Disability and Racial Justice Go Hand in Hand: A Commentary on Black Men and Firearm Violence

Abstract

Black men in the United States face disproportionately high rates of firearm violence, leading to death and disability more often than males of other racial/ethnic groups. Managing life after such injuries involves significant challenges in daily activities, employment, and pain management. Despite the critical impacts of firearm-related disabilities on Black men, their experiences remain largely unexplored by disability scholars, public health researchers, and practitioners. This oversight is alarming, as Black men with firearm-acquired disabilities encounter considerable structural barriers to achieving health and social objectives. Our team focuses on: (a) the experiences of Black men with firearm-acquired disabilities, (b) the lack of literature on their lived realities, and (c) new pathways for disability and public health research. Recognizing and addressing the invisibility of violently injured Black men in research is crucial for advancing equity, social justice, and representation across society. We argue that disability justice is a vital starting point for acknowledging the social experiences of gunshot wound survivors. More research is needed to understand the experiences of these young Black men who have been largely ignored in public health and disability narratives. It is essential for clinicians and policymakers to grasp how this neglect affects conventional views on health, accessibility, and well-being, underscoring the need for a more inclusive and equitable approach.

The Burden of Firearm Violence on Black Men

Firearm violence remains one of the most pressing public health epidemics in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020), there are three times the number of people who survive gunshot wounds compared to homicide victims each year—with approximately 85,000 people experiencing nonfatal injuries in 2020 alone (Kaufman et al., 2021). While all types of firearm violence (i.e., interpersonal, self-directed, and collective violence) contribute to this epidemic, firearm assault is a primary influence. Critically, there are significant racial disparities in terms of these incidents. While not a perfect measure of the disproportionate burden of firearm-related assaults experienced by Black people, 61% of homicide victims in 2020 were Black—with 38% being Black men aged 18 to 34. The homicide rate for this population was 119.3 per 100,000 compared to 5.6 per 100,000 for their white peers (CDC, 2020). For those who survive a gunshot wound or wounds, there are serious long-term consequences including chronic pain, substance use and addiction, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social instability, depression, and paralysis (Lee, 2013; Ralph, 2014; Raza et al., 2020; Rich, 2009; Richardson et al., 2020).

Despite these challenges, there is a lack of understanding regarding the experiences of Black men who have been temporarily or permanently disabled due to firearm-related injuries. Unfortunately, they have historically been overlooked by disability scholars, public health researchers, and practitioners. This issue is particularly concerning because these individuals face significant structural barriers in their efforts to achieve their health and social goals. As Uzzi et al. (2023) noted, historical and contemporary forms of structural racism (i.e., concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and racialized economic extraction) continue to shape the distribution of gun violence and impact the lives of Black men who survive gunshot wounds. As this population grows due to the increasingly high levels of gun violence in the United States, further research is needed to account for and examine how violently injured Black men experience disability—with specific attention to how their experiences are reflective of interlocking systems of oppression. In this commentary, we reflect on our work with Black men who were disabled from a firearm-related injury, our engagement with the dearth of literature on their lived experiences, and emerging directions for disability scholarship.

Intersecting and Negotiating Identities

Individuals with physical disabilities tend to be overtly overlooked by individuals who are able-bodied. Some research has found that despite the mechanism, men acquire a disability whether at birth or due to an accident, it makes men less masculine (Scott, 2014). Once a man acquires a physical disability, his body is typically seen as less than ideal and most importantly commodified or devalued. This is in significantly in part due to American society’s emphasis on hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005), which is rooted in a man’s bodily performance regarding power, dominance, and physical strength. When a man is incapable or temporarily restricted from performing his manhood and/or masculinities with his body due to acquiring a temporary or permanent disability, Gerschick (2000) suggests turning attention to the three social processes needed to understand the experiences of disability: stigma associated with disability, gendered interactions, and the importance of the body in enacting gender roles.

Some men with physical disabilities feel the societal pressure that is consistent with the requirements of hegemonic masculinities. There is an immediate need to perform and re-perform masculine tasks in the same manner each and every time such as being able to physically protect oneself and family. Being able to acquire and keep economic power not only speaks to financial independence but the ability to provide and take care of those who are considered dependents (i.e., children and to some extent women). Independence is seen as a key element of what it means to be a “real man.” Men who have acquired physical disabilities are consistently battling against society’s skewed perception of what men with physical disabilities can and cannot do. One study found that disabled men, in comparison to able-bodied men, may be feminized or seen as incapable of autonomy, bodily strength, and aggressiveness (Manderson & Peake, 2005). In addition, because the physically disabled body deviates from the expected norm, it complicates how a man engages with his gendered performances (Scott, 2014). This significant complexity has resulted in a dichotomy where some physically disabled male bodies are viewed as weak whereas others are interpreted as pillars of strength for overcoming adversity.

Margin to Center: The Need to Center the Experiences of Violently Injured Black Men

Historical and systemic racism and medical mistrust have led to disparities in how different racial and ethnic groups are treated and represented in various aspects of society—including in public health research. Black individuals, particularly men, have been marginalized and stereotyped, resulting in biases that can affect their visibility in research studies. There is a significant lack of research on Black men with disabilities (Ricks et al., 2020), particularly those who have acquired their disabilities through firearm-related incidents. Disability scholars and public health researchers continue to overlook Black men whose firearm injuries render them temporarily and/or permanently disabled; this has led to significant gaps in our understanding of the unique needs of this population and services post hospital discharge (such as physical and occupational therapies) currently available to them. Racial inequalities in the health care system are well documented, with disparities resulting from differences in access to care, quality of insurance, outcomes from surgical procedures, quality of available facilities, and treatment by physicians and other staff (Himmelstein & Himmelstein, 2020). However, for Black men who survive being shot, there are unique structural barriers to adequate care which may significantly impede their ability to heal and achieve their health-related goals (Richardson et al., 2020, 2021).

After an exhaustive literature search, we found little evidence that social scientists have considered the significance of disability for those who survive gunshot wounds. Looking to the pioneering work of Jooyoung Lee (2012), who conducted an ethnographic study to examine how gunshot injuries transform the lives of survivors, it is clear that disability alters sleeping, eating, working, and other previously taken-for-granted activities of daily living (ADLs). In addition, it emphasizes that for those men who survive their firearm injuries, disability profoundly changes sense of self, time, and relationships with friends and family. Lee (2012, p. 255) writes:

Getting shot is the beginning of a much longer process of adjustment. With wounded bodies, gunshot victims realize that many daily activities they had taken for granted require extra time, care, and mental energy to complete. These bodily changes and the practical difficulties they entail become existential crises as well.

While Lee focused on survivors being able to partake in their own physical ADLs, Baker et al. (2024) utilized qualitative interviews to understand how Black men with firearm-acquired disabilities thought about the impact of their injuries on their manhood/masculinities. Semenza and Stansfield (2021) used secondary quantitative data to investigate the relationship between fatal and non-fatal firearm violence and rates of functional disability. They reported that shootings have a direct influence on young Black men’s functional disability because they are disproportionately likely to be involved in firearm violence and suffer impairing firearm injuries. Therefore, effective, culturally, and structurally sensitive, and congruent long-term care becomes possible only when practitioners have an in-depth understanding of the unique experiences and needs of young Black men with firearm-acquired disabilities. This cannot be achieved without centering the perspectives, hopes, and goals of those most impacted by firearm violence. As the population of Black men who survive gunshot wounds continues to grow due to the ongoing firearm violence epidemic in the United States, it is of paramount importance that they are involved in defining the goals of public health and disability research, determining the methods suitable for understanding their experiences, and efforts to implement lifesaving interventions.

Hand in Hand: Disability Justice and Racial Justice Intersect

It is important to recognize that efforts to combat the hyper-invisibility of violently injured Black men in research in general are part of a broader movement toward equity, social justice, and representation in all aspects of society. In her path breaking work on Black disability politics, Schalk (2022) noted that disability—as an identity, experience, and political category—has been theorized by Black activists and intellectuals in ways that differ from their white peers. These perspectives underscore how the accomplishments of legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), have failed to adequately address the needs of people in multiple marginalized communities (Chin, 2021; Montague-Asp et al., 2022) and with intersecting identities.

Disability justice, as a social movement distinct from the disability rights movement, asserts that dismantling ableist structures cannot be accomplished without acknowledging and addressing the ways in which mutually constitutive systems of racism, heteropatriarchy, and class discrimination impact the lives of disabled people (Dunhamn et al., 2015). This movement, founded and led by disabled, queer, and trans people of color, radically reimagines the possibilities for our collective social world (Berne et al., 2018). The principles of disability justice provide an important starting point for theorizing how disability scholars can begin to research and understand the experiences of Black men who survive gunshot wounds. First, this framework prioritizes the experiences, knowledge, and goals of those most affected by interlocking systems of oppression. By focusing on their perspectives, it challenges simplistic approaches to addressing the harms of ableism, racism, heteropatriarchy, and class discrimination, making such approaches untenable.

As scholars who ground our work in the social experiences of Black men with disabilities, we contend that disability justice offers an important beginning point for increased attention to the social experiences of those who survive gunshot wounds. In agreement with the principles of disability justice, we distinguish between equal access and equity as guiding principles for this work. Disability justice advocates contend that fairness is not simply defined by uniform access to resources or opportunities. Rather, equity requires a commitment to acknowledging and addressing the historical roots of injustice which have stymied meaningful advances in achieving health, safety, and well-being for disabled people (Kumbier & Starkey, 2016). Disability justice scholars contend that the use of a “race-neutral,” single-issue approach to achieving health and social equity has failed to address the complex ways in which people are marginalized (Chin, 2021).

Thus, it is imperative to extend a commitment beyond the “antidiscrimination/accommodation strategy” which often dominates conceptualization of equality for disabled people (Bagenstos, 2009). Instead, disability justice advocates underscore the usefulness of a “collective access” framework to broaden interventions beyond individualized approaches, again emphasizing the structural causes of social inequality and the need for substantive change (Berne et al., 2018). These approaches may include (but are not limited to) the expansion of eligibility criteria for public health insurance, improvements in services covered by insurance, and the fostering of alternative healing modalities.

The extended definition of access offered by a disability justice framework is of paramount importance for decreasing the significant challenges faced by Black men who survive injuries caused by gun violence. Since disability impacts subjective experiences, requires specific material and social accommodations, and necessitates a commitment to equity beyond technological interventions, adjustments to the built environment, and symbols of inclusivity, thoughtful research is needed to attend to the specific experiences of this population (Kumbier & Starkey, 2016). This work must center the ways in which race, class, and gender dynamically impact their experiences of disability. In addition, further attention is needed to capture the experience of violently injured young Black men who have been excluded from the focus of disability studies. It is imperative for clinicians and lobbyists to understand how this exclusion has impacted prevalent and widely accepted conceptualizations of health, access, and well-being. Thus, echoing disability and racial justice advocate Vilissa Thompson (2020), we contend that it is time to listen to Black people with disabilities—including those who have become disabled through firearm-related injury.

Call to Action: What Can be Done? What Are Researchers Currently Doing?

This call to action emphasizes the importance of research, collaboration, advocacy, policy, and social empowerment. We encourage public health researchers, disability scholars, interventionists, and practitioners to act today by doing the following:

• Conducting and disseminating culturally congruent and ethical research highlighting the complexity of the relationship between disability and gun violence. It is important to note that research (St. Vil et al., 2018) tells us that our approach to engaging Black men with disabilities in research must be grounded in “compassion and humanity” (p. 7) and not just be about “pushing our research agenda” (p. 7).

• Centering the voices and lived experiences of Black male firearm violence survivors (Wical et al., 2020) and their families/caretakers, which are typically Black women (Hitchens, 2022) impacted by gun violence.

• Intentionally advocating for policies and evidence-based strategies that enhance support services, financial resources, and health care accessibility for this population; engage with policymakers and advocate for new and reform legislation that prioritizes the safety and well-being of disabled individuals. Your expertise can guide the crafting of laws and policies that address the unique challenges of this marginalized group.

• Using power, platforms, and influence to raise awareness through academic publications, scholarly symposiums, community events, and social media is a multifaceted and impactful approach to disseminating information, fostering dialogue, and driving change. These strategies combine the rigor of academic research with the accessibility and reach of digital communication, creating an opportunity for promoting awareness of this issue. Leveraging various media outlets, such as social media platforms, encourage engagement and interaction. Researchers can interact directly with the public, respond to questions, and address concerns, thereby fostering a sense of community involvement. In conjunction with the utilization of social media, participating in and organizing scholarly symposia allows for in-depth discussions with experts in the field. This exchange of ideas helps refine research, identify gaps, and explore differing perspectives.

• Collaborating with fellow scholars, activists, organizations/agencies, and institutions to increase awareness and impact outside of academia. It stands to reason that complex issues like firearm violence and disability care require multi- and interdisciplinary solutions. Working with those impacted, scholars, and activists from various disciplines allows for a more holistic understanding of problems while encouraging the development of comprehensive, effective solutions that address multiple facets of this issue. This approach to collaboration also expands professional networks that support future initiatives and extend the reach of research and activism beyond academic circles, resulting in exposure to broader audiences, including policymakers, funders, and other key stakeholders.