ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two instances in which police used deadly violence against Black disabled people. The first—the murder of George Floyd by officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, is well known. The second—the wrongful death of Barbara Dawson at the hands of police and medical staff at the Liberty Calhoun Hospital in Blountstown, Florida—is not well known but should be. The interconnectedness of racist and ableist systems of oppression has long been the focus of conversations among scholars and activists working at the intersections of race and disability. The chapter talks about the lives—not just the deaths—of Dawson, Floyd, and others who were killed by police or medical authorities. Doctors and other medical professionals, whose authority lent legitimacy to the “science” of eugenics, have been leading figures in the construction of an array of influential theories that are both racist and ableist.
