At the start of the book Schalk defined Black disability politics as a political approach that is interactional but race centered, did not need to be based in disability identity, contexualized and historicized, and holistic. But when does not being based in disability identity turn from an asset that allows Black people to engage in disability without their vocies being stiffled by White Disability Rights activists to a failure to engage with disability rights and disability identity? This is the question Schalk poses in the later third of this book.

So what about explicit mentions of disability?

The NBWHP's approach to HIV/AIDS from a holistic, culturally informed understanding of health and wellness that centers Black women was not just emblematic of the NBWHP's work around HIV/AIDS the National Black Women's Health Project took similar approaches - in particular the balance between prevention and education of non-disabled community members and resources for disabled people - to mental health, depression and suicide. All of this work is a clear enactment of Black Disability Politics.

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In her vital signs piece, Dazon Dixion typified the NBWHP's approach to HIV/AIDS by stating that AIDS "has magnified all the social, political, health and economic problems that have plagued" Black people. The NWBHP understood that in many Black communities that AIDS was part of a larger picture of community survival rather than AIDS being an isolated priority the way it was for many white AIDS activist organizations. The NBWHP named that medical racism, healthcare access, reproductive justice, and the prison industrial complex are political issues in Black communities that intersect with the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The NBWHP's Work Connecting HIV/AIDS to Political Issues Central to Black Communities

The NBWHP also created self-help groups for front line health care workers, such as orderlies, nurse aides and pratical nurses who because of being invalidated in their role in the medical industrial system may allow prejudices and attitudes to influence their interactions with individuals with HIV/AIDS. The NBWHP conducted these groups as a way to improve support for people with HIV.AIDS. Schalk notes it was unclear whether the NBWHP secured funding to create these groups. The NBWHP used information from Black women with HIV/AIDS to educate and support first-line health workers. The NBWHP also recognized that these first-line workers were often working class people.

The Use of Self-Help Groups For HIV-Negative Individuals

The NBWHP created self-help groups specifically for Black women with HIV/AIDS. NBWHP literature on the creation of these groups notes that Black women with AIDS often desire a sense of sisterhood and often the counselors and service providers who visit them in hospitals and shelters are white people without HIV/AIDS. These groups served as spaces for Black women to form community, share information, and provide hope to each other amongst individuals who shared the embodied experience of being Black women.

The Use of Self-Help Groups For Black Women with HIV/AIDS

From October 17-18, 1988 the NBWHP hosted From Cries and Whispers: Black Women Talking About AIDS, this conference took place in Washington, D.C., and served as a place for Black women, including women living with HIV/AIDS, advocates, caregivers, government representatives, and health and social service providers to work to address the AIDS epidemic. The conference had three panels, one consisted of women with AIDS speaking about their experiences and needs, the second consisted of government representatives and the third had advocacy representatives. The panels were each followed by a small group discussion hosted in the model of the NBWHP's self-help groups. The conference clearly centered on the needs and oppression faced by Black women with HIV/AIDS including the conference report noting the effects from family abandonment to denial of health care and ambulance transportation to job discrimination that can happen to Black women with HIV/AIDS and the conference and report emphasized the need to provide physical, emotional, social and financial support to people with HIV/AIDS and their families.

From Cries and Whispers: Black Women Talking About AIDS

In editions of Vital Signs published during the HIV/AIDS epidemic the NBWHP published articles written by Black women living with HIV/AIDS, including Black lesbians with HIV/AIDS aimed at building community for Black women with HIV/AIDS.

How the NBWHP Centered the Voices of Black Women with HIV/AIDS

Dazon Dixon wrote multiple Vital Signs articles about hosting safer-sex parties for Black women. In these articles, Dixon reflects on how the message of just wearing a condom didn't meet Black women where they were at. Many Black women shared concerns about the cost of acquiring condoms, and how introducing attempting to safer sex practices into domestic violence situations may escalate the violence. Dixon reflected that it was pointless to simply tell Black women to make men use condoms due to the reality of Black women's sexual lives. By presenting just getting tested or using a condom as simple and straightforward solutions white-run HIV/AIDS prevention organizations had created a rift between themselves and Black women. 

Examples of NBWHP HIV/AIDS Programming for Black Women

The NBWHP worked to reduce the blame and normative moral claims made around HIV/AIDS. A lot of this work included addressing homophobia and views on drug use and sex work in the Black community. The NBWHP promoted a politicized understanding of HIV that did not blame people for their own disease and disablement. Destigmatization work served as the bridge between the NBWHP's prevention work and support work for individuals with HIV/AIDS.

The NBWHP's Work to Destigmatize HIV/AIDS

As previously mentioned, HIV/AIDS was originally seen as a disease that solely affected white gay men. This misinformation often led to Black women falsely believing they couldn't contract HIV/AIDS and thus didn't need to work to prevent it. The NBWHP worked to inform Black women that anyone can contract HIV.

How the NBWHP Worked to Debunk Myths Around HIV/AIDS

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

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