Disability & Society

ISSN: 0968-7599 (Print) 1360-0508 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdso20

Invisible man: examining the intersectionality of

disability, race, and gender in an urban community

Joy Banks

To cite this article: Joy Banks (2018) Invisible man: examining the intersectionality of
disability, race, and gender in an urban community, Disability & Society, 33:6, 894-908, DOI:
10.1080/09687599.2018.1456912

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2018.1456912

Published online: 06 May 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 182

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cdso20
Disability & Society, 2018
VOL. 33, NO. 6, 894–908
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2018.1456912

Invisible man: examining the intersectionality of

disability, race, and gender in an urban community
Joy Banks
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This manuscript illustrates the technical implementation of case Received 18 July 2017
study methodology to investigate the lived experiences of an Accepted 21 March 2018
urban, African-American male with cerebral palsy. Disability KEYWORDS
Critical Race Theory is used as a theoretical framework to Invisibility; African American;
empower the analysis of the intersecting attributes of race Disability Critical Race Theory
and disability. The analyses of these intersecting attributes
are often undetected in other research approaches because
the participants comprise a minute segment of the African-
American population. The case study examines the ways in
which an African-American male with cerebral palsy constructed
counter-narratives as a tool for challenging the dominant
discourse which marginalized his personal experiences within
an urban community.

Points of interest

• People with disabilities in urban areas of the United States of America may
be at an increased risk of being left out in their communities because of a
mix of racial/ethnic, gender, and economic stereotypes.
• The life experiences of an African American man with cerebral palsy are
explored to show how he was not noticed in education and employment
and when seeking wheelchair accessible housing.
• The man found ways to make sure he was noticed in his community.
• Looking in detail at a disabled person’s experience may increase awareness
of exclusion and promote social change.

Introduction

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless
heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows. When they approach me they see only

CONTACT Joy Banks joy.banks@howard.edu

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  895

my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination – indeed, everything and

anything except me (Ellison, 1989, 3).
Invisibility exists as a prominent theme within African American literature. The
motif of invisibility in African American life was first discussed in Ralph Ellison’s
classic novel Invisible Man (1989) and his introduction of cultural antinomy in pre-
Civil Rights America; where ideas, values, and ideologies of the African American
community were overlooked by White-mainstream society and whose realities
were often propagated purely through conceptualization of dominant stereo-
typical imagines. In the prolog, an unnamed African American protagonist – who
is referred to as the Invisible Man throughout the novel–considers himself to be
socially invisible; thus his invisibility is representative of the enforced conformity
and racial inequality imposed on the African American community. The protago-
nist astutely recognizes that racial prejudice and injustice caused by white society
along with his perception of himself have contributed to his invisibility and lack of
identity (Mohamed 2014). Ellison cautions that notions of invisibility may become
internalized – causing those from marginalized groups to aggressively resist socio-
cultural subjugation while simultaneously pursuing a self-defined identity – which
propels individuals from minoritized groups into a journey to discover their true
identity. Although African American men with physical disabilities are not the
specific subject of Ellison’s narrative, their marginalized realities undeniably reflect
the conspiring intersectionality of race/ethnicity, disability, and cultural obscurity
found in his classic novel.
As exemplified by Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man, invisibility is also evident within
the everyday lived experiences of individuals with disabilities and was present
in the oral life history shared by an African American man with cerebral palsy.
Invisibility is applied as a framework to describe the ways in which able-bodied,
mainstream culture overlooks the true identity and lived experiences of individuals
with disabilities. Invisibility is applied throughout this manuscript to explain three
different conceptualizations within the urban context: (1) invisibility is applied to
examine the ways disability is socially constructed through systems of deep struc-
tural, historical, and racialized stereotypes; (2) invisibility is used as a framework
to demonstrate the ways in which disability in the urban context is erroneously
affiliated with violence and delinquency; and (3) invisibility is used to illustrate
the ways in which the unique intersectionality of disability, race, and gender may
produce a counter-narrative in which the consequence is a self-affirming identity
that is absent of dominant discourse around ideologies of normalization.
The purpose of this article, then, is to explore one story of how intersecting
attributes of multiple marginalized identities are often undetected and de-em-
phasized in various research approaches. In this article conversations about invis-
ibility are examined to explore the social injustices encountered by an individual
with disabilities in urban communities. Disability Critical Race Studies (Dis/Crit) is
employed as a theoretical framework to explore the complex intersectionality of
disability, gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status through the life history
896  J. BANKS

of an African American man with cerebral palsy who is from a low-income urban
community in the United States. The application of Dis/Crit allows scholars to make
visible the unnoticeable ways that racism, ableism, and classism intertwine within
specific contextualized realities to construct each group’s history of segregation
and marginalization (Ferri 2010). By exploring the participant’s narrative, scholars,
similarly, observe the way intersecting narratives of oppression uniquely affect
people of color in their daily lives inside and outside the classroom (Annamma,
Connor, and Ferri 2013). Moreover, the story provides insight into how the par-
ticipant willfully resisted cultural obscurity by constructing a self-narrative which
was independent of the pejorative dominant narratives that shape the complex
intersection between racial, gender, and economic histories within his urban
community.

Disability critical race studies: bringing perceptibility to invisible lives

with disabilities
According to Ferri (2010) African Americans and individuals with disabilities have
the same unique historical legacy of segregation and isolation in the United States.
Each community of historically marginalized groups has struggled to identify them-
selves against hegemonic-normativity. Since the nineteenth century the United
States has been wrought with the problem of the racial segregation, and inevitably
that of disability exclusion. In the nineteenth century, western anthropologists
measured cranial and skeletal size of people of African ancestry in order to prove
their intellectual and moral inferiority to corresponding racial groups. These eugen-
ics-based discoveries were subsequently employed to justify the segregation of
African Americans in the United States and beyond (DuBois 1989; Gould 1996;
Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013). Similarly, individuals with disabilities have
suffered from mental-testing in which the results have been applied to mischar-
acterize them as ‘pathological’ and, thus, validate their exclusion from mainstream
society. Whether considering the overrepresentation of African-American students
identified with disabilities or the underemployment of individuals with disabilities
in the Unites States, there is evidence that African Americans and individuals with
disabilities continue to experience a complex interconnectivity shaped by social
disenfranchisement.
Annamma, Connor, and Ferri (2013) propose the application of a theoreti-
cal framework, Disability Critical Race Studies (Dis/Crit), to disclose and disrupt
the problematic ways in which racism and ableism become interdependent to
construct barriers that set one outside the parameters of western culture norms
(Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013). Ferri (2011) emphasizes the necessity of crit-
ical theory to investigate the multifaceted intercentricity of marginalized lives for
people of color with disabilities, she proposes that, ‘the proliferation of disability
life writing continues to privilege White bodies [which] demonstrate[es] the need
to seek out narratives that can address the politics of race and disability’ (p. 2275).
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  897

Patricia Hill-Collins (2000) further warns of the limitation of focusing on the singu-
larity of race/ethnicity and advocates for attention to be devoted to people whose
identities are ‘outsiders within [specific] social locations’ (p.11). In her seminal work
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
(2000), Collins asserts that individuals cannot be fully empowered until traversing
oppressions themselves are deconstructed and eliminated. Annamma, Connor,
and Ferri (2013) assert:
Dis/Crit emphasizes multidimensional identities rather than singular notions of identity,
such as race, disability, social class, or gender…Additionally, Dis/Crit acknowledges how
experiences with stigma and segregation often vary, based on other identity markers
(i.e. gender, language, class) and how this negotiation of multiple stigmatized identities
adds complexity. (p. 12)
Dis/Crit also proposes that race and disability are socially constructed paradigms
both of which are entangled in the histories of racism and ableism in which dif-
ference is perceived as a deficit deviation from White, middle-class, able-bodied
ideology of normalcy. The particular strength of Dis/Crit is to bring attention to
previously unacknowledged life experiences of those who live at the intersection
of multiple marginalized identities – or those who have been rendered invisible
within research literature on disability and race/ethnicity. In addition, the frame-
work of Dis/Crit may be used to destabilize majoritarian narratives. Frank (2013)
warns that these truths which are developed outside the mainstream may initially
appear threatening to majoritarian narratives that are marked by White privilege,
able-bodied values and ideologies. Yet, Collins (2000) maintains this process of an
inclusive epistemological practice is necessary to bring a more truthful picture of
our social world to the forefront. By bringing marginalized identities to the fore,
we destabilize the dominant discourse by ‘making commonplace ideas appear
ground-breaking and every day actions seem revolutionary’ (Collins 2000, 11)
when juxtaposed to the pejorative dominant discourse about race/ethnicity and
disability. Therefore, the study highlights the ways in which an African American
man with a physical disability is stratified along the continuum of racial, gender,
and socio-economic in an inner-city context. The extant literature surrounding the
intersection of race/ethnicity, disability, as well as masculinity are used to map the
contours of the participants’ resulting life experiences in an urban community.

Procedures
This interpretive case study research was carried out in an inner-city mid-Atlantic
region of the United States and arose from a larger research investigation on the
intersectionality of race/ethnicity, disability identity, and the educational experi-
ences of 12 African-American male college students with disabilities. Each partic-
ipant was originally contacted by the director of disability support services. The
researcher engaged each respondent in individually scheduled 90-min interviews.
Each interview began with an examination of participants’ family, community, and
898  J. BANKS

perceptions of their high school experiences as it centered on the intersectional-

ity of race and disability identity. The sample of African American men identified
as middle class and the others considered themselves low-income or working
class. The selected participant for this narrative was unique in that he was the
only participant who used a wheelchair and offered insightful understanding of
racism and ableism in his community. The study presents a single case study; yet,
the participant established a significant perspective from which to analyze urban
youth with disabilities which may be used to frame future research about the
intersectionality of masculinity, race/ethnicity and disability.

Data collection and analysis

The data collection and data analysis processes were iterative; data were collected
and analyzed simultaneously (Lincoln and Guba 1985). Multiple listenings of the
recorded interviews were conducted by the researcher prior to the analysis of
readings and coding of the interview transcriptions (Gilligan and Brown 1992). The
multiple listenings allowed for convergence of themes within and across interviews
(Siedman 2005). This method also assisted in the identification of areas in need of
more clarification. Ongoing coding and interview data analysis resulted in emer-
gent themes which were retained or eliminated based upon their reoccurrence.
These data were also analyzed using word analysis within Nvivo to determine stu-
dents’ use of various terms which included, but were not limited to, self-contained,
disability, race/ethnicity, and gender. The analysis of the results was shared with a
peer debriefer who had extensive experience working with students with disabil-
ities from racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds (Crewell 2007). The participant
also reviewed the manuscript for accuracy and to offer recommendations for any
areas which required further specificity.

The participant
This interpretive case study comes from one participant, Corey, who is an African-
American college student with cerebral palsy. Corey’s school and community
experiences are explored through a qualitative interpretive case study approach
(Merriam 1998). Semi-structured interviewing was the primary means of data col-
lection (Rossman and Rallis 2003). Although our conversation began as a discus-
sion about his high school experiences as a student with a disability, he offered
remarkable insight into how his educational experiences were molded due to
his identity as an African American man living in an inner-city community with
a physical disability. Accordingly, his narrative examines how the relatively over-
looked existence of physical disabilities in concert with widespread misconcep-
tions of their origin likely abetted the formation of cultural narratives that question
whether an African American man who is a wheelchair user is a former criminal
or an unfortunate bystander of gun violence, consequentially diminishing his
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  899

educational pursuits. Corey’s personal poetry is included to further highlight the

extent to which economic inequities impact the complicated intersectionality of
race/ethnicity, gender, and disability identities. Further, one becomes empowered
by making their narrative visible through counter-storytelling (Solórzano and Yosso
2002). As Corey explained toward the end of his interview,
the interview has been quite helpful to me…. I don’t really get to hear myself talk about
myself. Talking about myself helped me learn other things about myself…I realize that
I have a lot of drive. Talking about myself has already increased my drive to do more.
Given the significance of highlighting counter-narratives in order to deconstruct
historical and structural social barriers, Corey’s experiences bring awareness to the
ways dominant narratives surrounding multiple marginalized identities link to
result in a complex web of stigmatization and segregation in urban communities.

Invisibility as symbolic perception of disability in urban communities

Corey came to college as a non-traditional 28 years-old first-year college student.
He enrolled in a university that is historically dedicated to serving culturally and
linguistically diverse students in an urban metropolitan area in the mid-Atlantic
region. For the interview, Corey maneuvered his power wheelchair into the con-
ference room of the Office of Disability Support Services. He wore shoulder length
dreadlocks, baggy pants, and a black hoodie that included an imprint of a life-size
skull and bones. Using this representation of Corey as the backdrop, I recount
the ways in which Corey rejects the pejorative notions of urban communities as
places of desolation by using his life experiences as fuel to sanction his individual
aspirations.
Further, examples of the complex development of disability and cultural nar-
ratives are explored as they intersect with gender and race/ethnicity in an urban
context, reflecting among other things, the influence of violence and gang culture
which service as a marker of difference and moral deficit for African American
men in urban communities (Ralph 2012). Modes of invisibility are drawn upon
to explain the institutional and contextual discourses around disability within an
urban context. Moreover, the instability of normalcy and transformative notions
of self-definition are examined.

Becoming invisible
The urban location of the university provided a strategic site for conducting the
study. First, the selected city and its eastern suburbs have been a majority African
American community for over 50 years, where African American comprise over
50 percent of the population. Second, disability due to gun violence is the sec-
ond leading cause of disability in urban areas (disability due to car accidents is
the primary cause of death in urban areas) (Ralph 2012). Third, urban centers in
the United States account for over two-thirds (67%) of death by gun murders.
900  J. BANKS

What is more, homicide is the leading cause of death for African American males
15–34 years of age (Center for Disease Control 2010). The presence of both an
urban and African American community is empirically beneficial because it allows
for gathering firsthand knowledge of African Americans navigating through mul-
tiple identities across various social contexts. Corey, for example, spoke about the
ways in which living in the inner-city influenced the life decisions of his family
members and friends:
[My experience is] kind of the same [and] it’s kind of different. I grew up in the same
area as most inner-city Black youth. So, I have seen all the struggles in the neighbor-
hood… my peers and certain family members have had a hard time economically. I tend
to watch it, how they respond [to being poor] with drugs and trying to get money…and
instead of looking down on them, I kind of use it as my strength to pull away from it.
Instead of giving in to what is supposed to pull you in. Coming from where I am from, I
see lots of the struggles of black men…
Public perceptions of low-income urban communities are often dominated by
perceptions of African American males who have acquired paralysis as a result of
gun violence and gang activity (Berger 2015; Ralph 2012). Notions of black male
criminality become prevalent, and, consequently, African American men suffer the
consequences of a master-narrative whereby they are viewed as pathological and
violent and their true selves remain hidden as the social construction of violence
in the urban context overshadows their identity (Agosto 2014; Ralph and Chance
2014). Agosto (2014) writes about the emergence of contemporary films that have
further contributed to the social construction of perceptions and attitudes sur-
rounding race/ethnicity and disability. Agosto (2014) argues that African American,
dis/abled males in Hollywood movies (e.g. Hancock, The Bone Collector, Battleship,
and American Gangster) are often characterized as a dysfunctional, violent, and
irrational subgroup whose pathology intersect to disrupt the social order in main-
stream America (i.e. White, middle-class, suburban). This sort of mischaracterization
which affiliates disabled, African American men with gang violence and pathology
was evident in this narrative. Corey articulated his interactions with college peers
in this way, ‘worst is convincing my peers that I did not suffer a gunshot wound
and I have been this way all my life. They can’t believe that my body is disabled
but my mind is not’. He continues by explaining:
If someone [in my neighborhood] was to assume what my disability is, the natural
assumption is that I have been shot. So that comes with its own stereotype. It’s always
assumed before it’s asked. [People in my neighborhood] are also shocked when they
find out that I’ve been this way my whole life.
Corey’s experience takes place within a particular social and economic context
that impacted not only him, as an African American with a physical disability who
used a wheelchair, but also many others in his community who chose to remain
misinformed. Ellison (1989) argues that when marginalized individuals and com-
munities remains hidden it produces a ‘cultural blindness’ in which those in the
dominant society willfully refuse to acknowledge and confront the truths about
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  901

others from historically marginalized identities. Corey describes the ways his phys-
ical disability was subject to these stereotypes, which rendered him invisible while
causing others in his community to willfully remain ignorant about his disability:
Also, most people won’t ask [about my disability], only if you apply for a job, or go to
attend school, in an arena where people are forced to ask you, but most of the time there
will always be assumptions. So yeah, those are two things to overcome – convincing
people that I can think just like them and that I’m not in a gang.
Corey’s proclamation also confirms his understanding of race, gender and disability
as being social construction; he explains, ‘people with disabilities have to prove
ourselves to other people because the world is based upon its interaction with
other people.’
Disabled bodies in the urban community were rendered invisible through a sec-
ond mode of subjugation: underemployment. The U.S. Department of Labor (2012)
reports that individuals with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than
are individuals without disabilities. In addition, African Americans with disabilities
experience the highest unemployment rates among all ethnic groups. Furthermore,
Sima et al. (2015) used longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Transition
Survey – 2 which showed that African American youth from households whose
income is less than $50,000 (United States Dollars) experience lower employment
consequences even when they exhibit similar employability character traits as
White-American youth. Although it is uncertain whether racial bias and ableism
contribute to the lower employment, it is likely the dominant cultural narratives
collude – either consciously or unconsciously – to reduce employers’ willingness
to hire such applicants. This concern is consistent with the critique provided by
Corey in his interview which further problematizes the function of gender and race
when considering means in which one becomes visible, or remains invisible, in
their communities. Corey highlighted the ways in which master-narratives, which
characterize people with disabilities as incapable and intellectually inferior, likely
diminish employment opportunities in everyday life experiences:
The thing is, especially pertaining to employment, even if you get hired, most of the
time they don’t assume that you will do as well as, they don’t assume you have the same
capabilities of other people in the same occupation, so I tend to go against that to prove
them wrong.
Cory’s counter-narrative aligns with the conclusions of Ralph and Chance (2014)
who point out that ‘our collective fears [about urban communities] paralyze us, pre-
venting our society from flourishing’ (p. 142) and, consequently, able-bodied, main-
stream society becomes hypersensitive to the ‘illicit appearance’ (Ralph and Chance
2014, 140) of poor people of color living in urban communities. The urban context
seems to construct notions about gender and disability that collude to degenerate
the actual origins of physical disability in African American men by associating
physical disabilities with anti-social, pathological behaviors. Thus, justifying their
exclusion from mainstream communities, denying their complete membership as
902  J. BANKS

citizens, and undermining notions of belonging in the urban community (Banks

2015; Ferri and Connor 2014; Gillborn Rollock, Vincent, and Ball 2016).

Invisibility as the impetus for self-freedom

Collins (2000) discusses the concept of the ‘conscious sphere of freedom,’ whereby
individuals whose lives exist at the intersection of multiple identities are able to
shift their thinking from one of self-disparaging notions of difference which are
conferred by master narratives to one where they are able to enact the power to
control their own reality – where they are able to construct empowering self-iden-
tities which lead to personal freedom. Corey’s description of feeling trapped was
significant in that his emotions of being confined by others led to personal free-
dom. Corey’s narrative demonstrates how he internalized his experiences similarly
and developed a ‘conscious sphere of freedom.’
In high school, it was a little bit more difficult. That is when you start to come into who
you are. In some ways, I felt like I was another person trapped in someone else’s body.
At some point, you learn to adjust…By the time I graduated from high school, at least
at that point, I knew who I was, and I perceived myself to be a person of great strength
just because (pauses) I don’t want to say I overcame challenges, but I overcame my own
insecurities about my disability by the time I graduated high school, so I perceive myself
as a person of great strength, but it took a lot of work. Because you have to accept things
about yourself that at times, quite honestly, you don’t want to accept.
Although Ellison does not address issues of disability, this type of uncertainty – ‘the
painful boomeranging of expectations’ (Ellison 1989, 15) – is analogous to expe-
riences of race/ethnicity and disability identity development. The protagonist in
Ellison’s novel explains the process of resisting self-subjugation and explains that
it took a long time to realize that ‘I am nobody but myself’ (p. 15).
I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only
I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expecta-
tions to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am
nobody but myself (p. 15).
Corey’s desire to deconstruct hegemonic characterizations of urban, black youth
parallels with the theoretical positions of political race scholars. These scholars
argue for the re-orientation of dominant society in order to construct ‘truthful’ nar-
ratives about racially/ethnically disenfranchised groups (Mills 2007). Thus, Corey’s
self-reported analysis of the intersection of disability and economics affirms the
ways marginalization unintentionally results in moments of resistance and a pro-
cess of coming to understand one’s own cultural, disabled, and political identities.
With respect to establishing a ‘conscious sphere of freedom,’ Corey chose not
to seek employment or attend college after graduation from high school. While
Corey avoided subscribing to normalized social constructions of disability, he also
willfully rejected normalized expectations in which students are to attend college
immediately following high school. Corey elected to postpone college enrollment
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  903

for 10 years after high school graduation. Instead, he found contentment living
with his grandmother in a low-income, public-housing apartment and occasionally
attending poetry and music concerts with friends. Given this notion of freedom
is based on the ability to make choices independent of societal norms, it is not
surprising that Corey’s decision to return to college was not predicated upon his
desire to achieve economic independence. He explained that his reasoning for
attending college was to secure housing that was wheelchair accessible, not to
complete a bachelor’s degree:
I decide to go to college because I needed to move. I was living with my grandmother
and she lives up three flights of stairs. Initially, I applied for public housing. [The public
housing authority] told me it would be 5 years before I could get an apartment. Then
my friend got the idea that I should just go to college and by the time I graduated my
housing would [become available] and I would have a new opportunity. So, I came to
college because I needed to move out of a situation that didn’t have much momentum.
Corey’s lack of access to a motorized wheelchair also served as an initial barrier to
his decision to attend college. Corey spoke about his dependence upon friends to
carry him down the three flights of stairs in the apartment building. He enthusiasti-
cally explained, ‘my motorized wheelchair [from vocational rehabilitation services]
and my acceptance letter to the university arrived during the same week. So, I
knew it was a sign that I had to go to college.’
Corey’s counter-hegemonic response to public housing policies that place
individuals with physical disabilities at a disadvantage due to limited wheelchair
accessible housing units for low-income people and families demonstrates how
individuals are able to elude master narratives and illustrate self-sufficiency and
independence. Corey further emphasized that the decision among able-bodied
youth to attend college for career advancement fails to address the structural
issues and challenges persons with disabilities are facing – the particular hous-
ing inequities affecting persons with disabilities are elided in public conversation
about youth with physical disabilities – which makes the experiences of adoles-
cents with disabilities remain unnoticed. Corey’s narrative also highlights the way
in which the salience of race, gender, and disability status in the extant literature
overshadow deeper analysis to identify institutional policy inequities that result
in the denial of opportunity.
For Corey, his identity as an inner-city youth meant he felt compelled to embrace
his community and make his experiences of poverty and disability visible to class-
mates and policy advocates. As Corey continued to recount his experiences it
became apparent that he internalized and intentionally recreated his identity as an
individual from a low-income community while rejecting master-narratives related
to race/ethnicity, gender, and disability in urban communities. As Ellison (1989)
confirms, ‘perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a
sense of who you are’ (p. 577). Rather, Corey recognized the importance of deep
self-reflection and acceptance underscored by counter-narratives and a commit-
ment to constructing a self-definition that extends beyond dominant disability
904  J. BANKS

representations. He reiterated that he believed that regardless of his inner-city

context and physical circumstance his aim was to use his ‘brain to learn and to gain
knowledge.’ Moreover, Corey recognized college attendance as another opportu-
nity to engage in critical transformation aimed at deconstructing the impact of
structural inequalities, he stated:
College changes your perception on things. When you come from my part of the world
and you go to a place like college, where the whole world comes to you, it kind of opens
your perception about yourself and the world around you.
Corey was careful not to internalize disability representations that reproduce
individuals with disabilities as withdrawn introverts or persons with less intellec-
tual capabilities. The issue of limited representations of persons with disabilities
is related to the material and psychological effects of historical marginalization
which causes the person with a disability to be viewed as socially abnormal further
setting them outside of the expected norm (Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013).
Corey was adamant that his gregarious personality allowed him to throw-off neg-
ative psychological consequences of internalized ableism – a state of negative
views of impairment where the only escape is mental detachment from one’s
disabled body (Campbell 2008) – and place himself ‘in the middle of everything.’
Corey advocates for disabled individuals to resist compliance with self-reproaching
norms by inserting themselves in the midst of able-bodied circumstances both
physically and symbolically.
If anything, it might also be my demeanor. [Most people] think people with disabilities
aren’t outgoing or are less talkative. We (people with disabilities) are not expected to put
ourselves in the middle of things. Some of us don’t have as much confidence to step out
of the corner, but if you are like me, you tend to put yourself in the middle of everything.
Corey’s experiences highlight the various points of interdependence which
contribute to multiple marginalized identities that do not solely rely on issues
surrounding race and disability but also include distinctive experiences based
on economic and gender status within the specific context of an urban commu-
nity. The added layer of social economic class status exemplifies the notion that
there is a succession of multiple identifies that have to be constantly negotiated
around building a theoretical understanding of African American males with
physical disabilities in inner-city contexts. Corey engaged in the deconstruction
of social and racial hegemonic narratives and considered himself an urban trail-
blazer as well as a transformative intellectual. Corey’s counter-narrative aligns
with Bailey (2011) who demonstrates that ‘one [can be] both inside and out-
side the already marginalized categories…but the combination can create a
standpoint that demonstrates the limitations of monolithic constructions of a
particular form of marginalization’ (p. 142). Corey’s reflections indicate a process
of developing a ‘conscious sphere of freedom’ which epitomizes the construction
of a ‘true’ self-identity.
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  905

Applying invisibility to implications of disability in the urban context

Corey’s experience as an African American male with cerebral palsy demonstrates
that African American men with physical disabilities in urban communities encoun-
ter the challenge of defending their moral character against affiliations with gangs
and constructing self-affirming identities while simultaneous confronting mis-
guided understandings of their disability. First, Corey’s narrative highlights the
aspect of African American disability lived experience that is most invisible to
dominant perceptions; this is the counter-hegemonic discourse that affirms one’s
culture and community. Corey’s narrative highlights his belief that the dominant
commonsense understandings of the urban community as a place of barren aspi-
rations has the potential to divert attention away from the societal circumstances
in these enclaves that serve as fodder for resistance predicated on an inescapable
desire to completely embrace one’s individuality and contextual realities. Second,
Dis/Crit is interested in ways that race and ability shape ideas about citizenship
and belonging (Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013). Likewise, Corey is adamant
in his narrative about the necessity of disabled people to act as commanding and
empowered citizens. The tendency of disabled people to subscribe to dominate
notions of passivity, he believes, fails to incorporate a critique of the disenfranchise-
ment experienced in the lives of disabled people due to under examined notions
ways in which bodily politics have an impact on and limit able-bodied community
members’ sense of engagement with disabled citizens – which undermines notions
of belonging and democracy. Corey’s self-awareness and sense of agency allowed
him to act in ways that quietly disrupted intentional, or unintentional, moments
of subjugation and exclusion. Third, while Corey’s counter-narrative refutes tradi-
tional trajectories of college enrollment, he draws attention to the importance of
individual choice in determining when and why college enrollment is important.
Although Cory chooses to enroll in college after 10 year hiatus from high school,
he does emphasize the ‘liberating potential of education’ (Harper and Davis 2012,
116) for students from poor communities. He argues that students from urban
communities need to attend college to extend their knowledge of life and the
world beyond that of their immediate community. It is also important that upon
graduation from college Corey elected to return to his urban community where
he serves as diversity and inclusion specialist in higher education. Finally, Corey’s
narrative raises the important question about the emancipatory consequences
experienced by individuals who have the capacity to understand the interdepend-
ence of historical dimension of classism and ableism and act in ways that empow-
ers themselves and others. Corey’s counter-narrative echoes the sentiments of bell
hooks, who affirms that the margins can be ‘…more than a site of deprivation…it
can also be the site of radical possibility, a space of resistance’ (Hooks 1990, 149).
Overall, the interview with Corey challenges researchers to ‘see the world dif-
ferently’ (Ralph and Chance 2014, 143) as it relates to gender, disability and race/
ethnicity and that these intersecting oppressions ‘simply are not reducible to one
906  J. BANKS

another’ (Hall 1992, 30). The findings of this investigation point out that empiri-
cal research and interventions enacted to combat the consequences of racism,
gender discrimination, and ableism must remain dynamic and need to take into
consideration the more nuanced contextualized range in which disability occurs
(Berger 2015; Collins 2000; Delvin and Pothier 2006). Corey insisted that master
narratives within media images and popular culture portray poor, black people
as unlawful criminals which often results in stigmatizations. These narratives, and
their resulting effect, cut across disabled and male bodies in urban communities
in which he was often mischaracterized as intellectually inferior or a former gang
member – initiating a culture of invisibility where his physical body and the urban
context became the defining feature of his identity and his true self remained
invisible. Alternatively, Corey’s life history provides evidence of the significance
of personal transformative identities within low-income, inner-city communities
which defies idealizations of disability that are at the center of the medical model
of service interventions and serve as a panacea for addressing social needs of
individuals with disabilities in an urban context. It is not that disability and social
class do not matter. Rather, his reflections in this article highlight the extent to
which the burden of remaining resilient under the pressures of structural inequal-
ities continues to fall on the shoulders of the individual while societal inequities
seemingly remain as enduring legacies in urban communities.
In this analysis I acknowledged the necessity of disability critical race studies to
explore the unobserved connections between intersecting marginalized identities
as well as to carefully analyze methodologies that may expose the distinctive ways
structural inequities perpetuate the interdependence of racism, ableism, and clas-
sism (Annamma, Connor, and Ferri 2013; Erevelles, Kanga, and Middleton 2006).
The challenge with the current master narratives surrounding African American
males with disabilities is the tendency to examine disability from a ‘single axis
framework’ (Ferri and Connor 2014, 16) that minimizes the impact and influence
of gender and race in low-income and marginalized community centers. What is
required as a starting point for moving toward equity and social justice within an
urban context is a commitment to accounting for lived experiences and embrac-
ing ‘discursive modes of power’ (Ferri and Connor 2014, 16) that are employed by
individuals at the margins to reveal the complex and contradictory dimensions that
exist at the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity and disability in urban commu-
nities. Corey’s poetry further emphasizes the importance of embracing multiple
intersecting identities:

Assumption
I live in the skin of a black man, so my conviction is strengthened by the oppression
I endure. I move in the body of a disabled man, so ableism is not a figment of my
imagination, I’m sure. I come from a place marred by abandoned structures and
poisoned by liquor stores, a place where dreams suffocate and ambition is ignored.
 DISABILITY & SOCIETY  907

I’m challenged, not by my socioeconomic status or my physical limitations, but by

the stereotypical and ableist perceptions America has taught us for generations.
At first glance I am the manifestation of society’s belief that every black man in
a wheelchair with locs must have been wounded in the street, and let’s not forget
the countless pastors and religious figures that have failed in their attempts to
pray me to my feet.
My question is this; if we are all created in God’s image, then why do you per-
ceive me to be so incomplete? The truth is, I’m comfortable in my body and I have
accepted that this is who I am and who I will be, so I don’t carry the burden of what
makes society uncomfortable with me.
I refuse to be constrained by deeply embedded ignorant assumptions or ableist
ideas disguised as good intentions. I will not buy into any notion that seeks to
undermine my intellect and destroy my ambitions.
I was born black, disabled and I’m a product of the inner city.
I am a sculpture of the creator and this is who I was destined be. So without your
acceptance or criticism I unapologetically embrace the complexity of my Identity.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

References
Agosto, V. 2014. “Scripted Curriculum: What Movies Teach about Disability and Black Males.”
Teacher College Record 116 (4): 1–24.
Annamma, S. A., D. Connor, and B. Ferri. 2013. “Disability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit): Theorizing
at the Intersections of Race and Disability.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 16 (1): 1–31.
Bailey, M. 2011. “'The Illest': Disability as Metaphor in Hip Hop Music.” In Blackness and Disability:
Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions, edited by C. Bell, 141–148. East Lansing, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Banks, J. 2015. “Gangster and Wheelchairs: Urban Teachers’ Perceptions of Disability, Race, and
Gender.” Disability & Society 30 (4): 569–582.
Berger, R. J. 2015. “Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury: A Theorized Life History.” In Disability and
Qualitative Inquiry: Methods for Rethinking an Ableist World, edited by R. J. Berger and L. S.
Lorenz, 155–174. New York: Routledge.
Campbell, F. A. K. 2008. “Exploring Internalized Ableism Using Critical Race Theory.” Disability &
Society 23 (2): 151–162.
Center for Disease Control. 2010. Leading Cause of Death by Age Group, Black Males United States
2010. Accessed March 10, 2013. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm
Collins, P. H. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment. London, Great Britain: Routledge.
Crewell, J. 2007. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Delvin, R., and D. Pothier. 2006. Critical Disability Theory: Essays in Philosophy, Politics, and Law.
Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.
DuBois, W. E. B. 1989. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin Books.
Ellison, R. 1989. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage Books.
908  J. BANKS

Erevelles, N., A. Kanga, and R. Middleton. 2006. “How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Race, Disability,
and Exclusion in Educational Policy.” In Who Benefits from Special Education?: Remediating
(Fixing) Other People’s Children, edited by E. Brantlinger, 77–99. New York: Routledge.
Ferri, B. A. 2010. “A Dialogue We’ve Yet to Have: Race and Disability Studies.” Chap. 10 in The
Myth of the Normal Curve, edited by C. Dudley- Marling and A. Gurn. New York: Peter Lang.
Ferri, B. A. 2011. “Disability Life Writing and the Politics of Knowing.” Teachers College Record 113
(10): 2267–2282.
Ferri, B. A. and D. J. Connor. 2014. “Talking (and Not Talking) about Race, Social Class
and Dis/Ability: Working Margin to Margin.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 471–493.
doi:10.1080/13613324.911168.
Frank, J. 2013. “Mitigating against Epistemic Injustice in Educational Research.” Educational
Researcher 42 (7): 363–370.
Gillborn, D., N. Rollock, C. Vincent, and S. J. Ball. 2016. “The Black Middle Classes, Education,
Racism, and Dis/Ability: An Intersectional Analysis.” In DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical
Race Theory in Education, edited by D. J. Connor, B. A. Ferri and S. A. Annamma, 35–54. New
York: Teacher College Press.
Gilligan, C., and L. M. Brown. 1992. Meeting at the Crossroads. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Gould, S. J. 1996. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton & Company.
Hall, S. 1992. “What is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” In Black Popular Culture, edited by G.
Dent, 21–33. Seattle, WA: Bay Press.
Harper, S., and C. H. F. Davis, III. 2012. “They (Don’t) Care about Education: A Counternarrative
on Black Male Students’ Responses to Inequitable Schooling.” Educational Foundations 26
(1): 103–120.
Hooks, B. 1990. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End.
Lincoln, Y. S., and E. G. Guba. 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Merriam, S. 1998. Qualitative Research and Cases Study Applications in Education. San Francisco,
Ca: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Mills, C. W. 2007. “White Ignorance.” Chap. 1 in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by
S. Sullivan and N. Tuana. Albany, NY: State University of New York.
Mohamed, I. 2014. “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Women: A Comparison between Invisible Man and
Selected Female Characters in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Accessed June 15, 2017. http://
www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:747444/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Ralph, L. 2012. “What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence in Chicago.” Disability
Studies Quarterly 32 (2). Accessed March 10, 2013. http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3270
Ralph, L., and K. Chance. 2014. “Legacies of Fear: From Rodney King’s Beating to Trayvon Martin’s
Death.” Transition 113: 137–143.
Rossman, G. B., and S. F. Rallis. 2003. Learning in the Field: An Introduction to Qualitative Research.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Siedman, I. 2005. Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and
Social Sciences. New York: Teacher College Press.
Sima, A. P., P. H. Wehman, F. Chan, M. D. West, and R. G. Leucking. 2015. “An Evaluation of Risk
Factors Related to Employment Outcomes for Youth with Disabilities.” Career Development
and Transition for Exceptional Individuals 38 (2): 89–100.
Solórzano, D. G., and T. J. Yosso. 2002. “Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an
Analytical Framework for Education Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 8 (1): 23–44.
U.S. Department of Labor. 2012. Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characterisitcs. Washington,
D.C.: U.S.