Unvictimizable: Toward a Fat Black Disability Studies

This essay argues that fatphobia and ableism are exacerbating the problem of state-sanctioned violence against African Americans. I contend that racism, antifat prejudice, and ableism intersect to create a double bind that depicts black people as incapable of being victimized, for two contradictory reasons: fat black bodies are figured as innately disabled but also as invulnerable to disability and suffering. As a means of dismantling this double bind, I begin the work of conceptualizing a new, transdisciplinary methodology, "fat black disability studies," which brings together insights from critical race theory, fat studies, disability studies, and the Black Lives Matter movement.