Our freedom of movement is hindered in other ways. How we move as disabled people often leads to poor encounters with the police. We are often taken for drunks, our caregivers are harmed, or even shot; we are perceived as threats and beaten when trying to communicate in sign language, or worse, killed. In March, a report published by the Ruderman Family Foundation highlighted that half of police shootings have involved a disabled person. They were also people of color. Yet these deaths are rarely spoken of in the context of the person’s disability.

To make things worse, the intersection of race, poverty and disability is often ignored. Black Lives Matter has come under much deserved criticism by black and Latinx disability rights activists for lack of inclusion in their “woke” spaces. We cannot be fully woke if we refuse to acknowledge our disabled brothers and sisters. My city has some of the highest poverty rates for minorities and for the disabled. A recent study ranked Rochester 147th out of 150 American cities in a list of best and worst places to live if you are disabled. Yet, those in poverty who are disabled live in the highest-poverty census tracts, have very low education levels, no access to jobs and a shortage of affordable, accessible housing, and lack the resources to move within their communities, which have poor transportation options. They very rarely have the opportunity to live somewhere else, nor can they fully engage with the myriad initiatives designed to lift people out of poverty.

For me, freedom of movement also encompasses the ability to move in environments without people coming up to me and touching me or invading my personal space. Black women know the violating feeling when someone decides to touch our hair without permission as we go about our daily lives. Disability adds another layer to it. A poignant moment was during prep for an M.R.I. My hair was ripped out by a white female technician because she was “curious about its softness.” My blackness was singled out and my disability used against me. She took a moment where I was vulnerable and exploited that.

But these body-autonomy violations are a regular occurrence. People push my chair without asking, and often in the wrong direction, and shove me in the back as a way of “helping” me propel my chair — my movement and autonomy are constantly being challenged. And just as black men experience people moving to the other side of the street or white women clutching their purses on the assumption that they are a threat, I too experience people jumping out of the way or pulling their children to them in fear as they loudly proclaim that they don’t want to be hit by a wheelchair, even when I’m several feet from them. To be treated as something to avoid but also something to be touched at will creates an odd juxtaposition that is unique to the black disabled experience.

Navigating the world as a black woman is difficult, but I refuse to give up the fight to dismantle structural racism and structural ableism. At the core of the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter and the disability-rights movement is the idea of autonomy and agency over one’s life. We are fighting for the right to not be judged based on external sets of unrealistic expectations. The rights afforded to us in the Constitution are not fully granted to us if we are constantly obstructed by structural biases. To that end, I would paraphrase Chief Grady’s definition to be even more inclusive: We should have the right to move freely without impingement from anyone or anything. Simply because.