It’s incredibly important that as you (especially as white disabled people) talk about the higher rate of death for black people, you understand the cultural dynamics surrounding self-identification as part of the disabled/chronically ill community.

Many won’t, and you’ll

Have to get over it. The fact is that because of racism, healthcare disparities and ableism, many black people who could definitely identify as disabled or chronically ill won’t.

When racism says your mentally incapable and physically animalistic, at the same time doctors

Ignore your symptoms, think you’re drug-seeking, and can’t feel pain, all while you can’t navigate the spaces you used to because they’ve been gentrified into unaffordability—and the remaining spaces are inaccessible, you tend not to “opt into” another community that presents

You as vulnerable all while dealing with the same racial dynamics that you always have.

The truth is that the disability community has often proven ill-equipped to contend with or understand race as it informs the disability experience.

Cross-racial and disability

Groups must exist to fight this glaring disparity regarding #coronavirus, but space must be created and protected allowing black disabled, chronically ill, and those not ready to self-identify to meet and process and advocate with one another.