n her article, Paul-Emile makes the stunning assertion that as a racial designation Black “was designed” to be disabling. “Racial categories were created explicitly to serve as a caste system to privilege some and disadvantage others,” she insists.
The racial status of African Americans “is disabling in a myriad of specific ways,” she writes. “To be Black means facing increased likelihood, relative to Whites, of living in poverty, attending failing schools, experiencing discrimination in housing, being denied a job interview, being stopped by the police, being killed during a routine police encounter, receiving inferior medical care, living in substandard conditions and in dangerous and/or polluted environments, being un- or underemployed, receiving longer prison sentences, and having a lower life expectancy.”
