Sojourner Truth, Booker Wright, and The Question of Who Controls the Narratives of Disabled Black People

Image of Sojourner Truth, an African American woman
in a white bonnet and shawl and dark gown, seated in a
chair beneath the image, the words read "I sell the shadow to
support the substance, Sojourner Truth. circa 1870,
By Randall Studio - https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.220,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77744170

I have been thinking about the conflicting, debated, censored, and sparse information about the life of Sojourner Truth.

I read the arguments in the debate about whether an illiterate disabled woman of color can have agency in what is said and written about her lived experience.

That got me to thinking about Booker Wright.

The story of Booker Wright, like the story of Sojourner Truth, has a central question: whose voice actually dictates the lived experience narratives of oppressed minorities when the very language and media used to tell such stories is completely controlled by the systems that oppress them?

Booker Wright was a Black waiter in a "white's only" restaurant in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was, in fact, the most popular waiter there. He was considered a "good Negro." He knew the hidden curriculum of Jim Crow well and his customers saw him as a "happy Negro."

It was 1965, and a documentary filmmaker for NBC was in Greenwood working on the white man's view of the Civil Rights movement. He heard that Booker Wright sang the menu, Mistral Show fashion, and he thought that an interesting oddity, so he decided to film it. When the camera rolled, the journalist got a surprise. After he was done reciting the menu, Booker realized he had a chance to speak about what life was truly like for him in the South and he did.

 That decision cost him his job, his business, his safety, and his life.

Booker Wright was a restaurant owner. His place was considered a safe space for Black families in segregated Mississippi. After his interview aired, his restaurant was destroyed. Booker Wright was pistol-whipped and hospitalized. Eventually, he was murdered.

His interview is considered the pivotal point of that documentary. It made the documentary a success for journalist Frank DeFelitta, but DeFelitta regretted publishing the interview because of the retaliation and harm Wright suffered as a result. DeFelitta claims he asked Wright whether he was certain he was okay with keeping the entire interview in the documentary. DeFelitta had a sense of what that might cost Wright, but he chose to air it anyway.

Yet, this interview was the only time Booker Wright was able to speak his truth in his own voice to the largest audience that might ever hear it. He thought of the better life he wanted for his children and their children and he did what was right knowing it would probably cost him his life.

Sojourner Truth, like Booker Wright, was trapped in the limitations of the times she lived in, despite "breaking barriers" by suing in court to gain her son's freedom, despite speaking at a women's rights convention before women had the right to vote. Everything she did, even as an emancipated woman, was informed by the limits society placed on her by keeping her enslaved, disabled by violence, illiterate, and limiting what any woman could do without a man's consent or protection.

Sojourner Truth's life story was whitewashed of any mention of sexual assault, despite historical evidence that her daughter Diana may have been the product of a rape by John Dumont. In the 136 years since Sojourner Truth's death, the systemic use of her narrative as a symbol stripped of many brutal realities of who she was have left us with yet another gap in American disability rights history. Sojourner Truth continues to exist as niche black civil rights and feminist icon, stripped of the disabilities that made her a complex, three-dimensional historical figure. To do what she did, when she did it makes the complete image of who she was something of critical historical importance. Sojourner Truth took her moment and spoke truth to power. Her example was there when Booker Wright saw his chance and made his decision to risk all and speak out.

Sojourner Truth was a radical activist. But the question of who controlled the narrative of her life experience as an emancipated activist can be answered by how strong her voice was in written versions of her speeches and the autobiographical book written on her behalf. There is a strong record of her active participation in Marius Robinson’s June 21, 1851 transcription of her speech at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 29, 1851, for The Anti-Slavery Bugle. The 'Ain't I A Woman' version done by Frances Gage appearing in the April 23, 1863 issue of the New York Independent, is considered inaccurate. There is no record of Sojourner Truth's agency or participation in rewriting this version of the speech she gave. There does seem to be evidence in notes that she was an active participant in the drafts of her life story.

Truth's ability to gain a platform to speak her truth came at a cost. The resentment of southern white suffragettes and the demands of abolitionists who realized her story could be weaponized by ensuring the language appealed to illusions of what whites expected blacks to sound like. This was done to drive their cause forward.

Despite all this, Sojourner Truth, like Booker Wright, had her moment to speak her truth. No amount of rewriting and whitewashing has erased that event. It sits indelibly in both Black and Disability justice history as a triumph of the spirit. As does Mr. Wright's decision to speak outside the lexicon of his oppressors. In this era of fear and hatred, remembering the courage of all disabled people means the difference between courage and doom.


References:

Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (Norton, 1996), p. 19, and Margaret Washington, "Sojourner Truth's America" (Illinois, 2009), 51–52

Compare the two versions of Sojourner Truth's speech at The Sojourner Truth Project's page:https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/compare-the-speeches

PBS Interview about Booker Wright Documentary co-produced by his granddaughter and directed by Raymond De Felitta, son of the journalist who produced they original the original documentary. https://youtu.be/RxwLe7HapIA

Justice for the Dietrich, Idaho Assault Victim, Neurodivergent and Black

Mr. and Mrs. McDaniel with four of their 20 adopted children
©Washington Post/Getty Images

I'm going to mention a violent rape. I will try to be as brief as possible but please don't read on if this topic will upset you. 

I learned today that I can be disgusted, angry, and horrified all at once.

The victim, 18, psychiatric disability community member, one of 20 adoptees to the McDaniel family whose parents are white and live in an area with a predominantly white school, was abused by his own football teammates over a period of months and no one in the school administration or coaching staff acted to stop it. the victim was eventually lured into a locker room by three assailants where his teammates beat him and raped him violently with a coat hanger. 

The McDaniels have an additional five children born to them. I'm not certain how they are able to manage the safety of disabled children of color in a family of 25 children. But there is something more urgent here and that is that Judge Randy Stoker handed down a sentence of 3 years probation to defendant John Howard the main perpetrator of the assault, at the behest of Prosecutor Hemmer. The prosecutor explained to the Judge that the assault was not a rape, hate crime, or any category of sexual assault, but in face a case of bullying, and let the rapist off without jail time. Of course, because Howard was allowed to plead to a charge that was not rape or a hate crime, he will not be a registered sex offender and will be free to assault other African American victims. Co-defendant Tanner Ward's charge of forcible penetration with a foreign object was reduced to a lesser charge and he is being tried as a juvenile. The court and prosecutor also decided Wards actions were not a hate crime. 

When is the disability community going to fight for justice for the Black disabled victims of ableist hate crimes? Are they not aggressively pursuing this because these victims are not white? This is a very sore point for me. I'm tired of seeing this happen time and again with victimized disabled youth of color.

Judge Stoker should be removed from the bench. I will be including links to the Change.org petitions calling for his removal at the end of this blog. Moreover, Prosecutor Hemmer, (who orchestrated the plea deals and reduction of charges, used the victim's disability as justification for why the final horrific assault should not be classified as a sexual assault or a hate crime) should be held accountable. David Perry explains this very clearly in his excellent article on the Dietrich assault in Pacific Standard which you can read here.

The victim never had a chance. He is the victim but being both disabled and Black in an all-white town with parents who cannot teach him about racism because they are white and do not experience it means he was unprepared and also emotionally violated by the judicial system, the school where he should have been safe, and the football team coaching staff who encouraged this abuse. According to the Superintendent of the schools' disclosure of the district's investigation, one teammate tried to stop the attack but was threaten with the same treatment if he interfered. No other classmates fought for him. This is what it means to be Black and disabled in America.

The question is, are there people in the wider world who believe that justice is the entitlement and human right of every citizen in every nation on this planet? Are there people who believe hate crimes are hate crimes when the victim is Black and disabled? 

If you are one of these good people,  please help me step up now and make this right. Because this is an abomination. And if this judgment stands, all disabled children could be next because disabled teens are easy targets and we are living in a time of inflated hate. 

If those families with white disabled loved ones believe that because their children aren't Black, they won't  be targeted next, they are in for a very unpleasant surprise. Once people know they can abuse disabled youth without serious repercussions they will escalate and not stop at Black disabled youth. Our children are just the first targets. They are never the last.

Speak out! Protest this verdict. Justice for the Dietrich, Idaho assault victim! Or sit silently now and wait until your loved ones are the newest targets and it is too late to fight.

My son is nonverbal. Had he been victimized in this sustained and escalated fashion, he could not have told us or defended himself. This is why I am so outraged and so horrified that months of sustained harm get a slap on the wrist. The victim of this sustained series of hate crimes will need therapy for the rest of his life. 

We must act to make this right or we have no purpose in advocacy nor can we call ourselves activists against violence to disabled youth. 

---------------------------------
Resources and Calls To Action
(with thanks to some incredible activists for research, updates, and support)

The Terrifying Story of The Dietrich, Idaho Assault Victim
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3616523/Rape-allegation-race-glare-national-media-divide-town.html

How a Prosecutor Decided That an Attack on a Disabled Black Kid Was Just Bullying
David Perry for Pacific Standard:
https://psmag.com/how-a-prosecutor-decided-that-an-attack-on-a-disabled-black-kid-was-just-bullying-51ab84a258a5#.nnt8yqcu4

School Superintendent Investigation Report of Details in the Case Heavily Redacted by School District legal counsel: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3115343-DIETRICH-MOTION-DISCLOSURE.html

John R.K. Howard was not charged with a hate for sex crime"
http://m.boiseweekly.com/boise/prosecutor-says-dietrich-high-assault-not-sex-or-race-crime-teen-pleads-guilty-to-lesser-felony/Content?oid=3948761

Co-defendant Tanner Ward not facing felony charges and case to be tried in juvenile court
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/state/idaho/article104466831.html

Attorneys for McDaniel family petitioning court for unredacted documents. Willing to allow them in the public record to expose cover-up and actions of defendants in their civil case against School district:
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/state/idaho/article104466831.html

Petitions about the McDaniel hate crimes in Dietrich, Idaho to sign and share:

Change.org Petition: IDAHO JUDICIAL COUNCIL: Remove Judge Randy Stoker from the bench for decision in John Howard rape case  https://tinyurl.com/zwc3zf

MoveOn.org Petition to DOJ: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/demand-justice-department-1?source=c.em&r_by=8228761.

For further public action:

Please direct public comment about this unfathomable injustice to:

Office of the Attorney General Lawrence Wasden
700 W. Jefferson Street
P.O. Box 83720
Boise, ID 83720-0010
Phone (208) 334-2400
Fax (208) 854-8071

Comments can also be submitted on  the official website here:

http://www.ag.idaho.gov/index.html

What else can you do?
Consider sending an email expressing your concern about the miscarriage of justice in this adjudication of this case. You can do so here:
https://gov.idaho.gov/ourgov/contact.html

Random Thoughts at The Intersection of Race, White Privilege, and Disability Rights Advocacy

Black letters on a white field read "No one is asking you
to apologize for being privileged; people want you to
stop using your privilege in ways that require an apology."
Ilana Alazzeh

I've spent the weekend thinking about Ted Landsmark, Danuta Danielsson, Edward Crawford, the miseducation of KKK children, the dominant and at times toxic culture in disability rights activism, and what happens when marginalized people intersect with white privilege. Occasionally I think in pictures. So let me share the people I'm discussing in the way they came to mind as their lives intersected with mine.

In 1976, when I was 15 years old, Stanley Forman took a photograph during the fight to desegregate Boston schools that won a Pulitzer Prize the following year. That day Ted Landsmark became the victim of white protesters like teenager Joseph Rakes, who tried to assault the civil rights attorney with a flagpole bearing the American flag.

Pulitzer Prize winning photo "The Soiling of Old Glory" ©Stanley Forman

Mr. Landsmark later assured investigators that Rakes was not trying to spear him but was in fact swinging the flagpole in the photograph from side to side trying to hit him with it. This simple statement on Mr. Landsmark's part may have saved Mr. Rakes from paying the price for his hatred his entire adult life. Anti-bussing protesters beat Mr. Landsmark severely that day. He was fortunate to have escaped permanent injury.  Rakes was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. It may or may not surprise readers to know his jail sentence was suspended.

The snapshot of the violent Boston anti-bussing protests punctuated by incidents like the assault on Ted Landsmark  emphasizes that poor or working class white people become conciously aware of their privilege only when they view it as being under threat, at which point they lash out to preserve it.

The majority of violent white anti-bussing protesters were considered "good hard working people of faith" who became aware that their children had the privilege of attending segregated public schools and fought violently to retain said privilege only when they were ordered to adhere to federal law requiring they include Black students in their schools. This historical event counters the common misconception that white privilege is a false construct because a white person who is working class or poor has no inherent privilege in society.

These events took place in Boston over 20 years after Brown v Board of Ed of Topeka, Kansas, in Massachusetts, not in Alabama or Mississippi. This should also emphasize that racism is not limited to one geographic area, disparities and crises driven by the racial divide are in fact equal; just expressed differently in the other areas of the country.

In April of 1985, when I was in and out of hospitals with my asthmatic 2 year old daughter wondering if a move to Europe from Turkey was the best thing for my little one, Danuta Danielsson witnessed a demonstration in Växjö, Sweden and, unable to control her outrage at seeing the nazi-skinhead marchers supporting the Nordic Reich Party she rushed out, hitting one with her handbag. She was 38 at the time. Ms. Danielsson was of Polish Jewish origin, and her mother had been placed in a concentration camp during World War II. 

Woman hits Neo-Nazi with handbag, ©Hans Runesson

Ms. Danielsson was not arrested or charged for her actions. Attempts to install a sculptural depiction of this photograph were rejected by local Swedish politicians of the Centre Party for fear it might promote violence.

I and most people at the time empathized with Danuta Danielsson and grasped why she would strike out at someone young and ignorant enough to brazenly march in support of an anti semitic political party despite knowing the barbarity and scope of the holocaust. No charges were filed against her.  She actively avoided the press or any notoriety for this act or the photograph that immortalized it.

Can we all accept that this act did not deserve to be labeled an act of violence?

1. Ms. Danielsson appeared to react spontaneously upon being triggered by those marching.
2. Doesn't the circumstance of her being a traumatized member of a marginalized minority that was the target of genocide by those who established the philosophy being supported by the target of her attack, justify her behavior?
3.  Should survivors of atrocities and their families be made helpless witnesses to the power of  those born with white privilege who were never targets of mass genocide, using that privilege to legally impose and promote white supremacist political views that justified the mass murder of millions of innocent people? 

Whatever the intent of this party and those in it, they are cogs in a greater wheel that abuses white privilege to drive discrimination by perpetuation of beliefs we know are untrue. These negative constructs are constantly retaught to white children, and they grow up, regardless of anything else that might make them divergent from their peers, with this persistent and ingrained parasite of hate that invades them and propagates such that it is passed on to their children and grandchildren effortlessly.

“White power structures often persist independently of the good or bad intentions of White individuals.”  

 - Dr. Katherine Tyler

Last August, 13 years after coming back home and witnessing an increasing polarization of the country along racial lines, I was still reeling from the increasing shootings of Black people and trying to follow the nationwide protests online when photographer Robert Cohen's picture of 25 year old Edward Crawford, the "flag and chips man" of Ferguson, Missouri went viral on social media. Mr. Crawford was caught in the middle of lobbing a tear gas can shot at the children of protesters back at police while not disturbing his bag of chips. Initially this photo was misrepresented by some media outlets as a Black protestor throwing a molotov cocktail.

Edward Crawford, 'whose bag of chips read "the flavor of America's heartland"
throwing a flaming tear gas canister duringFerguson protests @Robert Cohen

I always wonder what white people who are clueless of the impact their own white privilege has on their lives, thought when they first saw this photograph. Because I know that it was probably not what I was thinking. When all these events were unfolding I wondered how those of us trying to fight hate enabled by the abuse of white privilege could overcome the miseducation of white people who refuse to acknowledge their own privilege. How could we explain topics like structural racism to people who don't acknowledge their own complicity in this abusive cycle? How can we show academics and graduate students in fields like disability studies who don't really care how the misuse of white privilege influences their work, the way they view and present facts can cause harm?

Ignoring this bias infuses content with constructs that perpetuate and preserve the prejudices that impose the greatest disparities in how disabled POC in general and disabled Black people in particular receive a free and appropriate education, therapies, state supports, and critical health care. When white privilege is misused to justify deliberately ignoring how content promotes racism,  disabled Black children are misrepresented, research is driven and founded on stereotypes, and disabled Black children are denied the cognitive, physical, and emotional fitness needed to survive and self advocate in society and this continues mistaken beliefs like, for example, the fallacy that Black autistics express autism more severely and have greater challenges because of their race. In fact how autism presents has a great deal less to do with race and a great deal more to do with delays in diagnosing autism and the resulting disparities in all the services and accommodations needed to support Autistic children of color in general and Autistic Black children in particular.

Worse, this lack of willingness to understand terms that don't mean what most presume they mean attaches a stigma to them that distances white people from trying to change. Wrong headed ideas based on modern stereotypes, like the concept that being a political liberal, dating outside one's race, having Black friends and colleagues, or being highly educated exempts a white activist from thoughtlessly perpetuating structural discrimination is dangerously flawed. This attitudinal erasure keeps regenerating a mentality that views Black people as less than rather than equal, a collective 'problem' to be dealt with and Black disabled people as a 'greater societal burden' than white disabled people.

 Child of Klansman meets Black State Trooper
 photo by Todd Robertson, credit Southern Poverty Law Center

I have hit a wall of insensitivity and erasure on how to explain this to my own colleagues. I can't constantly be in the position of appealing to activists and academicians who are supposed to care about my son and his peers as much as they care about white disabled people. I felt it was possible to present things to reasonable people and have them first be willing to look in the mirror and  then analyze where they may need to make changes in how they present disabled people of color in essays on social media. That requires that people respect Black disabled activists first, respect marginalized activists' topic expertise, and have a willingness to accept the world as it truly is not only for them but for disabled people of diverse races and cultures about whom they may be ignorant. I did not think that was such an impossible thing to ask.

It turns out it is.

Like everything in the conversation of structural racism, telling authors and bloggers that their misuse of white privilege is fostering presumptions that are negatively impacting their content is apparently highly inflammatory.  The term 'white privilege' makes everyone squirm. They don't want to be labeled someone whose white privilege has gone wrong in their academic work or online content generation. So they do what many do when confronted by someone with an inconvenient truth online: they mass their followers and begin a flame war.  All manner of gaslighting and other unpleasantness will ensue. But the actual concern, that something in any given content may perpetuate structural racism or denigrate Black disabled people ends up derailed and dismissed.

This is my fault too, because I let other white colleagues who truly want increased diversity in the disability rights community convince me that if I tried to educate, activists would listen and this was simply not true.

Understanding that I have wasted four years of my life thinking I could explain and colleagues would read and listen is tough. But it is also good to divest myself of this fruitless pursuit without bitterness and with the realization that it is not the job of the marginalized person to constantly teach to the privileged group. It is time to focus on things that might just truly make transformative change for my own people, my son, and his peers.

The presumption that writing would give me a voice that might be heard was not completely accurate. Blogging gives me a voice. But those who need to change do not heed it and that means this path to trying to change minds is failing.The disadvantage of heeding those who speak out about not inadvertently perpetuating racism in disability rights activism is that no one can gain anything but a clear conscience from listening to such voices. There is no academic, fiscal, or professional profit in presenting information in a manner which isn't offensive. It is just the right thing to do.

A friend and colleague who does great things offline told me he could not do what I do online. He said no matter what I write to try and reach people, they will resent, react, troll, and insult me. I am beginning to agree with him and am exploring ways reinvest the limited time I have for activism accordingly.

 Online blogging will probably continue, but with no expectation or hope of impact, and with no presumption that persons with white privilege who are academicians or disability rights activists who need to change will heed or respect voices like mine. It will simply be an exercise in expressing my thoughts and leaving them for my son, in the hope that he may someday understand the words I've written. He should know that his mother tried to do something to make the world a safer and more just place for him, even if she failed.

Of all the labels I carry, the one I am proudest of, my race, is going to continue to be the most marginalized. No outward displays of superficial willingness at equality or diversity will change the bias and disparities inherent in the disability rights conversation until those who dominate it are willing to see how the abuse of white privilege impacts their work and act to correct harmful things perpetuated by this without the presumption that white privilege or even racist actions are stigmatizing permanent labels meant to ruin their reputations. The lives of Black disabled people hang in the balance of understanding that the road to healing the racial divide in our community is to first accept when things like white privilege abuse driven structural racism are identified, even when what is exposed is internal.

Peace


Resources and References

About Artist Ilanah Alazzeh
https://about.me/ilanatree

Brown v Board of Education
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=87

"The Soiling of Old Glory"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soiling_of_Old_Glory

The Photography of Hans Runesson
www.hansrunesson.se/

A Woman Hitting a Neo-Nazi With Her Handbag
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Hitting_a_Neo-Nazi_With_Her_Handbag

 About The Iconic Ferguson, Missouri Protest Photo
http://www.fastcompany.com/3034842/innovation-agents/3-things-that-turned-this-photograph-into-a-ferguson-icon

About Dr. Katherine Tyler
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/sociology/staff/tyler/
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/sociology/staff/tyler/publications/

References: Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies
http://nathanrtodd.netfirms.com/documents/Spanierman_Todd_Neville(2006)Whiteness_Bib.pdf

A moment of hate free interaction: Klan baby meets Black State Trooper
http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/199985/how-kkk-rally-image-found-new-life-20-years-after-it-was-published/