel Love Miles

Angel Love Miles, PhD, was born with Spina Bifida, which is “a neural tube defect that occurs when a baby’s neural tube fails to develop or close properly,” according to the Spina Bifida Association. While growing up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Germantown, PA, she was enrolled in schools for students with disabilities from when she started attending preschool to when she graduated from high school. It was when Dr. Miles attended Pennsylvania State University, a predominantly White institution with very few students with disabilities, that she took note of racial and ableist differences within the student body.

All of the students with disabilities who she befriended were White, and while she was able to share with them the struggle with inaccessibility of spaces, she couldn’t contend to their socioeconomic privileges. With her abled Black peers, she still felt peripheral with how “the events organized by multicultural student organizations were in spaces that were not accessible.”

With an intersectional perspective in mind, she graduated from Penn State and went on to receive her doctorate in Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Miles then completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Applied Health Sciences. She has since worked as the Healthcare/Home and Community Based Services Policy Analyst at Access Living, a nonprofit organization that advocates and provides for people with disabilities. Along with overseeing health policy developments for disability inclusion, Dr. Miles uses her platform to speak out about social justice issues relating to disability rights and women’s rights as a writer, teacher, and speaker.

“What comes first for you, your race, gender, or disability?” This question has always perplexed me when posed because I enter the room and I came in the world as all three. [W]hat’s really being asked of me is, “Whose side are you on?” The answer of course is, “Mine.” I’m on my side.

Angel Love Miles, Black Perspectives by African American Intellectual History Society

Lauren “Lolo” Spencer

At 14 years old, Lolo Spencer was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells responsible for voluntary muscle action. She uses her platform as a Los-Angeles-based actress, model, influencer, public speaker, and advocate to authentically represent people with disabilities both on and off the screen. 

In her first film appearance in the critically acclaimed 2019 comedy-drama, Give Me Liberty, Spencer plays the role of Tracy, a young Black woman with ALS who uses a wheelchair and depends on the medical transport van that Vic—the main character—drives around Milwaukee, WI. With family and friends to take to a funeral and roads closed for a protest, Vic takes a new route that takes scheduled clients—especially Tracy—for a spin.

Give Me Liberty premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was screened at the Directors’ Fortnight of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It earned a total of four nominations at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, including one for Best Supporting Female Actress for Spencer as well as a win for the John Cassavetes Award. It had only been a week since being honored with the 2019 Christopher Reeves Acting Scholarship at the Media Access Awards.

To shed light on disability rights, Spencer produces a YouTube channel called Sitting Pretty, where she shares her perspective on and personal experience with what it means to have a disability. She has been a panelist at the VidCon, YouTube Accessibility Summit, and Los Angeles Abilities Expo. Spencer also models for inclusive fashion campaigns like Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive and Zappos Adaptive.

Her mantra is authenticity, and with good reason.

“I think the most important part […] is being able to authentically be black, and authentically have a disability, and knowing that the two can exist in the same space. […] If you’re gonna judge me then judge me for exactly as I am—versus a representation that I believe the public wants to see, in order to be careful and preserve everyone’s feelings, because I might just want to say something a certain way, or do things a certain way.”

Lolo Spencer, RespectAbility

Going Forward

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues, we cannot forget to be aware of and support the people whose identities intersect with the Black identity. We cannot forget that injustice constitutes various forms and degrees of oppression on the basis of sexism, racism, ability, class, and other identity markers. We cannot forget that these identity markers can intersect and signify a unique identity, and therefore a unique experience and a unique reception by society. As a small step forward in learning about the cross-section focus of this piece, check out the Disability Visibility Project, Jay Abdullahi and Kym Oliver’s The Triple Cripples podcast, and Imani Barbarin’s Crutches and Spice blog.