15 - Black Cripistemologies

Summary

This chapter examines key works of contemporary literature to argue that Black American literature has borne witness to how medical advancement has, and continues, to be made over and through Black bodies. Whereas dominant historical narratives erase the (often coerced) contributions of Black people, and Black folks, by and large, have failed to reap the social, financial, and embodied benefits of the technological progress enabled by their abused and sacrificed flesh, Black literature forces us to confront the impoverished ethics of medical practice. Authors such as Kwoya Fagin Maples, Bettina Judd, and Toni Morrison feature characters whose bodies document the long history of racist medical indifference and violence against Black bodies, despite this history’s archival misrepresentation and erasure. These writers craft a counter-history of Black life that refuses to gaslight those whose bodies continue to founder within racist medical systems in the wake of slavery.