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?

As previously mentioned in the discussion of the BPP's use of language Black disability politics often emerges independently from mainstream predominantly white disability rights activist networks. Because of this, there can be a tendency for scholars to use the usage out outdated terms to discredit an organization's anti-ableist aims. This discrediting is flawed as the NBWHP clearly had a political model of health that is inclusive of disability, and similar to models used in Disability Studies and disability rights activism currently despite the wording used.

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While Body and Soul highlights ableism as a form of oppression the language used includes language that would be considered outdated by disability rights activists at the time of the book's publishing in the 1990s including: "confined to a wheelchair", "physically and mentally challenged
 and "differently abled". By the mid-1990s disability activist organizations were pushing for the use of the term disability. This language signals that the NBWHP in the 1990s was not well connected to disability rights activists.

Language about Disability Used in Body and Soul

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

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