TSA and Disability: The Need for Intersectionality

Over the weekend and yesterday on the blog, I started collecting experiences with the TSA in the wake of the awful viral story from Memphis. It’s a classic case of the #CultOfCompliance, and I expect to be writing more about this topic in due time. I hope, though, that as we advocate for change, we do so for ALL disabled individuals, and we focus on those most likely to be endangered by state use-of-force (including the TSA).

Which leads me to this Open Letter to the TSA Administrator from August, 2014, by Emily Munson, [EDIT: which she linked to in her more recent piece from July 1, 2016. I did not dig this up, but was led to it from her own recent writing].

Munson is a right-wing blogger for CDRNYS, tracking the election, but this is an older post [Edit: At CDR’s request, I am noting this post was written for MDA, a different organization]. It argues against the searching of white, disabled, individuals by the TSA on the grounds that they are not terrorists. It explicitly supports racial profiling, instead.

I just want to say this:

  • I oppose racial profiling. 
  • I oppose the expansion of the surveillance state. 
  • A call for disability rights that promotes racial profiling and expansion of surveillance is not my movement.




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