{"id":1742,"date":"2020-02-06T04:52:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T04:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/?p=1742"},"modified":"2020-02-06T04:52:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T04:52:33","slug":"megs-response-to-toni-morrisons-sula-and-chris-bells-introducing-white-disability-studies%cb%90-a-modest-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/uncategorized\/megs-response-to-toni-morrisons-sula-and-chris-bells-introducing-white-disability-studies%cb%90-a-modest-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Meg\u2019s Response to Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula and Chris Bell\u2019s \u201cIntroducing White Disability Studies\u02d0 A Modest Proposal\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In \u201cIntroducing\nWhite Disability Studies\u02d0 A Modest Proposal\u201d, Bell lays out the ways in which\nDisability Studies have, \u201ca tendency to whitewash disability history, ontology\nand phenomenology,\u201d and that they would be more aptly named\u02d0 White Disability\nStudies (Bell 275). While the entire piece was thought provoking and well\nwritten, one point stood out more than any other for me \u2013 Bell points out that\ndisability studies often focus on the disability without discussing the\nintersection of that disability and the subjects of race and ethnicity. This\npoint made me pause and re-read Sula<\/em>\nthrough a different lens. Within the community of Medallion, Ohio there are\nseveral characters who are disabled in one way or another, and each of their\nexperiences both within, and outside of, their community is further shaped by\ntheir race and ethnicity. Shadrack\u2019s treatment within the military hospital,\nand his treatment in the white town show not only the blatant racism of the\ntime, but also a disparity in the treatment of African Americans with\ndisabilities of the time, and through that disparity an entirely different\nexperience of disability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Obviously, racism is rampant in Sula, <\/em>and when reading a story of a\nsegregated mid-western American town around the first World War, this is not\nshocking.But this doesn\u2019t mean that\nwe shouldn\u2019t point out the obvious, and make it a conversation \u2013 we should heed\nBell\u2019s advice and talk about what isn\u2019t being talked about, even when it does <\/em>seem obvious. And when reading of\nShadrack\u2019s experience in a wartime hospital, it is impossible to not question\nif his race played a part in his treatment by his attending doctor. Would the\ndoctor have told a white man with the same actions \u201cNobody is going to feed you\nforever,\u201d or \u201cpick it up, I said. There\u2019s no point to this\u2026\u201d (Morrison 9)?\nWhile doctors certainly saw an unprecented number of young men experiencing\nshell-shock during World War One, and were undoubtedly at a loss for how to\nhelp them, one must wonder if there would be more preferential treatment\ntowards a white male over an African American male with the same symptoms. Would\na white man have at least been shown a mirror, or told his name or maybe some\nbasic directions home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another obvious example of a\ndifference in experience and treatment is in the vaguely named \u201cMidwestern\ntown\u201d which he comes to after leaving the hospital. As Shadrack breaks down,\neyes closed, simultaneously untying and knotting his shoelaces, no one stops to\nhelp. No one asks if he\u2019s alright. Instead the police arrive and arrest him for\n\u201cvagrancy and intoxication\u201d and lock him up in jail (Morrison 13). Had a white\nman been having the same non-violent break down while sitting on the curb, we\nhave to ask ourselves \u2013 would he have had the same experience? Likely not. The\ncharge of vagrancy has roots in the Civil War, and was aimed specifically at\nAfrican Americans who appeared to be homeless (or even sometimes just appeared\nat all) within white communities (Tarter). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Shadrack\u2019s examples represent just\none character\u2019s experiences within the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and\ndisability in Sula<\/em>, a book which is\nripe with characters who each have their own unique experiences of the same\nintersectionality. His treatment within the military hospital, and his\nexperience in the white town are evidence of the obvious racism of the time and\nplace of the story, but are also evidence of a disparity in the treatment and\nexperiences of African Americans with disabilities and their white neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional Work\nCited:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarter, Brent. \u201cVagrancy Act of 1866.\u201d Encyclopedia Virginia. <\/em>Virginia Humanities, 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 5 Feb. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word Count: 608<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cIntroducing White Disability Studies\u02d0 A Modest Proposal\u201d, Bell lays out the ways in which Disability Studies have, \u201ca tendency to whitewash disability history, ontology and phenomenology,\u201d and that they would be more aptly named\u02d0 White Disability Studies (Bell 275). While the entire piece was thought provoking and well written, one point stood out more … Continue reading “Meg\u2019s Response to Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula and Chris Bell\u2019s \u201cIntroducing White Disability Studies\u02d0 A Modest Proposal\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[109,113,114],"class_list":["post-1742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-bell","tag-sula","tag-toni-morrison"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-s6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1743,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}