Disability and The Murder of Emmett Till

Emmett Till was a disabled black boy murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. An author has found the white woman, interviewed her, and in a widely shared Vanity Fair piece, told a reporter that the woman admitted she lied. This is not a shock that she lied, it is useful that she admits it, and there's been a lot of good commentary from other folks, especially black writers, about the pressure to forgive. It's important.

I just wanted to highlight this twitter thread (with permission), which makes many of those arguments, but also emphasizes a key fact - Emmett Till was disabled.

When I was doing research on disability and intersections, I came across something I'd never learned about the Emmett Till murder.

— Krisandry Harridan (@KHandozo) January 27, 2017

Namely, that Emmett Till's speech was affected by his bout of polio, so his mother taught him to whistle to clear his passages to speak.

— Krisandry Harridan (@KHandozo) January 27, 2017

Many of the victims of racist violence in our nation's history turn out to also have been disabled, because oppressions magnify and multiply.