Morrison’s Space: A DeafBlind Activist

A DeafBlind Reflection on Power, Truth‑Telling, and Accountability

June 5, 2026

By Morrison

There is a particular kind of silence that settles in an organization, community, or workplace after you name harm. It is the silence that comes right after you identify someone’s actions as ableist or sexist or an “ism”, not as an insult, but as a description of what happened – the description of the behavior. It is the silence that tells you the room has shifted, that the air has thickened, that you have crossed a line you were never meant to cross. I have once crossed that line, and I lost my job for it.

The moment everything changed was painfully ordinary, and this has traumatized me. My supervisor made a comment that cut straight to the core of what Deaf people know too well: “using the Deaf card.” It is a phrase soaked in stereotypes, one that dismisses our access needs as manipulative, dramatic, or exaggerated. When it was directed at me as “using the DeafBlind card,” it reduced my lived reality to a punchline. I named it. I said the behavior was ableist. And suddenly, the problem was not the act of ableism, the problem was that I dared to name it.

This pattern is not unique to me or those who shared this experience. Scholars across disability studies, critical race theory, and organizational psychology have long documented that naming harm is routinely treated as harm itself (Brown et al., 2022; Dolmage, 2017). Research on ableism in the workplace shows that disabled employees, especially those with intersecting identities, are often punished not for causing harm but for identifying it (Ferri & Connor, 2020; Lindsay et al., 2019). Naming ableism, racism, or any form of oppression is not “name‑calling”; it is an analytical act, a method of truth‑telling that identifies structural patterns of discrimination (Campbell, 2009; Sue et al., 2007). Yet organizations frequently collapse the distinction between naming a behavior and attacking a person, which protects the comfort of the person who caused harm rather than the safety of the person who experienced it (DiAngelo, 2018).

Across DeafBlind communities, there are countless examples of what happens when a DeafBlind person names the harm they experience. Instead of curiosity, accountability, or a willingness to learn and repair, the response is often defensiveness, escalation, or retaliation. This becomes a swift move to frame the person naming the harm as the problem. Scholars describe this as a well‑documented tactic in systems of oppression: punish the person identifying the harm, not the person causing it (Ahmed, 2021). This dynamic reflects a broader pattern in which disabled workers are expected to remain quiet, grateful, and compliant, while those in power retain the authority to define what counts as harm (Goodley, 2014; Price, 2011).

This raises a deeper question: who gets to decide what harm is? I recently witnessed a Black DeafBlind colleague penalized for naming racism in a community space. The pattern was identical. Leadership framed the naming of harm as “inappropriate conduct,” while the discriminatory behavior itself was minimized. Research shows that when decision‑makers do not reflect the diversity of the community, when DeafBlind people, Black DeafBlind people, and multi‑marginalized DeafBlind people are absent from leadership, interpretations of harm inevitably tilt toward protecting institutional comfort (Crenshaw, 1991; Pineda, 2022). Representation is not cosmetic; it shapes how harm is understood, interpreted, and acted upon.

The policies that silence us are not neutral. Standards of “professionalism” and “civility” are often rooted in white, nondisabled cultural norms that punish directness from marginalized people while excusing discriminatory behavior from those in power (Hamer & Lang, 2015; Roberts, 2021). Scholars have shown that these norms are frequently weaponized to discipline disabled employees for asserting access needs or naming discrimination (Lindsay et al., 2019; Price, 2011). When organizations claim to support DeafBlind people, Black and Brown DeafBlind people, or any marginalized community, their policies must protect those who name harm rather than punish them for it.

My experience was not an isolated incident. It is part of a long, documented pattern in which DeafBlind people are disciplined for naming harm, labeled “difficult” for asserting access needs, pushed out for challenging ableism, and silenced to preserve institutional comfort (Pineda, 2022; Ferri & Connor, 2020). Research confirms what our community has known for generations: marginalized people are disproportionately punished for truth‑telling, especially when the truth disrupts power (Ahmed, 2021). DeafBlind people should have the right to name harm without fear of retaliation. Accountability should not be treated as incivility. Representation within an organization, board, or workplace should not be a choice. Policies should align with mission statements rather than contradict them. And truth‑tellers should not be punished for speaking the truth. Silence has never protected us. Naming the harm is how we learn, how we grow, and how we break free from the systems that were never built for us.

This essay is not simply a reflection on what happened to me. It is a call to recognize a pattern that research, history, and lived experience all confirm. The hope is that naming harm will not cost anyone their place in a community or workplace. The hope is that we will create conditions where DeafBlind people, especially Black, Brown, queer, and multiply marginalized DeafBlind people, can speak truth without being silenced. Naming the harm is not hostility. It is not name‑calling. It is an act of truth‑telling, accountability, and collective liberation. It is identifying the comments, behavior that is causing the harm. By identifying them, we can then learn from them rather than dismissing them.

Author’s Note

This reflection is grounded in both lived experience and a growing body of scholarship on ableism, intersectionality, and organizational harm. Naming the harm is a long‑standing practice within disability justice movements, not an act of hostility but a method of truth‑telling supported by research across disability studies, critical race theory, and organizational psychology. It is also an act where we need to learn from and grow from as to truly dismantle the system. When we don’t name the harm, the system, the behavior remains. This piece is offered as part of an ongoing effort to document the patterns that shape DeafBlind lives, to challenge the systems that silence us, and to affirm that naming harm is a necessary step toward collective accountability and justice.

References

Ahmed, S. (2021). Complaint!. Duke University Press.

Brown, L. X. Z., Ashkenazy, E., & Onaiwu, M. G. (Eds.). (2022). All the weight of our dreams: On living racialized autism. DragonBee Press.

Campbell, F. K. (2009). Contours of ableism: The production of disability and abledness. Palgrave Macmillan.

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Dolmage, J. (2017). Academic ableism: Disability and higher education. University of Michigan Press.

Ferri, B. A., & Connor, D. J. (2020). DisCrit expanded: Inquiries, reverberations & ruptures. Teachers College Press.

Goodley, D. (2014). Dis/ability studies: Theorising disablism and ableism. Routledge.

Hamer, J., & Lang, C. (2015). Professionalism in the margins: Race, disability, and the politics of respectability. Journal of Social Issues, 71(3), 556–573.

Lindsay, S., Cagliostro, E., Albarico, M., Mortaji, N., & Karon, L. (2019). A systematic review of workplace discrimination against people with disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 41(8), 870–879.

Pineda, V. S. (2022). Disability, justice, and the limits of inclusion. University of California Press.

Price, M. (2011). Mad at school: Rhetorics of mental disability and academic life. University of Michigan Press.

Roberts, L. M. (2021). The power of professionalism: How identity, race, and norms shape workplace behavior. Harvard Business Review Press.Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286.