Black British women overcoming adversity

Frustrated by the lack of disabled Black women in the media, Kym and Jumoke created a platform that brought together a blog, YouTube channel and podcast for sharing stories and talking about the intersectional discrimination faced by Black, disabled women that led to careers as influencers with a regular circuit of public speaking at festivals, in the press and at universities. They were recently named #Merky Books superheroes.

Disability is often represented, marketed and sold with a white face. It is exactly because of this that the Triple Cripples platform was created. The only time disability and brown skin seem to collide in campaigns, is in poverty porn. Specifically those of children in countries that colonialism has ravaged – the imagery is used to line the pockets of charity payroll bigwigs.

But humanised disability; disability with emotion, disability with independent thought, disability that is deserving of social participation, autonomy, empathetic understanding, love… is reserved solely for white bodies.

Kym Oliver & Jumoke Abdullahi – aka The Triple Cripples

About the post image

All the images of the Tripple Cripples are protected by copyright, so I had to find a generic image ostensibly of a disabled Black woman that was available to use for free. This is be one of the downsides of otherwise useful copyright.