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Crises of
Identifying
Negotiating and Mediating Race, Gender,
and Disability Within Family and Schools
A volume in
Educational Leadership for Social Justice
Jeffrey S. Brooks, Series Editor
This page intentionally left blank.
Crises of
Identifying
Negotiating and Mediating Race, Gender,
and Disability Within Family and Schools
Dymaneke D. Mitchell
National Louis University
INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mitchell, Dymaneke D., author.

Crises of identifying : negotiating and mediating race, gender, and
disability within family and schools / Dymaneke D. Mitchell, National Louis
University.
pages cm. -- (Educational leadership for social justice)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-62396-091-9 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-62396-092-6 (hardcover) --
ISBN 978-1-62396-093-3 (ebook) 1. African Americans with
disabilities--Education--Case studies. 2. African Americans with
disabilities--Case studies. 3. African American children--Education--Case
studies. 4. African American children--Case studies. 5. Women with
disabilities--Education--United States--Case studies. 6. Women with
disabilities--United States--Case studies. 7. African American
women--Education--Case studies. I. Title.
LC2787.M58 2012
371.90973--dc23
2012041295
Copyright © 2013 Information Age Publishing Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission
from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America

Contents
Series Editor’s Preface.................................................................... ix

Preface............................................................................................ xi
Acknowledgements.........................................................................xv
Part I
Trying to Attain Essence 1
1 Negotiating and Mediating Identities and Contexts.......................... 3

Introduction: Background................................................................ 3
Identification Development: Crises of Identifying.......................... 6
Personified Leadership...................................................................... 8
The Role of Familial and Educational Contexts: An Overview.... 10
Doing and Writing Disability Studies Research............................ 12
Research for Us With Us................................................................. 16
2 Universalism and Intersectionalities..............................................19

Introduction: Understanding Universalism and Essentialism..... 19
Essentialist Discourses and Their Impact on Identities
and Contexts............................................................................. 21
Medicalization and Racialization of Disabled Bodies:
An Overview.............................................................................. 24
Intersecting Identities: An Examination of Intersectionality....... 29
Intersecting Contexts: The Intersectionality of the Black Family
and Schools............................................................................... 30
v
vi  Contents
Part II
Intercontextuality 35
3 Are You a Trekkie?..........................................................................37

Introduction: Meeting King............................................................ 37
King: Crises of Identifying Within the Family............................... 37
King: Crises of Identifying Within Schools................................... 46
Negotiating and Mediating Crises: Catalysts for Leadership....... 50
4 I Don’t Like to Be Pigeonholed......................................................53

Introduction: Meeting Black Her Story......................................... 53
Black Her Story: Crises of Identifying Within the Family............ 53
Black Her Story: Crises of Identifying Within Schools................. 60
5 My Mother Was Like My Bodyguard.............................................. 65

Introduction: Meeting José............................................................. 65
José: Crises of Identifying Within the Family................................ 66
José: Crises of Identifying Within Schools..................................... 70
6 I’m Not Crippled; I’m Handicapped..............................................77

Introduction: Meeting Kim............................................................. 77
Kim: Crises of Identifying Within the Family................................ 77
Kim: Crises of Identifying Within Schools.................................... 81
Negotiating and Mediating Crises: Catalysts of Leadership........ 85
7 I Don’t Want to Be Seen in Public With You...................................... 87

Introduction: Meeting Starbucks 311............................................. 87
Starbucks 311: Crises of Identifying Within the Family................ 87
Starbucks 311: Crises of Identifying Within Schools..................... 90
Contents  vii
Part III
Significance of Research 95
8 Emerging Themes.......................................................................... 97
Introduction: Kindred Connections.............................................. 97
Theme 1: Performance.................................................................... 97
Theme 2: Identity Hierarchy......................................................... 102
Theme 3: The Contextuality of Self............................................. 107
9 Conclusions and Recommendations............................................. 113

Introduction: Restating the Purpose of the Research................ 113
Revisiting the Narratives............................................................... 113
Unpacking the Themes..................................................................117
Implications and Recommendations for the Field of Disability
Studies..................................................................................... 120
Implications and Recommendations for Teacher Education
Programs................................................................................. 122
Implications and Recommendations for the Field of Special
Education................................................................................ 129
Conclusion: Significance of Research in a Nutshell.................... 132
References....................................................................................135
Series Editor’s Preface
by Jeffrey S. Brooks
I am pleased to serve as series editor for this book series, Educational Lead-
ership for Social Justice, with Information Age Publishing. The idea for this
series grew out of the work of a group committed to leadership for scholars,
associated with the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA)
Leadership for Social Justice Special Interest Group (LSJ SIG). This group
existed for many years before being officially affiliated with AERA, and has
benefited greatly from the ongoing leadership, support, and counsel of Dr.
Catherine Marshall (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). It is also
important to acknowledge the contributions of the LSJ SIG’s first chair, Dr.
Ernestine Enomoto (University of Hawaii at Manoa), whose wisdom, stew-
ardship, and guidance helped ease a transition into AERA’s more formal
organizational structures. This organizational change was at times difficult
to reconcile with scholars who largely identified as non-traditional think-
ers and push toward innovation rather than accept the status quo. As the
second chair of the LSJ SIG, I appreciate all of Ernestine’s hard work and
friendship. Moreover, I also thank Dr. Gaetane Jean-Marie, the third chair
of the LSJ SIG for her visionary leadership, steadfast commitment to high
standards and collaborative scholarship and friendship.
I am particularly indebted to my colleagues on the LSJ SIG’s first Pub-
lications Committee, which I chaired from 2005 through 2007: Dr. Denise
Crises of Identifying, pages ix–x

Copyright © 2013 by Information Age Publishing
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ix
x  Series Editor’s Preface
Armstrong, Brock University; Dr. Ira Bogotch, Florida Atlantic University;

Dr. Sandra Harris, Lamar University; Dr. Whitney Sherman, Virginia Com-
monwealth University; and Dr. George Theoharis, Syracuse University. This
committee was a joy to work with, and I am pleased we have found many
more ways to collaborate—now as my fellow Series Editors of this book se-
ries—as we seek to provide publication opportunities for scholarship in the
area of leadership for social justice.
This book, Crises of Identifying: Negotiating and Mediating Race, Gender,
and Disability Within Family and Schools by Dymaneke D. Mitchell, is the
eighth in the series. The book breaks new ground by exploring the dispro-
portionate representation of students of color in special education, and
offers an in-depth exploration of intersections between race and disability.
We are exited to help provide a forum for this important work in the ongo-
ing conversation about equity and excellence in education, and the role(s)
that leadership can assume in our rapidly changing world.
Again, welcome to this eighth book in this Information Age Publish-
ing series, Educational Leadership for Social Justice. You can learn more about
the series at our web site: http://www.infoagepub.com/series/Educational-
Leadership-for-Social-Justice. I invite you to contribute your own work on
equity and influence to the series. We look forward to you joining the con-
versation.
—Dr. Jeffrey S. Brooks
Iowa State University
Preface
O ne of the biggest challenges facing the educational field involves

the overrepresentation of students of color in special education.
Although there are several arguments concerning the reason for this oc-
currence (Chamberlain, 2005; Green, 2005; Gresham, 2005; Kozol, 1991;
Spring, 2006; Zimmerman, 2004), they mainly center on issues concern-
ing teachers and special education referral processes, including how social,
cultural, and economic constructions of race, ambiguities and stereotypes
involving disability, and inadequate teacher preparation and development
influence referral processes. With the exception of the special education
arena, most of the research and scholarship on the lives and experiences
of African Americans with disabilities has been done outside of the field of
education (Alston, Bell, & Feist-Price, 1996). Apparently, the overrepresen-
tation of African Americans in special education is a result of, among other
things, prevailing misconceptions about race and disability within as well as
outside of the educational field, including the substantial lack of research
and scholarship throughout the field of education concerning the educa-
tional experiences of Black children with disabilities.
Nevertheless, there has been some increase in research and scholar-
ship in a few educational arenas pertaining to the lives and experiences
of people of color with disabilities, particularly of those who are African
American (Chamberlain, 2005; Connor, 2006; Erevelles, 2000; Green, 2005;
Gresham, 2005; Lott, 2001; Mitchell, 2006; Sinclair, Christenson, & Thur-
low, 2005; Zang, 2005; Zimmerman, 2004). However, there is still a need to
Crises of Identifying, pages xi–xiv

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. xi
xii  Preface
determine how interactions within and between students, teachers, admin-

istrators, families, and schools influence or are a consequence of crises asso-
ciated with negotiating and mediating multiple identities or lack of prepa-
ration and training. So although the increase in research and scholarship
in some educational arenas have provided insightful theories and practices
for improving the educational experiences of African Americans with dis-
abilities, there is still more work to be done.
Book Overview
Although there has been an increase in literature regarding the lived ed-
ucational experiences of African American, Latino, and Asian children
with disabilities, it mainly focuses on children with intellectual disabilities
(i.e., learning disability, Down syndrome, autism, dyslexia, etc.) in a pub-
lic school setting. This book includes the lived familial and educational
experiences in public, private, and institutional school settings, at various
levels (i.e., elementary, secondary, and/or postsecondary), of five African
American adults who have disabilities associated with deafness, blindness,
cerebral palsy, and speech impairment. It provides insights into ways these
adult African Americans construct and give meaning to their experiences
of being Black, female/male, and disabled within their family and schools.
More specifically, this book is based on research that involves an exami-
nation of ways that family and school perpetuate and reiterate social and
cultural constructions, essentialist discourses as well as power and privilege
dynamics regarding race, gender, and disability.
With one of the biggest challenges facing special education being the
overrepresentation of minorities and students of color, there is a need to
determine how crises influence or are a result of intrapersonal and/or in-
terpersonal relations among students, teachers, families, and schools. This
book not only highlights how these five African Americans with disabilities
negotiated and mediated their lived experiences within familial and educa-
tional contexts but it also focuses on how their remediation and renegotia-
tion of their experiences within their family and different school contexts
instigated crises of identifying that served as catalysts for leadership quali-
ties they exhibited early, as young adults, and later, in their personal and
professional lives.
Book Focus and Content

By considering African Americans with disabilities and their negotiation
of multiple identities concerning disability, race, and gender, as mediated
Preface  xiii
by their families and schools, this book “contributes to the fields of special
education and disability studies by capturing involved people’s perspec-
tives and by adding to our understanding of discourses that shape social
life in schools [and families] and society” (Brantlinger, Jimenez, Klingner,
Pugach, & Richardson, 2005, p. 202).
This book can also serve as a literary resource to academics and as an
informational guide for parents, teachers, administrators, and paraprofes-
sionals of children with disabilities regarding the significance of leadership,
self-advocacy, and identification development on the lived experiences of
children within familial and educational contexts including complex dy-
namics that exist within and between families and schools. Although this
book focuses on the lived experiences of adult African Americans with dis-
abilities, the complexities and contextual dynamics associated with crises of
identifying take on many forms and include social and cultural constructs
associated with various dimensions of identity; therefore, this book can ben-
eficial to a variety of people with and without disabilities. It is hopeful that
this book will provide parents, teachers, administrators, and caregivers with
an understanding and comprehension of the complexities concerning dis-
ability, gender, and race within family and schools and including their as-
sociation with crises of identifying, essentialist discourses, and power and
privilege dynamics.
In addition, this book could be an educational resource for pre-service
and in-service teachers, administrators, and special educators that are in-
terested in exploring and examining how their roles and practices within
schools and interactions with children of color with disabilities influence
their lived educational experiences including their educational achieve-
ment and their perception of themselves as intelligent, worthy, productive
members of society. Teachers, special educators, and administrators’ en-
gagement and interaction with these children will either reinforce or coun-
teract what they are learning and understanding about themselves within
their familial context (and other contexts) as children of color with dis-
abilities. They need to understand how they and schools can be complicit in
perpetuating and reifying negative perceptions of children of color with dis-
abilities; this book could help them to begin to understand their complicity.
Discussing, exploring, and examining their understandings of the affect of
complicity will be especially beneficial for teacher candidates enrolled in
special education, teacher preparation, and urban education courses and
programs at the undergraduate level as well as students enrolled in disabil-
ity studies, educational and instructional leadership, and curriculum and
instruction courses and programs at the graduate and doctoral levels.
xiv  Preface
Book Structure and Organization

This book is organized into three parts. Part I includes Chapters 1 and 2.
It provides the background, rationale, and theoretical and methodological
underpinnings of the research this book is based on. Chapter 1 opens with
an introductory section that provides an insight into issues regarding race,
gender, and disability in relation to educational and familial contexts. The
second section provides an explanation of the concept of crises of identi-
fying. The third section offers a reconceptualization of leadership from a
subjective standpoint. In the fourth section, an overview of the roles of fam-
ily and schools in the social and cultural construction of its members is pro-
vided. The conceptual and methodological premises of this research study
are provided in the fifth section of Chapter 1. The last section includes a
discussion of whether research and scholarship about people with disabili-
ties adequately represent them. The five sections in Chapter 2 explore and
examine theories, research, and scholarship associated with universalism,
the medicalization and racialization of disabled bodies, and intersectional-
ity in relation to race, disability, and gender.
Part II consists of Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. This part of the book intro-
duces the reader to the narratives of five African Americans with disabili-
ties. Each narrative provides insights into the lived experiences and leader-
ship qualities of two males and three females that include their negotiation
and mediation of these experiences within and between familial and edu-
cational contexts. All five chapters include narratives and reflections that
are indicative of King, Black Her Story, José, Kim, and Starbucks 311’s lived
experiences within familial and educational contexts of being an African
Americans with a disability. It provides insights into their lived experiences
and leadership qualities (as reflected in their narratives) for negotiating
and mediating these contexts.
Part III is made up of Chapters 8 and 9. It includes the concluding
chapters of the book and highlights the significance of this research for the
educational field. In Chapter 8, I examine three themes that emerged from
the narratives of the participants. The five narratives are revisited in Chap-
ter 9. It also unpacks the themes introduced in Chapter 8. The last four
sections of Chapter 9 discuss implications and significance of this research
for disability studies, teacher education programs, and special education.
Acknowledgements
I am thankful for the many people who have helped make this book pos-
sible. I am grateful for the support and love of my parents, to my Uncle
Kennedy for pushing me to exceed my own expectations, and to all of the
friends and colleagues who have helped and encouraged me throughout
this journey.
I want to thank Drs. Natalie Adams, Nirmala Erevelles, Rodney Hopson,
Kagendo Mutua, John Petrovic, Stephen Tomlinson, and Jerry Rosiek for pro-
viding me with wisdom, guidance, and opportunities throughout this journey
that have challenged and strengthen me personally and professionally.
I want to thank Drs. Noelle Arnold, Jeffrey Brooks, and Katherine McK-
night for believing in this book.
Last, but not least, I thank God for replenishing my spirit and nourish-
ing my soul throughout this journey. He is the source of all of my blessings.
Crises of Identifying, page xv

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. xv
Pa r t I
Trying to Attain Essence
A ccording to Fuss (1989), “essentialism is most commonly understood

as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed
properties which define the ‘whatness’ of a given entity” (p. xi). This un-
derstanding is particularly prevalent in relation to dimensions of identity.
Growing up as an African American, deaf, female, I constantly struggled
with attaining the essence of my identities. I vividly recall the frustration
and dejection I felt as a result of my continuous failure to accurately epito-
mize what I perceive as the “true essence” of my identities. In other words,
my understanding of what I should be was totally different from my percep-
tion of who I was in regards to my race, gender, and disability. What, or
more appropriately, whose essence was I trying to attain? Was it the perse-
verance and strength of my mother, the exceptionality of my grandmother,
or the extraordinariness of various African American women in my family?
Or was it the disillusionment from teachers who accepted stereotypes and
myths about my Black, disabled, female body?
It seemed that my pursuits of essence in one of these identities inter-
fered with my mission to attain essence in the other identities. For instance,
I naively accepted social and cultural constructions of my disability as defi-
cient and abnormal, which simultaneously motivated as well as barred me
from attaining what I believed to be my better, just-like-everybody-else, es-
sential gendered self. Both my Blackness and my femaleness were jeopar-
dized by conflicts and insecurities regarding feelings of deficiency and ab-
Crises of Identifying, pages 1–2

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 1
2  Crises of Identifying
normality about my disability. These pursuits became even more complex

and contentious as I confronted negative or degrading social and cultural
constructions associated with my race and gender. As I began to grow and
develop personally and professionally, my critical examination and recol-
lection of my experiences yielded disturbing but intriguing and empower-
ing insights (Mitchell, 2006).
1
Negotiating and Mediating
Identities and Contexts
Introduction: Background
Schools are spaces where student and teacher interactions, experiences,
relationships, and multiple identities intersect. These intersections create
challenges for educators that affect the way they educate “different” stu-
dents. In particular, there are concerns within the educational field about
the inclusive and exclusive nature of education and its effects on the teach-
ing, learning, retention, and matriculation of certain students. According
to Clough (1999),
we have exclusive structures in our institutions because those same struc-

tures organize consciousness; little wonder that our schools and our curri-
cula include some at the same defining moment as they exclude others, when
the very process by which individual identity is formed is just such a selective
and ultimately discriminatory affair. (p. 63)

Note that Clough relates the selectiveness of inclusive and exclusive prac-
tices in schools to the discriminatory processes through which certain iden-
tities are defined, perpetuated, and maintained by them as well.
There are many challenges facing PreK–12 and postsecondary educa-
tors. Some pertain to theoretical and practical issues that they and their
students face concerning race, gender, and/or disability as well as edu-
cational training, development, and/or preparation. In 2007, approxi-
mately 83% of PreK–12 teachers were White (National Center for Educa-
tion Statistics, 2008a) whereas approximately 37% of the national public
school population consisted of Black and Hispanic students, with Black
students representing approximately 15% of the total (National Center
for Education Statistics, 2009a). Black students who were ages 3 to 21
represented approximately 18% of students served under the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2007). The 18% of Black students being diagnosed with “any
disability” in 2007 was higher than the total Black student population at
15%. According to Artiles,
it has been argued that because there is a higher rate of poverty in minority
communities, it is not surprising that African Americans and Native Ameri-
cans, for example, and in some regions of the country, Latinos and Latinas,
are disproportionately placed in special education. It is further argued that
minority student special education placement is understandable because
students from these communities possess significant deficits due to their
upbringing and so forth. (cited in Chamberlain, 2005, p. 110)
Scholarship and research regarding African Americans with disabilities

often portray race and disability as additives or labels or as something to
overcome or live with instead of as an aspect of who a person is or becomes
(Charlton, 1998; Connor, 2006; Davis, 1997; Linton, 1998; Mitchell, 2006;
Thomas, 1999; Torres, Howard-Hamilton, & Cooper, 2003). Considering
the number of students of color who are being labeled and constructed as
disabled in educational contexts, as well as the overrepresentation of these
students in special education, this information is significant for gaining an
understanding of the role of schools in constructing and reconstructing
students’ identities and the implications of these constructions on their
educational achievement.
Postsecondary educational institutions frequently proclaim (often in
their mission statements) their dedication and commitment to meeting the
needs of diverse student populations, including students with disabilities.
From 2007 to 2009, Blacks annually represented only approximately 1% of
Negotiating and Mediating Identities and Contexts  5
students who enrolled in degree-granting institutions (National Center for

Education Statistics, 2009d). Moreover, approximately 10% and 20% of the
students who earned Bachelor’s and graduate (i.e., Master’s and Doctor’s)
degrees, respectively, in 2009 were Black (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2009c). Furthermore, approximately 13% of postsecondary un-
dergraduate students who reported having a disability in 2007 were Black
whereas 14% of postsecondary students who were Black refrained from re-
porting their disabilities (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008b).
According to Torres et al. (2003),
our [e.g., administrators, faculty, and staff] practice has not always been in
sync with the changing populations on our college campuses. For us to hear
and care, we need to challenge our presupposed ideas, biases, and preju-
dices about how we teach, practice, and interact with our students and col-
leagues. (p. iv)
However, despite this acknowledgment, the recruitment and transition of

students with disabilities from secondary to postsecondary educational in-
stitutions continue to be at a minimum (Trainor, 2005; Zang, 2005); and
their matriculation and retention at various levels in postsecondary educa-
tional institutions are still low (Green, 2005; Spring, 2006).
Even with scholarship and research regarding the preparation, devel-
opment, and implementation of culturally relevant teaching and classroom
practices (Canestrari & Marlowe, 2004; Hehir, 2005; hooks, 1994; Woolfolk
& Hoy, 2006; Parker, Deyhle, & Villenas, 1999; Shapiro, 1999; Spring, 2006;
Tatum, 1997), children of color with and without disabilities are still being
underserved in schools. In a study on African American student teachers’
perceptions on their preparedness to teach linguistically and diverse stu-
dents, Kea, Trent, and Davis (2002) found that
more participants believed they understood to the greatest extent the cul-
ture of students who were members of their racial group, had more interac-
tions with this group, felt most prepared to teach this group, and knew more
about the contributions of this group. No student teachers believed that
they were “very much prepared” (highest possible rating) by their teacher
education program (TEP) to teach any group including CLD [culturally
and linguistically diverse] students with disabilities. They acknowledged
a need for more content in the areas of human growth and development
from a cross-cultural perspective, historical knowledge about various cul-
tures, and accessing family and community resources. (p. 18)
These findings illustrate not only that the curricula and courses of teacher
education programs are failing to adequately train and prepare pre-service
teachers with regards to race and disability but also that there is a demand
to learn how to better understand students and their races and disabili-
ties in relation to their family and community. This further highlights the
failure of postsecondary educational institutions in meeting the needs of
diverse students, with and without disabilities.
Green (2005) reveals how “the effects of the overrepresentation of Af-
rican American students in special education damage not only individual
students, but families and communities as well” (p. 34). This revelation
highlights a connection between students’ educational experiences and
the family. It further emphasizes the need for more educational studies
and research like Bennett’s (1988), which involved people of color with
disabilities and the relationships between their educational and familial ex-
periences. Even more so, bearing in mind that teachers in the United States
are predominately White (Parkay, 2006; Spring, 2006), and that some of the
small number of African American pre-service teachers only feel comfort-
ably prepared to teach students from their own culture, it is no wonder that
the overrepresentation of students of color with and without disabilities at
the K–12 level is high, whereas their matriculation and retention at both
K–12 and postsecondary levels is low (Howard, 1999; What the Numbers
Say, 2005; Wortham, 2006).
Identification Development: Crises of Identifying

Crises of identifying is a phrase I developed to conceptually represent not
only apparent aspects of identity crises but also silenced aspects of identity
development. The wording of this phrase is meant to capture complex and
contentious feelings and experiences associated with identification devel-
opment. Trying to mediate and negotiate and simultaneously resist and dis-
claim negative and exclusionary constructions and stereotypes of identities
that have been socially, culturally, historically, and institutionally essential-
ized is daunting and downright exhausting. Whereas mediation involves
reconciling oneself with the existence of these constructions and stereo-
types in various contexts (i.e., space that is physical, relational, situational,
and/or abstract/spiritual), negotiation includes collaborating within one-
self on living with or through the challenges and barriers these construc-
tions and stereotypes pose (Mediation, n.d.; Negotiate, n.d.). Subsequently,
lived experiences of mediating and negotiating multiple identities instigate
conflicts or crises that result from one’s attempts to identify or develop
identification with each identity in relation to the others, particularly those
associated with disability, gender, and race. In short, identity development

is not the only thing at stake; identification development needs to be taken
into consideration as well.
The ways in which processes of negotiation and mediation instigate cri-
ses that complicate and challenge one’s identification with certain identi-
ties are often neglected by researchers and scholars. It is common for schol-
ars and researchers to assume that the development of a person’s identities
also illustrates her identification with them (Alston et al., 1996; McLaughlin
& Tierney, 1993; Pastrana, 2004; Puwar, 2004; Wortham, 2006). Having the
identity of or being identified as African American, for example, does not
provide insight into whether or how the person involved identifies with
or develops an identification with being African American. Although the
concept of crises of identifying is closely related to concepts associated with
identity development, being categorized or labeled as being or having a
certain identity versus claiming it, embracing it, and/or embodying it in-
volve very different feelings and experiences. Lizzio, Dempster, and Neu-
mann (2011) confirm that
the extent to which a person identifies with a group or organization appears

to moderate the level of their engagement and contribution. That is, feel-
ings of care or engagement with a community are a necessary precondition
for members to want to invest in it or contribute to its improvement. (p. 89)
It is at this point that the nuanced difference between crises of identities

and crises of identifying become apparent.
Theoretically, crises of identifying encompass integrated concepts as-
sociated with symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Charon, 1985; Mc-
Clelland, 2000) and identity development (Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1989;
Cross, 1995; Erikson, 1964; Marcia, 1966). According to McClelland (2000),
for interactionists, humans are pragmatic actors who continually must ad-
just their behavior to the actions of other actors. We can adjust these actions
only because we are able to interpret them, i.e., to denote them symboli-
cally and treat the actions and those who perform them as symbolic ob-
jects . . . .The process is further aided by our ability to think about and to
react to our own actions and even our selves as symbolic objects. (p. 1)
It is evident from this quote that concepts pertaining to symbolic interac-

tionism attempt to account for meanings and (re)constructions that are
produced through complex social interpersonal as well as intrapersonal
experiences and interactions. Although interactionists do not associate
symbolic interactionism with identification development, I argue that there
is a direct connection between the two. Symbolic interactionism is not sim-

ply concerned with “what is happening between people but also what is
happening within the individual . . . .We act according to the way we define
the situation we are in,” whether it is positive or negative; “and while that
definition may be influenced by others we interact with, it is also a result of
our own definition” (Charon, 1985, p. 23). Thus, interactionists recognize
individuals as active participants in the way they identify with or participate
in various situations, even as they are being reconstructed and redefined
by these situations. Yet, interactionists do not provide a critical analysis of
dynamics that impact certain interactions or contexts, particularly those as-
sociated with power, privilege, and essentialist discourses. These dynamics
or discourses represent institutionalized ways of thinking or resisting that
form a social boundary that defines what can be said about specific experi-
ences, interactions, contexts, identities, and so on (Discourse, n.d.).
Theories and models concerning identity development have evolved
from universally characterizing people to recognizing the roles social and
cultural factors related to dimensions of gender, disability, race, class,
and so forth, play in developing identities (Atkinson et al., 1989; Charl-
ton, 1998; Cross, 1995; Erikson, 1964; Lee & Wicker, 2006; Puwar, 2004;
Thomas, 1999; Torres et al., 2003; Weigert & Gecas, 2005). In the midst of
this evolution, Marcia (1966) highlighted the impact of crises on identity
development. Building on Erikson’s (1968) model of identity development,
Marcia “explored the development of identity along two dimensions; (1)
awareness of an identity crisis that must be explored and resolved, and (2)
making a commitment to the identity after a period of exploring various
ways of being” (as cited in Torres et al., 2003, p. 11). Marcia distinguished
between identity as a means of grouping or categorizing people and iden-
tity as a means of being. This distinction acknowledges a difference between
identity development and identification development by recognizing that
processes through which a person “make[s] a commitment” to an identity
are separate from processes through which a person develops an identity.
It is the processes of negotiation and mediation through which a person
forms and/or fails to form a commitment to her identities that characterize
crises of identifying.
Personified Leadership
Crises of identifying could also serve as catalysts that propel the renegotia-
tion and remediation of lived experiences so that acts of negotiating and
mediating really reflect complex, contentious, decisive, but continuous
processes of living, being, becoming, and/or existing. As a result, I argue
for crisis of identifying as potential catalysts for leadership. My argument

includes a reconceptualization of leadership as subjective and intercontex-
tual—a personification of one’s strength and perseverance—rather than
just an acquired skill, trait, or disposition that is only available to a talented
few. Most research and scholarship in the educational leadership field tend
to focus on leadership as qualities to be trained and nurtured in teachers
and administrators for the benefit of others. More recently, there has been
an increase in research and scholarship regarding socially just or socially
inclusive leadership in educational contexts (i.e., Angus, 2006; Bockern,
2011; Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakorho, 2004; Howard, 2005; Muijs et al.,
2010; Zembylas & Iasonos, 2010). This approach to leadership “sees schools
as contested sites of social, political and cultural differences” (Zembylas &
Iasonos, 2010, p. 165).
However, although the idea of leadership has been broadened and re-
defined to be more inclusive and aware of social and cultural discourses
and dynamics that are often perpetuated and reiterated in educational
contexts, leadership is still mainly understood and judged in relation to
its impact on others. Yet, this conceptualization of leadership is inherently
exclusive because it situates leadership qualities externally and does not
account for leadership qualities that are exhibited internally. For instance,
Howard (2005) defines leadership as “the process of communication (ver-
bal & non-verbal) that involves coaching, motivating/inspiring, directing/
guiding, and supporting/counseling others” (p. 385). Regardless of how
it is defined or understood, I argue that leadership is basically the negotia-
tion and mediation of challenges, conflicts, responsibilities, and discourses
associated with various roles, identities, and contexts. It is a leadership that
is defined by epistemological and ontological development and qualities.
It would seem that one’s capacity to effectively negotiate and mediate
his internal or personal challenges and conflicts is just as important as his
ability to negotiate and mediate the challenges and conflicts of others and
vice versa. According to Bockern (2011), a competent leader possesses both
personal competence and social competence, which involve the manage-
ment of one’s self-awareness and emotions and the management of rela-
tionships and others’ emotions, respectively. At this point, leadership be-
comes more than about leading others through challenges and conflicts;
it is also about leading oneself through one’s own challenges and conflicts.
Even research and scholarship regarding youth or student leader-
ship tend to highlight civic engagement, academic achievement, athletic
aptitude, and/or character and self-esteem development (i.e., Davidson,
Schwartz, & Noam, 2008; Lizzio et al., 2011; Matsudaira & Jefferson, 2006;
White, 2004). In other words, “there is an understanding of adolescent
leadership as training activity or process driven” (White, 2004, p. 66). Never-

theless, both of the aforementioned conceptualizations of leadership ex-
cludes the vast majority of students (and teachers and administrators) who
exhibit leadership simply through their epistemes and ontologies, which
are reflected in their continuous (re)negotiation and (re)mediation highly
complex, often contentious, and very challenging social and cultural con-
structions and discourses that inform and exist in various contexts within
and outside of schools. Considering that suicide is the third-leading cause
of death for 15 to 24 year-olds and that boys die by suicide about four times
as often girls (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009), there is
something to be said for people who not only survive adolescence, but who
become social change agents, practitioners, and/or mentors.
The Role of Familial and Educational Contexts:

An Overview
The family plays a significant role in the development and construction
of children’s identities. The familial includes individuals and situations of
immediate and extended kinship that influence the way cultural identi-
ties are constituted and how one develops connections that are involved
in informing, reconstructing, and redefining the negotiation and media-
tion of meanings and experiences. Particularly within the African American
family, the “familial gaze” (Hirsch, 1999), or family’s social and cultural
construction of its members, becomes discursively multilayered as well as
multifaceted. Not only are African Americans with disabilities negotiating
and mediating hegemonic discourses that prematurely make them visible
and/or invisible, but they also have to filter, remediate, redefine, and re-
construct hegemonic discourses concerning their Blackness, manhood or
womanhood, and disability that are prevalent in various contexts in order
to negotiate and mediate their lived experiences of these identities, which
include meanings about themselves as well as their experiences, within and
between these various contexts.
Alonzo et al. (2006) reveal that
interacting with families who have children with disabilities can teach school
leaders invaluable lessons, and the nature of such interaction plays a key
role in the quality and depth of the learning that takes place . . . .The inclu-
sion of disability narratives in school leadership training is, at the same time,
a diversity issue and a social justice issue. As a diversity issue, the inclusion of
disability narratives and experiences contributes to the meaning-making of
leaders. As school leaders (present and future) interact with people with dis-
abilities, schema and pre-conceived notions about disability transform into

understanding and action. (p. 135)
As constituents of prevalent social and cultural discourses, schools, includ-

ing teachers and administrators, compound and further reconstruct and re-
define students’ lives. This influence on students’ lives exacerbates conflicts
that students are already dealing with, leading to feelings and experiences of
visibility as well as invisibility. Mutua (2001) confirms that “the role of iden-
tifying and labeling children has positioned the school [particularly teach-
ers] as a gatekeeping agency that dispenses identities of disability” (p. 291).
Subsequently, students’ educational experiences are not neutral or apolitical.
Not only do students have to deal with typical experiences associated with
school, like peer pressure and academic achievement, but they also have to
contend with how their school redefines and reauthorizes meanings about
their existence.
Considering the fact that most teachers are White and female and
the increasingly browning of the student population (Parkay, 2006; Spring,
2006), there already exists a contentious and conspicuous disconnect be-
tween teachers and their students within educational contexts in regards
to race and power and privilege dynamics that are exacerbated by crises of
identifying (Howard, 1999; What the Numbers Say, 2005; Wortham, 2006).
In addition, conflicts, tensions, and/or crises within educational contexts
become more complex when they intersect with conflicts, tensions, and/or
crises associated with familial and other social contexts. For instance, spe-
cial education is not just a label or space where people with disabilities are
placed. It is an experience that is constructed and informed by a label that
identifies students with disabilities as other, both by the label itself and by
their removal or exclusion from regular education. At this point, the spaces
by which schools provide a social and cultural education deviate from (and
often conflict with) the academic education they seek to provide. Puwar
(2004) clarifies that
even the most historically protected spaces can’t be contained. They remain
dynamic and open to other possibilities. Space is not a fixed entity . . . .The
homogenization of space is thus contradictory, as space carries properties
which are simultaneously open to transformation, just as much as they are
sedimented. (pp. 1–2)
Like space, identities and contexts are experienced fluidly and mutually, as
well as discrepantly and contentiously.
Although there is research regarding the significance of African Ameri-

can families in developing and constructing children’s identities (Freeman,
2005; Johnson, 2005; Muhammad, 2007; Zuniga, 2004), often its positive
influence is not emphasized or acknowledged, especially in relation to
schooling (Freeman, 2005). However, Freeman’s research reveals that cul-
tural and environmental elements associated with the family, not academic
success or achievement, mostly determined African American students’ col-
lege choices. Apparently,
there are roles played by the extended family in addition to the school that
are mediated by community culture. Therefore, two young African Amer-
ican students with similar abilities, familial, and school backgrounds can
come to the college participation decision differently based on the commu-
nity’s [or family’s] perception of the value-added nature of postsecondary
education. (Freeman, 2005, p. 186)
Through research and scholarship like Freeman’s (2005), the significance

of intersections involving family and schools and their impact on the edu-
cational experiences of students is obvious.
Doing and Writing Disability Studies Research

Because scholarship and research associated with disability studies should
be informed and constructed by the lived experiences of people with dis-
abilities (Charlton, 1998; Thomas, 1999; Titchkosky, 2003), qualitative re-
search provides an avenue through which these experiences are explored
and examined. According to Creswell (1998),
qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding based on dis-

tinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human
problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words,
reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural
setting. (p. 15)
Rossman and Rallis (2003) extended the definition of qualitative to include

“two unique features: (a) the researcher is the means through which the
study is conducted, and (b) the purpose is to learn about some facet of
the social world” (p. 5). It is apparent from the previous definitions that
in qualitative research the researcher plays an integral role in determining
how the research is conducted, what the purpose of the research is, who the
participants are, and when and where the research is conducted.
However, because qualitative researchers take an active role in plan-

ning, developing, and implementing their research, conducting qualitative
research becomes a subjective as well as contextual experience (Bullough &
Gitlin, 1995; Lather & Smithies, 1997; Richardson, 1990; Rossman, & Rallis,
2003). In other words, the researchers are situated within their research,
inasmuch as the research is situated by them. But doing qualitative research
is not just limited to its plan, development, and implementation; it also in-
cludes the writing of research (Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Richardson, 1990;
Wolcott, 2001). For instance, Richardson stated that
we choose how we write, and the choices we make do make a difference to

ourselves, to social science, and to the people we write about. . . . Writing is
not simply a true representation of an objective reality, out there, waiting to
be seen. Instead, through literary and rhetorical structures, writing creates a
particular view of reality. (p. 9)
In other words, writing qualitative research repositions the researcher

from the “natural setting” of doing research to a setting in which she or he
writes. The researcher is just as instrumental in the planning, development,
and implementation of the writing of the research as he or she is in doing
it (Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Richardson, 1990; Wolcott, 2001).
Within the context of special education, Mertens and McLaughlin
(2004) revealed that “in special education, the subjects are unique with
diversity across categories of disabilities, as well as within them. . . . Quali-
tative studies tend to provide more detail about the uniqueness of the
students’ disabling conditions than do quantitative studies” (p. 98). This
quote highlights how qualitative research allows researchers to access nu-
ances concerning students’ with disabilities that otherwise would have been
overlooked or ignored. In disability studies research,
the experience of disability is mixed in with the experience of living with im-
pairment effects . . . together with the consequences of living out lives which
are simultaneously gendered, “raced,” sexed, aged, and so forth. ‘Lived ex-
perience’ is thus rich and multi-dimensional, where already complex fea-
tures of impairment effects and disability meld together with other facets of
our social identities. (Thomas, 1999, pp. 48–49)
So although, doing research in special education and disability studies re-

search may play out differently, both disciplines are foregrounded by a po-
sition of analysis that signifies and legitimizes the lives and experiences of
people with disabilities. In particular reference to the influence of qualita-
tive research on knowledges and practices concerning special education,
educators, families, caregivers, and paraprofessionals, Brantlinger, Jimenez,

Klingner, Pugach, and Richardson (2005) revealed that
descriptive information from qualitative studies leads to an understanding

of individuals with disabilities, their families, and those who work with them.
Qualitative studies explore attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of a number of
parties involved in special education as well as the general public, and exam-
ine personal reactions to special education contexts and teaching strategies.
Descriptions about settings conducive to productive learning outcomes or
life circumstances also are of value. Qualitative designs can trace and docu-
ment certain teaching and learning effects. They can explore the nature
and extent to which a practice has a constructive impact on individuals with
disabilities, their families, or on settings where they tend to work, reside, or
be educated. (p. 196)
However, there are critiques of research associated with special educa-

tion due to the manner in which practices and findings in this field are
being “scientifically validated” or essentialized in a way that disregards the
diversity of individuals, educators, families, and contexts, as well as the im-
pact of power and privilege. Therefore, several scholars and researchers
(Barnartt & Altman, 2001; Danforth, 1999, 2006; Lloyd, 2002; Mathiowetz,
2001; Odom et al., 2005) have emphasized the necessity of utilizing mul-
tiple research methodologies within the field of special education so that
practices and findings, which include the lived experiences of people with
disabilities, are not being essentialized or misinformed by a prevailing or a
limited number of methodologies and/or scientific methods. According to
Odom et al.,
special education research, because of its complexity, may be the hardest

of the hardest-to-do science. One feature of special education research that
makes it more complex is the variability of the participants. . . . A second
dimension of complexity is the educational context. Special education ex-
tends beyond the traditional conceptualization of “schooling” for typical
students. Certainly many students with disabilities attend general education
classes. However, the continuum of special education contexts is broader
than general education. . . . Complexity in special education has several im-
plications for research. Researchers cannot just address a simple question
about whether a practice in special education is effective; they must specify
clearly for whom the practice is effective and in what context. (p. 139)
Subsequently, Danforth’s (2006) assertion that a “longstanding and often

passionate search for a clear epistemological foundation for special educa-
tion research is neither practical nor necessary to the ongoing develop-
ment of knowledge and practice” (p. 337) is an accurate acknowledgment
of the complexity and the influence of essentialist discourses on practices

and knowledges pertaining to special education.
Each person in this research was situated as a case study or, more ap-
propriately, as a case story. According to Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996), a case
study research methodology encompassed an “in-depth study of instances
of a phenomenon [e.g., persons, experiences, contexts, and discourses] in
its natural context and from the perspective of the participants involved in
the phenomenon” (p. 754). However, because this study involves various
sites and includes the stories of several individuals, it is comprised of mul-
tiple case studies that instead characterize a collective case study research
methodology (Brantlinger et al., 2005; Creswell, 1998). However, in order
to capitalize on both mine and the participants’ experiences within a col-
lective case study methodology, I referred to the autoethnography method-
ological framework.
Autoethnography is one of the terms that have been used to charac-
terize these processes of mediation and negotiation. According to Glesne
(2005),
the term autoethnography is used in a variety of ways: to describe narra-

tives of a culture or ethnic group produced my members of that culture or
ethnic group; to describe ethnographies of the “other,” but one where the
writer interjects personal experience into the text as in the confessional tale;
and, more akin to autobiography to investigate self within a social context,
whether it be your own or that of another culture. (p. 199)
Like the collective case study research methodology, autoethnography is

closely related to the Black feminism (Collins, 1998a, 1998b; hooks, 1991,
1994; Lorde, 1982; Moya, 2001; Puwar, 2004) and critical disability stud-
ies (Charlton, 1998; Davis, 1997; Erevelles, 2000, 2002; Garland-Thomson,
1997) conceptual frameworks in that it positions both the researcher and
participants individually as well as intersectionally as outsider within (e.g.,
social and cultural) and outsider-within (e.g., contextual and situational).
Occupying positions as a researcher as well as an African American with a
disability situate me just as much as a participant in this research study. In
short, I am both the analyzer and the source of analysis.
Consequently, employing a qualitative research methodology that
“contributes to the fields of special education and disability studies by cap-
turing involved people’s perspectives and by adding to our understanding
of discourses that shape social life in schools [and families] and society”
(Brantlinger et al., 2005, p. 202) is necessary for this study. Considering that
African Americans with disabilities and their negotiation of multiple identi-
ties concerning disability, race, and gender, as mediated by their families

and schools, is the focus of this research study, drawing from the autoeth-
nography methodological framework in order to better utilize a collective
case study research (Gall, et al., 1996) is appropriate. In other words, this
is a case study research that is highly informed by and heavily incorporated
with “autoethnographic sensibilities.” Furthermore, this interdisciplinary
methodological framework involves a critical Black feminist/disability stud-
ies conceptual framework which allows for a qualitative analysis of crises of
identifying in relation to the influence of essentialist discourses and power
and privilege dynamics on negotiating and mediating intersectional identi-
ties and contexts.
Research for Us With Us

In Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Educator Activists, 1880–1960, Crocco,
Munro, and Weiler (1999) stated that
what is of interest in looking at the history of education from a gendered

perspective is the degree to which gaining an education and building a
career in education served as leverage for some women to live their lives
as agents of change—change for themselves as workers and citizens, for
students and professionals in schools and universities, and for society at
large. (p. 1)
This quote can also be expanded to include the significance of looking at

the lived experiences of African Americans with disabilities and the degree
to which their crises of identifying, within and between the familial and ed-
ucational contexts, have influenced their personal and professional paths
and enabled them to serve as agents of change.
Scholarship and research concerning the politics of disability identity
and disability culture have sharply increased in recent years. Like sexual-
ity and age, the term disability has begun to take its place alongside the
trinity of race, class, and gender in the lists of the most common modes of
oppression in human communities (Charlton, 1998; Linton, 1998). This
increasing social consciousness about the privileges associated with various
human abilities is, without question, a salutary development. But it has also
brought with it new analytical challenges inside and outside of the field of
disability studies.
The degree to which the term disability represents or fails to represent
the experiences of certain people invokes just as much controversy and
debate inside the field of disability studies as it does outside of it (Linton,

1998; Thomas, 1999). According to Bérubé (1998),
‘disability’ is the most labile and pliable of categories: it names thousands

of human conditions and varieties of impairment, from the slight to the se-
vere, from imperceptible physical incapacity to inexplicable developmental
delay. It is a category whose constituency is contingency itself. Any of us who
identify as ‘nondisabled’ must know that our self-designation is inevitably
temporary, and that a car crash, a virus . . . could change our status in ways
over which we have no control whatsoever. If it is obvious why most nondis-
abled people resist this line of thinking, it should be equally obvious why
that resistance must somehow be overcome. (pp. vii–viii)
Overcoming this resistance is particularly necessary when it comes to the

issues and concerns regarding research that has been conducted by people
without disabilities on people with disabilities (Gabel, 2005; Mathiowetz,
2001; Parsons, Baum, Johnson, & Hendershot, 2001; Tregaskis & Goodley,
2005).
Contrary to popular beliefs about the embodiment and empower-
ment associated with marginalized communities finding their voices, it is
not enough to just find one’s voice or to give voice to certain experiences.
There is an institutionalizing, standardizing, and normalizing process that
determines and rationalizes how, when, or even whether a person’s voice is
heard, listened to, and/or mainstreamed (Foucault, 1965, 1973; Goodley,
2004; Tregaskis & Goodley, 2005). This in turn influences both the content
and context of representations of people with disabilities in research with
regard to the degree to which they are understood as able to rationally or
coherently give voice to their experiences. In regard to people with cogni-
tive disabilities, Goodley (2004) reveals that
a key concern in relation to disability studies is the nature of research pro-

duction; in particular, how research can be developed in truly participa-
tory ways to meaningfully include people with learning difficulties as co-
researchers . . . .This sets up real challenges in terms of disability studies
ensuring that research has a strong commitment to inclusion and equality
in the research process. (p. 50)
Otherwise, real experiences of oppression and marginalization through

deficit representations will continue to persist in scholarship and research
that involve people with disabilities (Charlton, 1998; Mazumdar & Geis,
2001; Tregaskis & Goodley, 2005).
I posit that the idea of voice is a metaphor of resistance drawn from the
hearing world by which silences become a choice and not a consequence of
the oppression and debilitating power dynamics of the dominant group. In-
stead of voice being a reflection of one’s thoughts and feelings, the expres-
sion of voice via speech is the focus. By positioning voice synonymously with
speech or one’s ability to articulate a voice, the speech (and any obvious
impairments), and not the voice, becomes an indicator of an individual’s
rationality and personality (Charlton, 1998; Clear, 1999; Erevelles, 2002;
Gabel, 2005; Garland-Thomson, 1997; Goodley, 2004; Linton, 1998). Un-
fortunately, most research involving people with disabilities is conducted
on them instead of with them; their voices are not at the forefront of the
research—the researcher’s analysis is. According to Gabel (2005),
research agendas must be driven by the concerns defined by disabled peo-

ple. It is assumed that when this is followed, disabled people’s problems of
access and liberation are more likely to be solved; emancipation is possible
because disabled people are the ones who best know the issues and prob-
lems and can best frame the questions that guide research and the analysis
of data gathered through research. (p. 9)
After meeting and interacting with several African Americans with dis-
abilities inside and outside of academia over the course of four years, I
realized that I was not alone in experiencing crises of identifying. These in-
teractions involved conversations about our challenges and experiences of
being African Americans with disabilities. More particularly, challenges to
healthy identification development and the paucity of research on people
of color with disabilities by researchers who have disabilities became appar-
ent in our conversations. These conversations included stories about crises
we experienced regarding our race, disability, and gender within familial
and educational contexts. It was these conversations and my own experi-
ences that provided me with the background, rationale and participants for
this research. And although the background of this research was based on
a thin slice of the human experience, this study can be used to illuminate
a broader spectrum of the human experience for the betterment of every-
one. Chapter 2 examines research, scholarship, and theoretical underpin-
nings that informed this study.
2
Universalism and Intersectionalities
Introduction: Understanding Universalism

and Essentialism
The term universal stems from the concept of universalism, which, accord-
ing to Delannoi (2004), is based on the premise that humanity is a whole
consisting of similar and equal individuals. Essentialism, in the words of
Fuss (1989),
is typically defined in opposition to difference; the doctrine of essence is

viewed as precisely that which seeks to deny or annul the very radicality of dif-
ference. The opposition is a helpful one in that it reminds us that a complex
system of cultural, social, psychical, and historical differences, and not a set
of pre-existent human essences, position and constitute the subject. (p. xii)
Therefore, concepts of universalism are closely associated with concepts of

essentialism in that they both disregard various differences. “To some, essen-
tialism is nothing more than the philosophical enforcer of a liberal human-
ist idealism which seeks to locate and to contain the subject within a fixed
set of differences” (Fuss, 1989, p. xii). So, how does this relate to identity?

Fuss’s (1989) book, Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, & Difference,

has been widely circulated and cited for its presentation and discussion
of essentialism. She basically attempted to address the “essentialist/anti-
essentialist debate,” particularly within feminism, by disrupting the “essen-
tialist/constructivist binary.” In the initial paragraphs of the introduction to
her book, Fuss (1989) revealed that “essentialism is most commonly under-
stood as a belief in the real, true essence of things, the invariable and fixed
properties which define the ‘whatness’ of a given entity” (p. xi). On the
other hand, “constructionism, articulated in opposition to essentialism and
concerned with its philosophical refutation, insists that essence is itself a
historical construction” (Fuss, 1989, p. 2). Interestingly, Fuss disrupted this
binary by exposing the codependency of these theoretical concepts. Appar-
ently, because constructionism is established in opposition to essentialism,
the idea of essence and opposing it then becomes the essence or essential
function of constructionism. In addition, if essence supposedly represents
“that which is most irreducible, unchanging, and therefore constitutive of
a person or thing” (Fuss, 1989, p. xi), then essence itself is actually diverse,
not universal. Because the essence or irreducibility of things differs from
one to another, essence is no longer the truth of all things, but a contextual
element of truth of some things.
Now, back to the question I previously asked, how does this all relate
to identity? In her book, Fuss presented chapters that offer arguments and
debates concerning concepts of essence and how they constitute and are
constituted by identities associated with gender, race, and sexuality within
the classroom. Although, she extended her discussion of essentialism and
its influence on the constructions of multiple identities, she has been criti-
cized by scholars like hooks for referring to inadequate literature and being
too neutral in her discussion of essentialism and its construction of gender,
race, and sexuality. According to hooks (1994),
Fuss does not address how systems of domination already at work in the acad-
emy and the classroom silence the voices of individuals from marginalized
groups and give space only when on the basis of experience it is demanded.
She does not suggest that the very discursive practices that allow for the as-
sertion of the “authority of experience” have already been determined by a
politics of race, sex, and class domination. Fuss does not aggressively suggest
that dominant groups—men, White people, heterosexuals—perpetuate es-
sentialism . . . .And when [marginalized] groups do employ essentialism as
a way to dominate institutional settings, they are often imitating paradigms
for asserting subjectivity that are part of the controlling apparatus in struc-
tures of domination. (p. 81)
Universalism and Intersectionalities  21
This quote is particularly relevant to how people of color with disabili-

ties get reconstructed in classrooms, especially considering the overrepre-
sentation of African American males in special education (Chamberlain,
2005; Erevelles, 2000; Green, 2005; Jordan, 2005). This is an indication
of the influence of social and cultural constructions of disability within
educational contexts that have become even more marginalizing and ex-
cluding with regard to race and gender. As a result, I refer to a variety of
literature that is dedicated to issues of race, gender, and identity to inform
my examination of the influence of essentialist discourses on conceptual-
izations of “the subject.”
Essentialist Discourses and Their Impact on Identities

and Contexts
One of the most profound ironies of social and institutionalized forms of
oppression is that the most visible targets of oppression often have their
inner and bodily experiences erased or ignored by that visibility. In other
words, the visibility of difference makes people invisible as human beings
and vice versa. References to visibility and invisibility encompass moments,
situations, or contexts where essentialist discourses (which are associated
with the unique essence of a group [or identity]; Delgado & Stefancic,
2001) reiterate and perpetuate discourses of normality, ableism, and privi-
lege and power within and between people. In general, these discourses
determine the way that certain identities are conceived, perceived, and re-
ceived by dominant groups. Puwar (2004) reveals that
. . . moments of invisibility and visibility are illustrative of . . . [the] concept

of “outsider within” and “outsider-within” . . . the term outsider within to
describe the location of people who no longer belong to any one group
[or] . . . to describe individuals who found themselves in marginal loca-
tions between groups of varying power; [and] . . . the term outsider-within to
describe social locations or border spaces occupied by groups of unequal
power. Individuals gain or lose identities as “outsiders within” by their place-
ment in these social locations. Outsider-within spaces are riddled with con-
tradictions. (p. 5)
Another reason these discourses are problematic is that they colonize

or marginalize people, include or exclude certain people, and support con-
cepts of abnormality and normality as well as concepts of ableism and dis-
ablism that foreground universal naturalistic connotations of what it means
to exist. As a result, people have experiences of negotiating and mediating
multiple identities, which contribute to feelings of embodiment and disem-

bodiment (Charlton, 1998; Puwar, 2004). According to Charlton (1998),
the dominant cultures in the world produce images of normality and abnor-
mality, of beauty and ugliness, or superiority and inferiority. These images
are projected by their producers to influence opinions and preferences.
The sick/deformed body is stuck at the intersection where science and im-
age meet. (p. 62)
By focusing on African Americans with disabilities and their negotiation of

multiple identities as mediated by their families and schools, this research
particularly explores and examines their experiences of being outsider
within and outsider-within in relation to multiple identities within familial
and educational contexts. In particular, the concepts of outsider within and
outsider-within allow for this research to be done with people with disabilities
instead of on them.
Charlton (1998) states that
disability identification takes place as people begin to recognize their op-

pression. Oppression structures consciousness . . . .Whether a person relates
to or identifies himself or herself with his or her oppression as a person with
a disability, an African American, a woman, a man, a worker . . . , or a mixture
of these, flows out of the individual experience with oppression. (p. 82)
This quote offers insight into how crises of identifying or a person’s identi-
fication with multiple identities is connected to his realization, in one sense
or another, that his claim or disclaim and avowal or disavowal of his identi-
ties is influenced, among other things, by limitations and oppressions as-
sociated with essentialist discourses. People of color with disabilities have
especially been institutionally affected by essentialist discourses, in particu-
lar relation to identities like race, gender, and disability (Bennett, 1988;
Connor, 2006; Hehir, 2005; Lott, 2001). Research and scholarship often
do not consider how these multiple identities significantly influence each
other—so much so that it is difficult to really understand them in relation
to one identity without having some insight into the others. Disability, race,
and gender are not experienced separately in a vacuum. People of color
with disabilities do not have the option of choosing one or the other(s); we
have to be one and the other(s).
Alston et al. (1996) point out that
African Americans with disabilities are not able to choose and should not
have to choose between identifying with members of their racial group and
individuals who share their disability. These individuals have achieved an in-
.
tegrated identity that renders such a choice impossible. It can be suggested

that race and disability are inseparable parts of their identity. For African
Americans with disabilities, racial identity development does not occur in
a vacuum. Any exploration of racial identity occurs in the context of the
disability. Consequently, any information gathered about their identity as
an African American is filtered through the “lens” of their disability. (p. 13)
Whereas race, class, gender, and other dimensions of identity can be ex-
perienced and lived without including disability, the fact is, disability can-
not be experienced and lived without including these other dimensions of
identity. Being an African American with a disability particularly produces
very convoluted experiences that are difficult and sometimes self or life
altering. However, this particularity is by no means intended to represent
or promote a universal or essential way of being an African American with
a disability. It is only an acknowledgment of an African American with a
disability’s intersectional experiences of being an outsider within as well as
an outsider-within.
Thomas (1999) clarifies that
the term “Disability Studies” is used to refer to those academics, writers and
researchers who, in studying the disability, explicitly align themselves with
the social movement for the advancement of the social and political rights
of disabled people. (p. 8)
However, the field of disability studies has been frequently accused of be-
ing “too lily white” and/or mostly inclusive and representative of visible
disabilities, by prominent and up-and-coming culturally relevant disability
studies scholars with and without disabilities (Bell, 2005; Drazen, 2006).
With research and scholarship concerning the lived experiences of people
of color absent from the field of disability studies, the international devel-
opment of more disability studies programs and courses, and the influx
of up-and-coming culturally relevant scholars and graduates in this field,
there is a need for scholarship and research that constructs, develops, and
promotes a disability identity and disability culture that is actually inclusive
and embracive of various diversities. This need has led to a call for a second
wave of disability studies research and scholarship that particularly engages
disability within the broad context of social differences and multiple identi-
ties (Bell, 2005).
Because there is a lack of literature directly associated with the identity
development (let alone identification development) of African Americans
with disabilities (Alston et al., 1996; Castle Works, 2003; Connor, 2006; Lott,
2001) outside of medically oriented disciplines mainly associated with psy-

chology and rehabilitation, the next section of this chapter offers a brief
overview of the progression of identity development from universal con-
cepts of development to racialized concepts of development to medicalized
and racialized concepts of development. At one point, medicalized and ra-
cialized concepts of identity development intersect with universal medical-
ized concepts of the disabled body, which then inform the development of
the racialized disabled body. This overview provides insight into how the
racialized disabled body becomes essentialized through medicalized con-
cepts of both identity development and disability.
Medicalization and Racialization of Disabled Bodies:

An Overview
There is a wide variety of literature concerning identity development
(Alston et al., 1996; Lee & Wicker, 2006; Myrick, 2002; Torres et al., 2003;
Weigert & Gecas, 2005). However most of this literature has been recon-
ceptualized (Alston et al., 1996; Lee & Wicker, 2006; Torres et al., 2003).
Up until the early 1960s, literature associated with identity development
was derived mainly from research on White males. Erikson’s (1964) theo-
ries concerning identity development are usually mentioned or referred to
at the onset when examining research and scholarship related to identity
development. Erikson (1964) defined identity as “the ability to experience
one’s self as something that has continuity and sameness, and to act accord-
ingly” (p. 42). His concepts regarding identity and identity development
have been universally applied to encompass both White women and people
of color (Lee & Wicker, 2006; Weigert & Gecas, 2005).
However, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, identity development
models associated with racialized identities began to emerge. Atkinson,
Morten, and Sue (1979) were instrumental in creating a minority identity
development (MID) model that they believed spanned “the identity devel-
opment issues of many groups of individuals” (cited in Torres et al., 2003,
p. 34). This led to other reconceptualizations of traditional universal con-
cepts of identity and identity development that included social and cultural
constitutions of identities, especially those associated with race or ethnicity
(Alston et al., 1996; Atkinson et al., 1979, 1989; Connor, 2006; Cross, 1995;
Lee & Wicker, 2006; Torres et al., 2003).
Psychologist William Cross was credited as being one of the leading
pioneers in the construction of an identity development model for Afri-
can Americans. “Black American psychologists became intensely interested
in attempting to observe, map, and label the identity transformation that
accompanied a person’s involvement in the Black power movement from

1968–1975” (Torres et al., 2003, p. 41). Nevertheless, it was clearly under-
stood by them that “Black identity varies widely, and no uniform or unilat-
eral of thoughts and orientations exist among African Americans” (Torres
et al., 2003, p. 41). According to Alston et al. (1996),
literature on racial identity began appearing in the early 1970s and concen-
trated almost exclusively in counseling psychology and psychotherapy jour-
nals. It was hoped that if practitioners could understand the process by which
the Black client “becomes” Black, they would be more sensitive to the racial
issues confronting the client in therapy. Numerous researchers explored and
continue to explore this concept from several perspectives. (p. 12)
In other words, early identity development models involving racialized

identities were utilized mostly by psychological scientific disciplines in or-
der to better understand Black patients. This resulted in the medicalization
of racial identity development models, which promoted and contributed to
medicalized objective scholarship and research concerning the development
(or inferior development) of African Americans (Foucault, 1977). Unfor-
tunately, initial reconstructions of racial identity development models by
psychological medical models and discourses contributed to scientific
scholarship and research that universalized and reiterated race as inferior,
something that needed to be civilized (Foucault, 1973, 1977). “Black bod-
ies in professions that pertain to the universal, the general, and the truth
are, unlike White bodies, perceived to be representatives of their race” (Pu-
war, 2004, p. 64).
Although disability is defined and constructed in many ways, it has tra-
ditionally been defined and constructed by the medical model, or medical
experts or scientists, who utilized medical terms and diagnoses that mainly
portrayed people with disabilities as problems that needed to be fixed, hid-
den, and/or aborted (Charlton, 1998; Clear, 1999; Davis, 1997; Linton,
1998; Thomas, 1999; Titchkosky, 2003). The medical model is responsible
for the essentialization of disability in at least two ways. One way it essential-
izes disability is by refusing to acknowledge differences between disabilities
and their various influences on the lived experiences of the people with
disabilities. Bérubé (1998) confirms that disability encompasses various
human conditions and numerous impairments. Another way the medical
model essentializes disability is by reconstructing the lived experiences of
people with disabilities in relation to symptoms associated with having a
disability. This disregards the diverse ontologies, voices, and epistemolo-
gies of people with disabilities. Titchkosky (2003) verifies how “everything
disabled people say and do, from political action to putting on make-up,
from writing books to dropping out of school, has been read as symptom.
Under the hegemonic control of the medical model, disabled persons are
deciphered not understood” (p. 162). Even Kirby (2004) asserts that the
medical model normalizes species-typical functioning, which “tends to con-
ceal the contingent nature of human functioning” (p. 231). In particular
reference to the essentialization of disability, he reveals that “essentialism
about disability is the view that categories of disability and ability refer to
‘natural human kinds’” (Kirby, 2004, p. 236). According to Thomas (1999),
in the way it has been conceived, organized, and conducted, as well in the
nature and use of results, traditional disability research in medicine, reha-
bilitation, psychology, sociology and social policy has been carried out by
representatives of professional groups with little or no consultation with,
or involvement of, disabled people themselves. The consequence of much
of this research, it is argued, is not just to alienate disabled people but to
positively reinforce disablism in society. (p. 152)
The Disability Rights Movement of the 1960s has been instrumental in

exposing the ostracism, degradation, discrimination, and/or oppression
prevalent in medical and social constructions of disability. In Nothing About
Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Employment, Charlton (1998) states that
historically, disability has been considered a priori a medical condition and

people with disabilities, sick. This has nothing to do with disease per se but
with a medical category. If people with disabilities are first a category of
medicine, then by definition we are intrinsically ill, with infirm bodies and
minds. People with disabilities are often set apart and identified by their
“bodies” and their appearance. The fusion of science [e.g., medicalization]
and body [image] is a powerful constraint. (p. 56)
Whereas racial identity development models have been scientifically re-

constructed to highlight the inferiority of the racialized body, disability has
been constructed to highlight the abnormality of the disabled body (Charl-
ton, 1998; Thomas, 1999). This visibility and then subsequent invisibility of
racialized abnormal disabled bodies demonstrates how medical discourses
have particularly contributed to crises of identifying or issues regarding
identification development with identities associated with race and disabil-
ity (Foucault, 1977).
As the body of literature concerning African Americans with disabilities
expanded from psychological and rehabilitative disciplines into family and
child development disciplines and educational fields, it began to play a cru-
cial role in not only informing familial and individual practices, but also in
determining educational policies, curricula, and practices concerning their

education (Carter, 2002; Myrick, 2002; Sinclair et al., 2005). For instance, in
relation to family and child development practices, Trainor’s (2005) study
on the effectiveness of the self-determining practices (e.g., setting goals,
making choices, self-assessment) of diverse students with learning disabili-
ties on their transition process from high school to college found that
students identified themselves and family members—rather than teachers—

as key players in transition planning. Students perceived that self-determina-
tion efforts were thwarted in school contexts, whereas self-determination op-
portunities in home contexts were more accessible and productive. (p. 233)
In addition, Zang’s (2005) study on parenting practices in facilitating self-

determination efforts in students revealed a connection between “socioeco-
nomic status and self-determination-related parenting practices” (p. 160).
However, in regards to the schooling of students with disabilities, particu-
larly those of color, Charlton (1998) revealed that
Special Education, like so many other reforms won by the [Disability Rights
Movement], has been transformed from a way to increase the probabili-
ty that students with disabilities will get some kind of an education into a
badge of inferiority and a rule-bound, bureaucratic process of separating
and then warehousing millions of young people that the dominant culture
has no need for. While this process is uneven, with a minority benefiting
from true inclusionary practices, the overarching influences of race and
class preclude any significant and meaningful equalization of educational
opportunities. (p. 33)
Because most early medical scientific research and scholarship on Afri-

can Americans with disabilities have focused on either their inferior racial
bodies and/or abnormal, disabled bodies (Alston & Bell, 1996; Alston et
al., 1996; Foucault, 1973), there is little current research and scholarship
with them concerning their identity development, identification develop-
ment, or lived experiences of navigating multiple identities (Caputo, 2005;
Castle Works, 2003). For instance, Connor (2006) states,
the problem of overrepresentation of students of color within special educa-

tion classrooms persists, maintaining levels of segregation based on disabil-
ity and/or race within widespread schooling practices. The voices of such
students and how they understand their position in the education system
are noticeably absent from traditional scholarship. (p. 154)
Recognizing the underdevelopment of research and scholarship associated

with the identification development of African Americans with their race
and disability, Alston et al. (1996) attempt to examine and bring awareness
to this neglect within as well as outside of psychological and rehabilitative
disciplines. They indicate that attention needs to be given to not just exam-
ining students’ experiences in schools but also to helping them negotiate
and mediate their struggles and challenges in educational setting by allow-
ing them to find voice and/or give voice to these struggles and challenges.
It at this point that validating, supporting, and maintaining students’ lead-
ership in relation to their continuous negotiation and mediation of conten-
tious and capricious epistemes and ontologies becomes significant. In their
conclusion, Alston et al. (1996) suggest that
studies are needed which attempt to define more clearly the strength of
association between psychosocial adjustment to disability . . . and racial iden-
tity attitudes among African Americans . . . .In addition, investigations are
recommended which measure African American clients’ perceptions of the
relative influence between disability membership and minority membership
on self-concept and psychological functioning. (p. 13)
Alston et al.’s (1996; Alston & Bell, 1996) suggestion confirms that this book
and its research would be significant in contributing to literature concern-
ing the lived of experiences of African American with disabilities. Even
more so, unlike Alston et al.’s (1996), this research includes a study of both
African American females and males with disabilities, which could provide
insight into intersectionalities involving gender, disability, and race as well
as the influences of gender dynamics on the identification development of
African Americans with disabilities. Wendell (1996) recognizes
that having a disability usually gives a person experiences of a world differ-

ent from that of people without disabilities, and that being a woman with a
disability usually gives a person different experiences from those of people
who are not female and disabled, and these different experiences create the
possibility of different perspectives which have epistemic advantages with
respect to certain issues . . . collectively, we [women with disabilities] have
accumulated a significant body knowledge . . . and [this] knowledge, which
has been ignored and repressed in non-disabled culture, should be further
developed and articulated. (p. 73)
Due to the impact of essentialist discourses on the construction of gen-

der, race, and disability as well as the prevalence of power and privilege
dynamics in contexts, people often experience these identities intersection-
ally but differently within various contexts whether in shifting hierarchies
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Perhaps you are older than some of your school-fellows,
and the little ones gather round you and say "Tell us a
story!"
Don't they love stories? And don't you love stories?
So did the people to whom our Lord spoke. He often put

a word-picture before their eyes, and it sank into their
hearts, and they remembered it ever after.
I am going to tell you about one of these Parables which

our Lord told to the listening multitudes.
This one was about "The Kingdom of Heaven." This is

the word picture which he put before their eyes.
He said that the Kingdom of Heaven was like a man who

had a field, and who sowed it with good seed.
But at night, under cover of the darkness, while men

were asleep, there came an enemy into this field.
He carried a basket in his hands, and as he went up and

down the field, he looked stealthily round him to make sure
that no one was aware of his presence. And then he took
handful after handful of seed from his basket and scattered
it all over the field. Then he crept away in the darkness.
SOWING THE TARES.
Why did he do it, do you think?
It was because he hated the owner of the field, and

wished to destroy his beautiful harvest.
By and by the seeds began to grow, and the little blades

came up green all over the field. Then the servants of the
master of the field, looking closely at the crop, saw that
some of the blades were of good wheat, but some looked
like tares, which were of no use to anyone and only injured
the wheat. So they hastened to the owner of the field, and
they said, "Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field; how
have the tares got there?"
And the owner said, "An enemy has done this."
Then the servants asked if they might root up the tares

at once.
I have read that when the little plants are young, the
blades of the wheat and the blades of the tares are so much
alike that it is difficult to tell them apart.
So the master of the field answered, "No; you had

better not try to pull up the tares, lest you should pull up
the wheat with them. Let them both grow together until the
harvest; and in time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
'Gather together the tares first, and bind them in bundles to
burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
* * * * *
This is a story, as I said, of "The Kingdom of Heaven."

And it is important to all of us, because we all live in that
Kingdom. Our hearts ought to be God's throne here, we
ought to be growing up as His Good Seed, to be gathered
into His eternal Home when the Harvest comes!
You may not always live in England—you may go to

Canada, or Australia, or France, or Germany!
But in this Kingdom of Heaven you may always abide,

till the Harvest-day comes; and happy for you if you do!
God's Kingdom is a place where His Good Seed grows.

Perhaps your Mother or your Teacher tells you of Jesus
our Saviour, and of His love, and you long to be able to
serve Him. You would like to be kind and loving to those
round you; you are sorry when you do wrong, you are
happy when you do right. That is the Good Seed taking root
and growing in your heart!
But at other times you feel differently.
You are not so happy; you do not wish to do good

things so much; you even find yourself wanting to do wrong
things! You find it hard to be loving; you want so much to
do something you have been forbidden to do; you are sure
no one will see you if you do wrong, and you say to
yourself, "After all, it is such a little thing," or "It is only this
once!"
Ah! Those are the tares sown in your heart!
"How did they get there?" the servants asked the

Master.
And He answered, "An enemy has done this."
Satan is our enemy. It is true we cannot see him, but

he is near us all the same.
Like the enemy in the Parable, he creeps out when men

are asleep—when you are off your guard—when you have
forgotten to watch and to pray; and it is he who whispers to
you that:
"No one will see."
"That it is such a little thing."
"That it is so hard to obey!"

Ah! What must the little Christian boy do when he finds
tares in the field of his heart? What must the little Christian
girl do when she finds tares in God's Kingdom in her heart?
I think the best thing to do is to look up to Jesus

instantly, and ask Him to conquer the great enemy for you.
Say the Holy name Jesus softly to yourself, or out loud if
you are alone, Satan, our great enemy, will run away, you
will surely find.
He was named JESUS (which means Victory).
"For He shall save His people from their sins."
XXVIII. The Prodigal Son
There was a man who had two sons. He loved them

both very much, and did everything he could to make them
happy.
But the younger son was restless, and got tired of being
quietly at home. He had heard something about the world
outside, and he thought it must be a very fine place by all
accounts.
So one day he asked his father to divide what he had to

leave to him and his brother, so that he might do as he liked
with his share of it.
Not many days after, the younger son took his journey
into a far country, and as he had no one there to guide him,
and as he did not heed the advice of his dear father, he
began to waste his money and get into evil ways.
Very soon he had spent all his father had given him,
and had nothing left in his purse.
Up to this time he had thought he could do very well

without his father, but now he began to be in want. It was
so hard to be hungry, to find his clothes get ragged, and for
his companions to forsake him. And it made him sad and
afraid when he remembered that he had no house to sleep
in, and no friends near.
By and by a farmer took pity on him, and hired him to

go and feed his pigs; and he was so hungry that he could
almost have eaten the pigs' food. But no one gave him
anything.
At last as he sat dejectedly watching the pigs, he came

to himself! He began to remember his dear home and his
father's love. He no longer prided himself on what he could
do, and what he could buy. He saw his behaviour in its true
light. He told himself that he had been very naughty and
very disobedient, and he began to be sorry.
And when he came to himself he said, "How many of

my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare,
and I, his son, am dying of hunger! I will arise and go to my
father, and tell him I have sinned, and ask him to make me
one of his servants."
So he got up to go to his father.
His father had been very sad all the time his boy had
been away. His heart had ached terribly, though his son had
never thought of that.
Every day he looked out for his lost one, and watched
for him along the roads and over the mountains till it grew
too dark to see.
But one day, when the son was yet a great way off, his
father saw him coming! Then the dear father ran to meet
him, and fell on his neck and kissed him.
And the son said, "Father, I have sinned before Heaven

and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son—"
But he could not get any further than that in what he

meant to say! For his father's arms were round him, and his
father's voice was saying in the old familiar tones, "Bring
hither the best robe, and put it on him! And put a ring on
his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring here the fatted
calf and let us make a feast; for this my son was dead, and
is alive again; he was lost, and is found!"
Children, we have here a picture of the way our loving

Heavenly Father welcomes back those who have wandered
from Him.
His heart is full of love; He grieves that we want to take

our own way, and go far-off from Him.
But if we are sorry, and come back to His loving arms,

we shall find that they will open to receive us; He will put
the best robe upon us, and He will prepare a feast for us;
and there shall be joy in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner repenting!
Do you want to know what the "best robe" means?

It is the Robe of Christ's righteousness. For Christ's
sake, who has shed His precious blood to make us clean
and white, we can be dressed in that perfect robe; and then
we shall be fit to join in the feast and the rejoicings, which
are coming by and by in heaven.
XXIX. The Pharisee and the Publican
Two men were wending their way towards God's Temple

at Jerusalem, a Pharisee and a Publican.
There, on a hill, stood the beautiful building with its

white marble pillars glistening in the sun; and as they
walked along the hot roads towards God's House, their
thoughts were very different.
They knew that God's Holy Presence was in that Temple

to which they were going, and one of them thought with
awe that he would soon be in the place where he would
meet with God.
The other man was thinking entirely about himself, and

nothing at all about God.
So they ascended the many steps leading up into the

Temple, and at last stood within the Sacred House.
* * * * *
And then the Pharisee thought of how he understood all
about God's law, and how he did not need anyone to teach
him what was written in the Scriptures.
But he did not know two things which would have made
him a different man—he did not know his own heart, and he
did not know God's heart.
He did not know that his own heart was full of pride and
love of self; he did not know that God's heart was full of
pity and tender love towards sinful men who came to Him
to be forgiven.
So the Pharisee began to pray. And when the Lord Jesus

told us this story about him, He said "he stood and prayed
thus with himself."
But he began his prayer like this:—
"God! I thank thee that I am not like other men! I am

not one who exacts more than I should from others; I am
not unjust or impure; or even like this Publican. I fast twice
in every week, and I give tithes of everything I have."
Then the Pharisee, having finished his prayer, went

down once more to his home.
He had not seen the vision of God! He had not come

near to Him, nor waited to receive the answer to his words.
He did not even know what he had missed!
* * * * *
And the other man who went up to pray was the

Publican.
He was a collector of the Roman taxes; and because of
the frequent cheating of these publicans, they were hated
by the Jews.
It was a calling which gave great opportunities for

dishonesty, and when some of the Jews, for the sake of
gain, engaged in it, they were despised and called traitors.
So this Publican, whom our Lord Jesus told about in this

story, was evidently a Jew, as he among other Jews "went
up into the Temple to pray."
And when he entered God's House, there stood the

Pharisee praying; but the Publican, standing afar off, not full
of his own good deeds, but feeling ashamed of his own
sinfulness, would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but
smote his breast saying:
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
* * * * *
And our Lord turned to those who were listening to Him

and said, "I tell you, this Publican went down to his house
justified, rather than the other."
Do you wonder what it is to be justified? Should we not

all like, when we have been naughty, or have done wrong,
to know that we may go down, like the Publican did to his
house, justified?
It means, I think, for a person to realise that some one

greater and richer than himself has undertaken to set him
free from his debt.
It means that we have come to God and told Him that
we are very sorry we have been naughty, and have asked
Him to have mercy upon us, and to forgive us for Jesus'
sake.
When we have done that, we may, indeed, like the

Publican, go away "justified."
Perhaps some boy gets into trouble at school, and owes

something to another boy, which he has no means of
paying.
So the boy who owes the money goes to his father. He

knows he has done wrong, but he tells his father all about
it, and asks him to help him. And the loving father sees to it
all for him, and pays the debt.
The school-fellows know nothing about this, but they

have heard about the debt, and they whisper to each other,
and jeer when the boy comes near.
But to their surprise, he raises his head now! "My father

has paid," he says, with shining eyes.
I think that is being "justified."
* * * * *
And it seems to me that that was how the Publican felt,

when he had told God he was a sinner, and had asked for
His mercy.
He went home happy, and forgiven!

GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME, A SINNER!
Here is a comforting promise for us all—
"This is a faithful saying . . . that Christ Jesus came into

the world to save sinners!"
XXX. An Uninvited Guest
One day the Lord Jesus was invited to dinner by a rich

man whose name was Simon.
Perhaps this rich man asked Jesus to dinner because he

wished to see Him do some miracle—something wonderful
which no one else could do; or he may have imagined that
people would think more of himself if he had Jesus for a
guest; at any rate, by what we read afterwards, I am afraid
Simon the Pharisee did not invite Jesus because he loved
Him.
But there was somebody present at that feast who did

love Jesus, but she was not invited.
In Eastern lands the houses are not shut up like our

houses, but because it is so warm, the dining-rooms are
often open to the air on one or two sides, or people take
their meals in the cool shady courtyards.
When a great man makes a feast, people hear of it, and

come round the house to look at what is going on.
In the city there lived a poor sinful and sorrowful

woman who had learned to love the Lord Jesus: perhaps
she had heard Him say these loving words, "Come unto Me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest."
When this sorrowful woman heard that Jesus was gone

to dinner at the Pharisee's house, she brought a little box
made of alabaster, which was filled with some very sweet-
smelling ointment, and she made her way into the open
dining-hall, and when she saw where the Lord was sitting or
reclining, as the custom was, on a sort of couch to the
table, she came up, and stood behind Him!
And as she stood there and thought of all His love and
compassion, she began to weep, and her tears fell down
over His feet as He reclined at the table.
Then she wiped His feet with her hair, and anointed
them with the sweet ointment.
But the Pharisee who had invited the Lord Jesus looked
on with anger. He thought if Jesus were a great teacher, He
would not have allowed a woman from the city to come and
wash His feet with her tears.
But Jesus knows all our hearts, and He could see that
the poor woman loved Him so much that she would go away
and try never to grieve Him any more.
By and by He turned to Simon, and told him to look at

this woman and compare her love with his.
Jesus said words something like this: "Simon, I was

tired and dusty with my journey when I came in, and you
did not give me water to bathe my feet, but she has washed
my feet with tears; you did not offer me a kiss, but this
woman has not ceased to kiss my feet; you did not anoint
my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with
precious ointment. She has loved me very much, because I
have forgiven her very much."
And turning to the woman, Jesus said to her, "Thy sins

are forgiven; . . . go in peace."
Oh, the joy of hearing Jesus say those words!

And we may have that joy too, if we come to Him with
humble loving heart, and tell Him that we are sorry.
He never turns anyone away who comes to Him; so,

dear little children, let us trust His loving heart, and though
we know we are very unworthy, do not let us stay away for
that, for Jesus longs that we may be forgiven, and so be
able to go away "in peace."
XXXI. The Barren Fig Tree
"Nothing but Leaves"
I have seen a picture of a fig tree, and I want to

describe it to you, that we may understand a little about
one of our Lord's Parables.
There are a great many Parables in the New Testament:

they are word-pictures to teach us God's great lessons.
At school your teacher has a large blackboard, and

sometimes she sketches an object, and explains it to you,
does she not?
One day she drew a cracked cup, the crack of which

grew wider under her clever fingers, and she turned round
and said to her class, "Is this cup of any use?" And there
were plenty of "No's" from all over the room; but one child
ventured "Perhaps it could be mended!"
And then the teacher gave a bright look, and she said,
"Yes, Charlie, you are right! And so are the others with their
'No's' all over the room. For unless the cup is mended, it is
of no use. The cup is a picture of our characters! If there is
a flaw in them, a crack that gets wider and wider, then the
cup is of no use, is it?"
"It might be thrown away!" ventured another child.
"Yes," said the teacher; "but, if it could be mended—as

Charlie said—then it could be used again. So what must we
do, Charlie?"
She turned her face to the little boy, and a smile came
over his features as he answered, "There's a china-mender
comes down our road every week—he could do it!"
And the teacher smiled back. Did Charlie know that he

had touched on a great truth? So she went on—
"Yes, we must 'have faith in God.' We must take our

cracked cups, and our faulty characters, to the Great
Mender, Jesus our Saviour, and ask Him to make us useful,
serviceable little Christians!"
So now, I am going to make an imaginary blackboard

and show you a branch of a fig tree!
Look at that fig growing out of the stalk; it is large, and

oblong, and plump, and it is firmly fixed to the big branch.
And then, above and below it are little sprouting leaves,

some just come out, some not yet burst from their little
buds; and soon the fruit, which is already ripe, will be
covered up by the leaves, as they grow larger and larger.
But suppose, when you lift the leaves, there is no fruit?
Then you come to the conclusion that the tree must be

a barren tree, and you turn away sorry and disappointed.
THE BARREN FIG TREE.

And this is a little word-picture of the barren fig tree,
about which our Lord gives us a Parable.
He was coming from Bethany, and it says He hungered.

Perhaps the Lord Jesus had been up all night praying to His
Father.
So, as He came near to the fig tree, He saw it was full

of leaves; but when He got close to it, He found there were
no figs under the leaves—it was barren.
And as He turned away He said, in the disciples'

hearing, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever."
Oh, how sad He was to have to say that!
And presently the fig tree withered away.
Just before this, the Lord came down the side of the
Mount of Olives, and in turning a corner of the steep path a
sight of the beautiful city of Jerusalem burst upon their
view. It says in the Gospel of Luke—
"And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and

wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at
least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes."
Jesus wept for all the sorrow that was coming on the
beloved city, and because the Jews would not have Him as
their Saviour.
This was indeed like the fig tree, which had leaves, but
no fruit.
The Jews ought to have known from their own

Scriptures of the Old Testament, which they read every
Sabbath, that on this very day it was foretold in the Book of
Nehemiah, and also in Daniel and Zechariah, that the
Messiah was to enter Jerusalem as King, meek and lowly,
and riding on an ass's colt.
They were proud of their knowledge, and of their

possession of God's Temple, and His Scriptures; but they
had not fruit under the leaves of their pride and unbelief.
They had even been plotting to kill Him. They had rejected
Him in their hearts, and in a few days' time they were going
to crucify Him!
The next day Jesus and His disciples passed by that fig
tree again, and it had begun to wither and dry up; and the
disciples said, "How soon is the fig tree withered!"
And the answer of our Lord must have astonished them.

"Have faith in God!" He said.
Now, like the teacher with the blackboard, I want to

gather up the lesson I have learned from this story—
Do not let our dear Lord, Who died for us, come and
look into our hearts and find no fruit, but only leaves!
How He must long to have us all we should be!
Do not let us be like the cracked and useless cup! But

let us go to the great Healer and Mender and Cleanser of
our poor characters, and ask Him to make us what He
would like to see us.
The only way to get "mended" and to bear fruit instead

of only leaves, is to go to Him Who died on the Cross to
save us, and to find in Him forgiveness, strength, and
peace.
XXXII. The Parable of the Talents
"What is a Talent?" perhaps some one asks.
A Talent in our Lord's time was a piece of money of

great value, of about £342, and in the story which Jesus
told the disciples, a Talent was described as something
precious which was given to the servants of a great lord, to
trade with, while he was on a long journey.
To one servant this lord gave ten Talents to trade with;

to another, five; to another, two; according to their several
ability; and to another, one.
And what do you think the servant who had only one
did with his Talent? He went away and digged in the earth,
and hid his lord's money!
Then the lord of those servants took his journey.
At length the time came for his return, and he called his
servants and reckoned with them.
The one who had traded with ten Talents brought ten
Talents more to his lord; and the man with five brought five
more; and the man with two brought two more. And the
lord was very pleased with these faithful servants, and said,
"Well done!" to each of them, and gave them great rewards.

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Crises of Identifying Negotiating and

Mediating Race Gender and Disability

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INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Mitchell, Dymaneke D., author.

Copyright © 2013 Information Age Publishing Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

Printed in the United States of America

Series Editor’s Preface.................................................................... ix

1 Negotiating and Mediating Identities and Contexts.......................... 3

2 Universalism and Intersectionalities..............................................19

3 Are You a Trekkie?..........................................................................37

4 I Don’t Like to Be Pigeonholed......................................................53

5 My Mother Was Like My Bodyguard.............................................. 65

6 I’m Not Crippled; I’m Handicapped..............................................77

7 I Don’t Want to Be Seen in Public With You...................................... 87

9 Conclusions and Recommendations............................................. 113

Crises of Identifying, pages ix–x

Armstrong, Brock University; Dr. Ira Bogotch, Florida Atlantic University;

O ne of the biggest challenges facing the educational field involves

Crises of Identifying, pages xi–xiv

determine how interactions within and between students, teachers, admin-

Book Focus and Content

Book Structure and Organization

Crises of Identifying, page xv

A ccording to Fuss (1989), “essentialism is most commonly understood

Crises of Identifying, pages 1–2

normality about my disability. These pursuits became even more complex

we have exclusive structures in our institutions because those same struc-

Crises of Identifying, pages 3–18

Scholarship and research regarding African Americans with disabilities

students who enrolled in degree-granting institutions (National Center for

However, despite this acknowledgment, the recruitment and transition of

Identification Development: Crises of Identifying

associated with disability, gender, and race. In short, identity development

the extent to which a person identifies with a group or organization appears

It is at this point that the nuanced difference between crises of identities

It is evident from this quote that concepts pertaining to symbolic interac-

is a direct connection between the two. Symbolic interactionism is not sim-

for crisis of identifying as potential catalysts for leadership. My argument

leadership as training activity or process driven” (White, 2004, p. 66). Never-

The Role of Familial and Educational Contexts:

abilities, schema and pre-conceived notions about disability transform into

As constituents of prevalent social and cultural discourses, schools, includ-

Although there is research regarding the significance of African Ameri-

Through research and scholarship like Freeman’s (2005), the significance

Doing and Writing Disability Studies Research

qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding based on dis-

Rossman and Rallis (2003) extended the definition of qualitative to include

However, because qualitative researchers take an active role in plan-

we choose how we write, and the choices we make do make a difference to