What is ableism? Words can hurt people but African culture offers an alternative

“You speak good English for a Black person.”

“Why are the plates not washed when there is a woman in this house?”

“Can I touch your hair?”

These are some common microaggressions you might have heard before, especially if you’re a Black woman.

Microaggressions can be projected to Black people because they are expected to speak perfect English when it’s not even their language. Or because what’s natural hair to them seems exotic to someone from another culture. They can be projected because of sexism that says women in African cultures belong in the kitchen.

What are microaggressions?

Microaggressions are comments or actions that reveal prejudice against marginalised people or a group of people who are oppressed. They might be micro (small or everyday) and they might manifest unconsciously or without harmful intentions. But even so, microaggressions are hurtful and devalue the people they’re projected on to.

What is ableism?

So then, what are ableist microaggressions? Ableism is a worldview in which ability and being able-bodied is favoured over disability.

Saying to a wheelchair user, “Ah, I see you are going for a stroll.” Or speaking slowly to them as if they can’t grasp what you’re saying. Or owning an office without wheelchair access. Those can be seen as ableist microaggressions. Using terms related to disability out of context is ableist: “You must be blind.” Even if said to a sighted person, it’s insensitive to people who might actually have impaired vision.

Ableist microaggressions are made by able-bodied people who don’t understand the realities of living with a disability. Sometimes they don’t mean to be harmful or they think they are helping by, for example, doing things for disabled people that the disabled person can actually do for themselves.

Even so, ableist microaggressions create a situation of unequal power dynamics because they make people with disabilities feel inferior, incapable or unintelligent.

Black women with a disability

As a scholar of inclusive education and disability in higher education, my research often focuses on disability and gender. I recently published a paper that reviewed studies of ableist microaggressions projected on to Black women with disabilities in southern Africa.

The paper explored how microaggressions affect these women in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eswatini. The three countries share similar cultural values, identity and beliefs when it comes to gender, race and disability. And how these three things intersect.

In these cultures, women are generally honoured and might be called “izimbokodo” (grinding stones). It might be socially accepted that “a home cannot be a home without a woman” and, in the case of South Africa, issues of human rights might have improved over the years. Yet ableist microaggressions projected on women remain common, and even more so Black and disabled women.

This has a negative effect on them particularly when it comes to making individual life choices, marriage and childbearing – as it does women without disabilities.

For example, in some parts of South Africa, when women who are disabled appear pregnant in public, many people assume they were raped. They don’t assume a woman with disability had sexual agency and she is shamed and treated as unusual. It makes it even harder for her to receive equal healthcare and social standing.

For Black African women with disabilities, the impact of ableist microaggressions is worse because they have an intersectional struggle – they experience several forms of discrimination. They face racism, sexism and ableism, often at the same time.

Why ubuntu matters

The question I ask in my study is what might help Black women with disabilities to be empowered to dismantle ableist microaggressions. The answer lies in the past. I argue that ubuntu is an important weapon against this form of discrimination.

Ubuntu is an African philosophy common to the region that is understood by different people in different ways. But it can best be explained through the isiZulu saying, “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (We are because of them). This means that a person is a person through other people.

In a worldview of care and cooperation like this, every human being in a community is valuable despite their gender, race or ability. Ubuntu helps people understand that they are dependent on each other. They need each other despite their differences.

In many precolonial African societies disability was positively conceived. Another isiZulu saying goes, “Akusilima sindlebende kwaso”. It means that disabled people are accepted and loved in their homes.

However, colonialism changed all that. Africans were reduced to being workers for European masters. Colonialism normalised able-bodied workers and regarded disabled bodies as inferior. This was further entrenched by colonial morality, which would shape social thinking in the region.

This mindset still plays out today in the modern African societies in these studies. Black women with disabilities are viewed as helpless, and so they are an easy target for ableist microaggression.

A system of thinking like ubuntu would give Black women with disabilities the opportunity for dignity and the agency to fight against the damaging effects of ableist microaggressions that they face in their daily lives.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sibonokuhle Ndlovu, University of Johannesburg

Sibonokuhle Ndlovu receives funding from the University Research Council of the University of Johannesburg.