Notes on: Leonardo, Z. And Broderick, A. (2011) Smartness as Property: A Critical Exploration of Intersections Between Whiteness and Disability Studies. Teachers College Record. 113 (10) to 206 – 2232. Dave Harris NB the American usage of 'smartness' is indexed here throughout,of course The point is to unravel the myth of the normal child and identify ideological systems which constitute it. They draw on critical race or Whiteness studies and disability studies and their theoretical intersections. They don't want to operate with particular issues all groups but rather focus on ideologies, the construct of smartness as intersecting both race and ability, and the need to consider both ideological traditions. It is obvious that POC are overrepresented in special education and therefore seems to be exposed to a double jeopardy. However there are theoretical pitfalls in the work which tends to foreground either race or ability in discussing notions of 'overrepresentation' for example. Problems are obscured here. It is not just a matter of statistical overrepresentation, but the legitimacy of the system and how it operates. Even if the numbers of POC in special education were somehow representative in terms of numbers in the education system as a whole, the problem would not have been satisfactorily addressed — the 'naturalness and neutrality of the bureaucratic system of special education… And, by extension a deficit driven and psychological understandings of "ability"' which grounds it would not have been challenged (2208). Equal representation does not mean equitable distribution of power.  Instead, the central concept of smartness needs to be challenged. Like race, 'ability is a relational system' with a necessary 'denigrated other' the uneducable, and this generates privilege and a normative centre If we examine Whiteness rather than traditional race studies, we can better unmask racial privilege. This is a White led innovation, a '"pedagogy of the oppressor" (Allen 2005)' (2209), showing how educational practice becomes natural and valorised. It is an intervention race theory and studies how White myths and even the concept of race is perpetuated. Of course minorities also invest in race as 'a certain possessive investment in colour… A defensive posture, a reaction to the power of Whiteness… Histories of resistance, pride in their culture', but this is a reaction, within a logic premised on Whiteness. Whiteness needs to be pinned down, since it tends to be a floating signifier.  [shades of S Hall here] It is an articulation of disparate elements only some of which are racial. There are class gender and sexual interests as well. For example subordinate White groups are also offered a psychological reward, 'public wages' [privileges for being White or at least not being Black]. There is no essence to Whiteness offering benefits to any essential group or membership. It can even include groups with 'long-standing ethnic animosities towards one another, such as the English and Irish' in the USA. It aims to preserve race relations themselves, with Whiteness at the top. There are periodic ambiguities, for example allocating Arabs [sometimes considered to be honorary Whites, at least until 9/11]. There may be buffer groups. As C. Harris argued, Whiteness is analogous to property, and this relation developed through the objectification of African slaves and then through reification and hegemony which transformed Whiteness into law and conferred privileges which can be demarcated and fenced off. This notion of ideology might look orthodox compared to recent formulations, especially those that oppose it to science. These took ideology to be a descriptive term relating to integrative functions, culturally-based necessities, even inspiration for mass mobilisations [associated with Ricoeur, Geertz and Gouldner] [odd rendition of the humanist case]. They want to go back to theoretical orthodoxy with Whiteness. Whiteness is not an essentialism, there is no privilege colour skin. It varies according to the commonsense of the time, as certain US legal cases indicate [particular people were able to argue they were White because they originated from the Caucasus, for example, so the courts retorted that there were nonWhite Caucasians 'by the standards of common sense' (2211). A man of Japanese descent claimed to be more culturally White than many recent White immigrants, but lost because Japan was deemed to be 'not a land of White people', despite commonsense in this case.] Asian Americans are still sometimes called probationary Whites or honorary Whites. In some cases Mexican-Americans have been ruled to be White when treaties were drawn up, and a Mexican appealing against a murder conviction on the grounds that there were no Mexicans on the jury was rebuffed because he was deemed to be White. These are examples of 'egregious arbitrariness' (2212), showing the tactical nature of Whiteness and its violent history. Whiteness exists 'for the sole purpose of stratification'. This has led Roediger 'to announce that "Whiteness is nothing but false and oppressive"', and they take this as a good beginning. He did not say this applied to people, but to an ideology. Some people have been traitors to Whiteness, although it's also possible to benefit from Whiteness even while acting against it. The point is to disrupt 'the commonsense notion of Whiteness as equatable with White identity'. It is instead 'an interpellating system' whose subjects act on behalf of Whiteness. 'There were no White people to speak off before the arrival of an interpellation called Whiteness' (2213). White people are not 'an ontologically real category', but can become so as an effective ideology, as in Althusser's  argument that the modes of existence of ideology are real. Social institutions like education, and processes like common sense 'recognise certain bodies as White' The argument insists that Whiteness exists 'only as a tool for oppression' acting against racism need not reconstruct Whiteness. White people acting differently need not make Whiteness appear to be virtuous but can cause it to cease to exist, to expose it as 'violent and bogus' [I think the pessimistic outcome is more likely though, that acting will make Whiteness seen virtuous]. Whiteness was constructed 'for the sole purpose of denigrating and dispossessing people of colour', starting about 500 years ago. This was implicit in people such as Descartes who really meant '"I think I am White therefore I am"'. POC also shared this ideology and the way it was embedded into educational arrangements, in the form of White smartness, the educational system and official knowledge, in the way books signify POC, for example. If ever it were possible to think of ourselves as White without racial privilege, 'the circle between ideology and material practice has been broken' (2214). However racial supremacy is taught to all students in a pedagogical form, but still with a possibility of critically reflecting on its manifestations, as in the notion of a hidden curriculum. There is a lot of analysis as well including Gillborn and earlier Leonardo. We can now turn to disability, and the ideology of smartness which works in the same way to create a centre of normative privilege, a system of domination and a periphery of marginalisation and subjugation. This ideology 'operates in the service of the ideology of Whiteness and vice versa' seen particularly clearly in special education and the issue minority over representation, once we add necessary ideological layers referring to the bureaucratic system, especially 'the ideological systems of ability and disability, competence and incompetence, smartness and not – so – smartness' The ideology of smartness A great deal of ideological work goes on hear in schooling, and smartness leads to entitlement to cultural capital [not seen as something the family provides in this case] as well as prestige. Literature both in race studies and disability studies have taken on the idea of smartness but both have their own theoretical inadequacies. We know that schools construct and constitute some people are smart. Teachers do this and reward the smart. We can make the immediate point that the term means nothing without privilege, that the whole term exists for the sole purpose of stratification. As we saw with Whiteness, this can lead to the conclusion that smartness is nothing that holds and oppressive as well, that it exists only to promote hierarchy. Questioning the concept might lead it to wither away as a category. Certainly intelligence and IQ have been critiqued before and there is a similarity between cultural constructs of intelligence and cultural constructs of race. In America the two have been '"inextricably intertwined"' (2216), especially if intelligence is seen to be sophisticated thinking [not quite Bourdieu, but close]. The disabled need to be considered here as well, although they are often included implicitly in the definition of competent White people. Specifically people with disabilities are less likely to be characterised as smart [citing Hayman 1999], part of the general tendency to take physiological factors as indicators of intelligence. However, even Hayman seems to suggest that there may be some realist basis to smartness, and this is common in commentaries, to 'leave open the possibility that there are exceptions to their treatment of smartness as ideological' (2217), even if these are rare. Critical disability studies to offer more of a dispute and challenge, usually through taking on notions like cognitive impairments or intellectual disability. Some people, like Blatt (1999) see these terms as mythical or metaphorical, inherently abusive, certainly inadequate and undefinable. Most of this stems from social constructionist approaches denying the ontological reality and objective epistemology of the concept, and favouring qualitative research based on the testimony and experiences of the individuals who have been labelled. Nevertheless the work has evolved into 'a more general and much more radical critique of the corollary constructed intellectual ability', although this is still 'somewhat marginalised' within disability studies, perhaps because it might strike at critical academics themselves. , For L and B, there are theoretical inadequacies. Social constructionist critiques denying that disability categories are given or real on import a kind of relativism. This does not help explain unequal relations of power, oppression and mystification. It ignores the modes of practice, or, for Althusser, how these concepts are embodied in ideological state apparatuses, real and institutional forms. Reality appears on the existential plane. Ideological critique is necessary to grasp this. There is still some reification of traditional conceptualisations as well, for example in the personal accounts of some of the research respondents who still use terms like 'retarded' and 'normal' in their stories of improvement and how their neurodivergence manifested itself [exactly as Lewis and Arday do]. These might be stories of resistance, but they still contain ideological constructions. Asserting intellectual competence in these ideological terms is quite understandable, especially given the reaction of many professionals, some of whom failed to even grant that these individuals might be exceptions to the rule. However, these strong reactions are a tacit admission that critique threatens an ideological state apparatus, and one study noted 'vehement professional position to recognising the competence of individuals who have been described and regarded as "mentally retarded"' (2221). There are signs of [convergence], validating as smart after all people who have been originally stigmatised. This is no different from recognising that some POC are nice people: 'the standards are set by the Masters terms'. Smartness is still a property granted according to the owner's discretion, with value only because others continue to be denied access. It is understandable that parents want to tell their kids they are smart and to avoid negative labelling, to be pleased if their kids are gifted and talented, to see such labels as some sort of protection against the full discrimination of racism. But there are still costs. Smartness requires an opposite, 'the cursed population of so called low intellect' (2222). To claim you are smart means to condemn others. It also means to deride the intellectually disabled on a daily basis, it is similar to 'the preference for lightness within communities of colour', or the hierarchies found among disabled people, including 'the cultural preference for Asperger's syndrome over autism, or "high functioning" over "low functioning" autism', the same as smart and not so smart autists. These are possibly local defensive responses but they still 'unwittingly reproduce the system of stratification responsible for their degradation'. There is still a central notion of 'the presumption of competence', an underlying view that despite individual judgements there must be a rational explanation for ranking decisions. There is a similarity with the idea of 'culturally relevant pedagogy, in which students interests, experiences, desires and cultures are understood to be relevant, rich, and valuable resources, and the onus is placed on the educator to enact curriculum and pedagogy in culturally relevant ways' (2223). This assumes competence and capacity, but there are theoretical difficulties. If it is understood as a form of property or cultural capital it is 'theoretically untenable that everyone could attain access to these material spoils… Just as in the capitalist system, everyone cannot, by definition, be wealthy'. Competence implies its conceptual binary privilege. The presumption of competence stance needs explicitly critical engagement of how smartness is bound up with [vague] other oppressive ideologies including Whiteness. Otherwise it is 'a mystifying mythology'. Seeing people as incompetent involves racist, classist, sexist and other ideologies, more so than in ablist ideologies, they must be interrogated if there is to be an emancipatory narrative. If individuals with significant disabilities successfully contest their relegation and do secure a themselves more equitable access to opportunities, this often leaves undiscussed the role of ideological privilege, and success is often achieved without theorising oppressive ideologies of smartness. The successful can therefore become 'sub- oppressors in an oppressive system, and rather than challenge it they are content with sharing in its spoils' (2224). Advance in one area will not necessarily contradict the enforcement in another. Educational success stories and even 'actually rely on ideological acts of Whiteness and of class privilege in the process'. An example follows with the provision of facilitated communication with autists, which reinforces class privilege, and probably White privilege , while POC who are disabled are more likely to be placed in segregated classrooms and schools. Toward the abolition of Whiteness and smartness The normative centre of schools has been exposed by both disability and race studies, but both are incomplete. It is important to turn to ideology rather than social construction, and race studies do this, but they still leave out severely disabled individuals, which implies there are limits or exceptions and that severely disabled people 'really are not smart' (2225) and so are exempt from emancipation. Disability studies to deal with the significantly disabled, but have not made the shift from social construction to ideology, and not properly analysed Whiteness as an ideology and so in some ways they reproduce ideological acts of Whiteness and class privilege in the policies to relieve the oppression of some significantly disabled people. Isolation therefore can perpetuate and reify other ideological systems of oppression and reinforce oppressive relations and 'a conciliatory posture towards a bogus ideology'. They insist that Whiteness is 'nothing but' false and oppressive and that its role is only 'as a tool for oppression' and extend this to smartness. Whiteness and smartness are real only insofar as social institutions recognise these qualities [and implement them in practice]. Ideologies operate as intertwined systems so addressing one system and not the others will be incomplete and can even encourage oppression. What is required is more integrated efforts to dismantle interlocking ideologies of oppression in schools, although this is challenging. Theoretical integration is required as well as ethical imperatives. It is not enough just to 're-articulate' Whiteness or smartness, nor just to abolish either, since this 'will not win over many Whites to join the cause' (2226) and is 'a nonstarter'. Rearticulation might be a coping strategy, but even there 'it is doomed from the start. Softer versions might mean more White recruits, but this still might indicate ineffective combating of racism. The same goes for re-articulation of disability, say through 'Gardner-esque, relativistic calls for a celebration of "multiple" intelligences… Some forms of "intelligence" are still more highly culturally valued than others' and so will still be used in hierarchies [Kincheloe 2004 is cited for a critique of multiple intelligences]. Instead we need to abolish both Whiteness and intelligence, although this is 'not very intuitive' and may attract opposition from both POC and from Whites. It involves the abolition of identities and existing social relations, 'what it means to be a racial being', and those who enjoy the status of being smart and those who aspire to that status, even those who have had their status modified, [say from mentally retarded to neurodivergent]. Few academics even in the field seem eager to engage in a conversation about abolition because their identities are bound up in being smart [and their professional ideologies are engaged] — they are also predominantly White. However smartness is not an inherent physical feature and nor is Whiteness [although they are immediately detectable and therefore very convenient in commonsense hierarchies? Not everything can be used in ideological systems?]. Both are 'performative cultural ideological systems' (2227 constructing the centre of schools and societies with materialist effects and material consequences. Both are taught, 'are pedagogical'. Both control access to property, including cultural capital. This is also 'the great promise of this work' — 'pedagogical possibility for disruption' [very idealist and non-Althusserian here]. We must engage in 'complex interrogation of multiple interlocking ideological systems of oppression' and take on other ideologies such as 'goodness, beauty, sanity and so on' (2228), which are connected with disability hetero sexism and patriarchy. These ideologies must be unpacked as a way to form alliances with other radical educators seeking more inclusive and more socially just cultural practices of schooling. [Note 1 says further exploration of these connections with beauty and goodness need particular development].