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Sunday, December 4, 2011

In Memoriam: Carlos Clarke Drazen

It is my very sad duty to report that Carlos Clarke Drazen (@cdrazen on Twitter) passed away yesterday morning:
 
For those of you who never had the privilege of knowing Carlos, she was a vibrant, valiant, absolutely original and smart and wittily articulate individual, and as good a friend as one could ask for in this world.  She had a BA in Theatre and MA in Political Communication at SIU, as well as an MA in Disability and Human Development from UIC; at the time of her death she was writing her dissertation, combining media studies, race, and disability.  She changed my life and the lives of everyone who had the good fortune to know her.
 
Bruce Henderson
Professor of Communication Studies
Coordinator, Culture and Communication Program
Ithaca College
 
In the collection Blackness and Disability by the late Christopher M. Bell, Carlos Clarke Drazen wrote the concluding chapter titled Both Sides of the Two-sided Coin: Rehabilitation of Disabled African American Soldiers, which [quoting from the anthology's introduction] "traces treatment approaches for disabled U.S. veterans in the theaters of World War II and in the ongoing war in Iraq.  She illuminates how attitudes towards rehabilitation in the first instance were predicated on attitudes towards the Civil Rights Movement and the black freedom struggle.  Now, she suggests, treatment disparities are likely to be a result of entrenched racism as well as a misrecognition of what treatment specifically, and disability generally, signifies."
 
My condolences to her husband, Patrick, who is in the midst of arranging a memorial service.
 
 

1 comment:

  1. very sad to hear news of Carlos' death. she was a good friend and ally. thanks for sending word along.

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