"Dying to be Competent"

In my last blog post, I examined the problem of privilege within marginalized groups.

The reason this was important for me to unpack is because I wanted to bring attention to the fact that not even oppressed groups are immune to the strategy of the power structure to elevate in order to separate. I now want to assess why this is the case, and what tools are being used by systems of power to enforce privilege.

Interestingly, as I was thinking about this issue, I was taken back to a discussion that was had in my Social Justice in Education class about caring, and how that concept is often used to justify denying people agency.

The more privilege one has, the more socially elevated they are, and the more agency they have over themselves and others. On the other hand, those less privileged are often denied agency, and “caring” is used as an oppressive tool when claiming that these groups need to be controlled for their own good and for the greater good of society. In this paper, I will be examining how competency, or an argued lack thereof, is used to deny certain groups agency and thus maintain the power structure through this illusion of “caring.”

To examine the concept of competency I referred back to Tressie McMillan Cottom’s essay, “Dying to be Competent.” In this essay, Cottom argues that competency is something we are all always striving to feel that we have within a capitalist society- yet, it is an illusion at its best, and structurally oppressive at its worst. One of the most powerful statements she makes within the first several paragraphs of her essay refers to black women, and it states, “To a black women living global inequality and technological change, the competency trap is a cumulative multifold iron cage of network effects and oppressive regimes” (Mcmillan Cottom, 81). She then goes on to describe how she never felt more incompetent than when she was pregnant. I’ve referred to her description of treatment while pregnant before unpacking her statement on black women’s competency because I believe it does important framing work around what it means to be competent.

Competency is defined in the Webster dictionary as “having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully.” When looking at pregnant women, there is no debate that they are socially viewed as not having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to exist successfully on their own. They are often seen as irrationally emotional and physically uncap bale, which leads to societal and government intervention, like mandatory work leave, for example. Pregnancy is also interesting when looking at competency through the lens of disability, as pregnancy is often seen as a condition of disability and is therefore treated as such. As a black pregnant woman, McMillan-Cottom is successfully able to describe competency through the lens of race, gender, and disability, which helps me effectively outline competency’s relationship with those issues- specifically, race and disability.

In McMillan’s account of her pregnancy, she recalls how unwilling the doctors were to give her the medication she needed to be comfortable, and to assist her when she believed she was going into labor. This was because as a black woman, they did not believe she was competent enough to understand what was really happening in her body. Additionally, the illusion of caring was being used, and interacting with her blackness and pregnancy simultaneously, to suggest that the doctors were only thinking of what was best for Cottom when they denied her the services she needed for her own comfort. A common thread between this account and the many accounts within disability studies is the denial of medical and general self-agency, due to a person’s perceived lack of knowledge on their own needs and abilities.

To look further into the treatment of those with what society would consider a disability, I researched historical evidence of medical malpractice with people with disabilities. Interestingly, I had trouble locating articles with supporting evidence of that specifically, even though in a documentary I watched on the Disabilities Rights Movement, there was a clear segment describing institutional maltreatment when medicating patients with mental and physical disabilities. However, I did find an article through my religious studies course resources about the value of healing “defective” bodies within Christianity that I believe made some significant points about competency and the concept of difference needing to be “fixed”. According to Irina Metzler’s article on “Disability in Medieval Europe”, Christian saints were most celebrated for their miraculous healing of persons with physical and/or mental disabilities. She then describes the common literature of medieval texts that viewed impaired pilgrims as burdens, objects of mockery, or opportunities for charity (Metzler, 131). This same narrative can be seen today, as people with disabilities are often viewed through a vocational lens of health, which suggests that they need to be fixed in order to better contribute to the society, and are otherwise nothing more than an agentless burden. Thus, caring is portrayed as trying to give people value, while denying that people have inherent value regardless of their abilities. This also supports Cottom’s argument that productivity is a key characteristic of competency, and thus, why disability is not seen as just a different state of being- but a subordinate way of living.

With regard to race, I wanted to look at some biological arguments that would help connect it to disability, which I found through Jackson and Weidman’s article on scientific racism. This article uncovers the work of several 19th century intellectuals, like Francis Galton, who argued that blackness is literally genetically less intelligent, more violent, and hypersexual. The scientists of this period came to these conclusions by doing cranial measurements and examining sex organs of African-American’s (Weidman, 68). There is even a sexology methodology portion, inspired by scientist Thomas Ellis, which argued that both African-American women and lesbians could be characterized by having an unusually large clitoris (Weidman, 70). From a modern day perspective, this abnormality may not fit what we would consider a disability- but I would argue that with respect to the times in which this argument was made, an abnormally large clitoris would fall into the same category as both a physical and mental disability. The symbolic significance of an enlarged clitoris, or an enlarged sexual organ in general, is that it represents hypersexuality. Within the belief system of early Christianity, and even in the Christian dominated society that we live in today, hypersexuality is not only viewed as a perversion, but also as an illness of sorts. With regard women especially, hypersexuality could be seen as a mental disability that comes as a result of innate sinfulness and a general lack of competency. When combining prejudice with scientific claims of anatomical characteristics that suggest “irregularity” or “poorly developed” physical traits (Weidman, 70)- that is when the bridge between disability and anything that is outside of the preferred norm is made clear.

I say “preferred” norm because it’s always important for me to emphasize that these norms are not norms at all, but rather products of Western hetero-patriarchal ableist values, rooted in maleness, masculinity, power and control. However, by reading these articles it is clear how effective the denial of self-agency has been in categorizing and dehumanizing women, marginalized groups, and people with disabilities. I believe that disability, which has existed before the constructs of race and sexuality, provides a blue print for denying others agency. Equating any difference with a disability is the most effective way to portray entire groups of people as less competent, less able, and therefore less valuable, but in a way that can be seen as innocent and caring.

Works Cited

1. Cottom, T. M. M. (2019). Dying to be Competent. Thick: and other essays. New York: The New Press.

2. Jackson, J. P., & Weidman, N. M. (2006). The Origins of Scientific Racism. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 50, 66–79. doi: 10.1086/510009

3. Metzler, I. (2006). Disability in Medieval Europe. doi: 10.4324/9780203016060

4. Boon, lecture, Disability Rights Movement, Sep 28, 2019