The immovable veil of black disability: an introduction to Black disability threat theory and its application to the school to prison nexus

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ABSTRACT I propose a new theoretical framework that incorporates an intersecting analysis of Blackness and disability: Black disability threat theory. A major contribution of this theory is the notion that being visibly Black and visibly disabled causes moral panic to disabled and nondisabled populations belonging to any racial group including non-disabled Black American persons and disabled White American persons. Additionally, a broader category of intersectional theories has been applied and leveraged to learn more about inequities and how we might resolve them. Being obviously Black and obviously disabled excludes one from belonging to and fully participating in either the disability culture or the Black culture as we are accepted by neither. In society (and schools), these persons – those who wear a veil of both Blackness and disability – are categorized, considered, and treated as the most dangerous of all which typically results in negative life outcomes.