The Intersection of White Supremacy and the Education Industrial Complex: An Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter and the…

In this article, in answering the question do Black Lives Matter in the U.S. education industrial complex, we begin with a description of how the education industrial serves white supremacy. In our discussion of anti-blackness and racial bias, we also acknowledge the racialization of disabilities and the historical intersections between racial oppression and the marginalization of people with disabilities. More specifically, we examine the discourse and reticence about markers of differences (e.g., race, gender, ability status, race, and class) and interrogate how social categorizations are manipulated and co-opted to repurpose differences in ways that serve the education industrial complex and the prison industrial complex. Finally, we discuss how the discourse about the value of the lives of Charles Kinsey, a service provider who is Black, and Arnaldo Rio Soto, an adult with disabilities who is Hispanic, underscores the role that the education industrial complex plays in perpetuating racism, ableism, and the disposability of Black, Brown, and disabled bodies.