By Alexander Gray
Pitt Law and The Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice sponsored a book celebration in honor of the release of Professor Mary Crossley’s new work, “Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health,” on March 30, 2023.
The event, part of the Center’s “American Apartheid City” series, included a panel discussion with Professor Thistle Elias of Pitt Public Health and Lisa Upsher of the Office of Health Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
“It may not be apparent why a woman who is white and not obviously disabled would write a book about race, disability, and health injustice,” said Crossley, reflecting on what prompted her to write the book.
“They might even think it presumptuous of me to choose it as a topic. Certainly, I do not have the benefit of lived experience on these matters. But, in writing the book, I tried to be as good of a student as I could of people who do have lived experience, as well as learning from scholars who have written on these topics.”
In "Embodied Injustice," Crossley identifies a pervasive theme: health-related inequities experienced by both people with disabilities and Black individuals are largely driven by unfounded assumptions of bodily difference and inferiority. Disability is more prevalent among Black Americans, with 1 in 4 Black persons having some form of disability compared to 1 in 5 white persons, according to CDC data.
“I became a law professor the year after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress,” Crossley said. “My earliest work focused on how disability discrimination law might apply to healthcare settings and health policy topics. As I did that work, I started to realize that disability-related inequities in healthcare were just one strand of a much larger fabric of inequities experienced by Black and brown communities and other groups that our society has marginalized.”
Crossley argued that the disproportionate disablement of Black individuals in the United States can be attributed to unjust social, economic, and political conditions. Scholars have used the term "emergent disability" to describe how disabilities multiply in communities with high levels of poverty and disadvantage.
“Think about the kids in Flint, Michigan, who have become disabled after drinking water contaminated with lead. Think about the Black Americans with diabetes who disproportionally lose limbs through amputation as compared to white Americans with diabetes, all because of a lack of access to healthcare and a failure to diagnose and manage their condition.”
Professor Thistle I. Elias responded to Crossley’s book by critiquing a commonly held belief in the field of public health: that improving access alone solves health inequities.
“I teach graduate students about health equity in public health and disparities in the social and structural determinants of health, things like housing, education, transportation,” said Elias.
“There’s an Iowa Institute of Medicine report from 1999 called ‘Unequal Treatment.’ The report revealed that the quality of healthcare differed for Black and brown people – and that it was inferior. This was contrary to the belief of many in the public health field that access alone was the issue: that if we could just get people into care that things would get better. Yes, access is still an issue, but it’s also a quality-of-care issue.”
Director of Health Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lisa Upsher spoke candidly about the challenges faced by people of color with disabilities, suggesting that food deserts and displacement due to gentrification exacerbate health inequities.
“There are areas of Pittsburgh where there is no healthy food for people,” said Upsher. “You have to come off the Hill to go to Shadyside or Oakland just to get an apple or an orange. Those things play into race and disability. Redlining still exists with displacement, pushing people out further to places like Penn Hills where transportation then becomes an issue.”
Upsher provided succinct examples of how not even celebrity has protected people of color from experiencing inferior healthcare and health outcomes.
“When you think about some of our poster children for health, they are educated and well-paid. Chadwick Boseman? He died from a treatable form of cancer. Serena Williams almost died after having a child because no one would listen to her when she would tell them something was wrong.”
“What’s unfortunate is that many people with disabilities don’t have someone that will fight for them.”