Journalist – Historian – Speaker
I was recently contacted by two writers and advocates working on pushing digital media to provide audio descriptions for the show Switched at Birth. You can read about their efforts here. Audio descriptions are always necessary to make TV and movies fully accessible, but this show, with its frequent use of ASL, makes them especially …
In my recent piece on the anti-Trump ad “Grace,” I quoted filmmaker (and founder of the vital #FilmDis Twitter chat) Dominick Evans saying: Dominick Evans, a filmmaker and disability advocate, argued that people in the disability community are the only marginalized group routinely not allowed to speak for themselves. “If this was a story about …
My latest for Crux is on a special mass that Pope Francis held on Sunday, focusing on disability issues. It sounds like a good event – much more active in participation than usual. Please read and share. I was especially pleased to receive this quote from a former student: I spoke to David Gayes, a …
Yesterday, The Atlantic published my essay on “Grace,” the new anti-Trump ad put out by Priorities USA, a pro-left Super PAC. On another Sunday, I would have spent a lot of the day publicizing it, but given the massacre in Orlando, it felt inappropriate. Still, I think there are important themes here. “Grace” uses the moment …
The Star Tribune has a must-read feature on people killed by police use of force, finding that 45% of all people killed by officers involved mental health crisis. It includes a collection of all stories of those killed since 2000. Take a look, read the stories, and ask this – how many more had undiagnosed disabilities, …
I have a new Storify on disability and diversity at Pomona college. Pomona passed a new “diversity and inclusion” initiative for tenure and promotion, which has received a lot of press. Disability has not, to my knowledge, been mentioned. I’m interested in the general lack of overlap between diversity initiatives and disability services. I think it …
When Donald Trump mocked a New York Times reporter who has a physical disability, he was instantly and roundly criticized from across the political spectrum. In a campaign marred by his sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and other hate speech, the disability insult picked up condemnation from people less concerned about Trump’s other remarks. Trump, of course, denied …
I’ve been following a case in Ardmore, Oklahoma, about parents who suspected that their child was being mistreated in school, so they enabled recording on the child’s “talker” device. Abusive language was, in fact, recorded, and the parents sued. The school has tried to block the use of the recorded content, but so far has …
Earlier in the week, Scott Weingart had a brave, essay on being autistic in academic, published in Inside Higher Education. Admitting mental illness or neurodevelopmental disorder is dangerous, unless you’re a middle-class white man diagnosed on the autism spectrum. If you’re black and/or a woman, or if you have depression or anxiety, you may be …
Apparently anti-semites use (((name))) to indicate to their friends that someone is a Jew who needs to be attacked on social media, which – as this article explains – is hard for the non-initiated to track. It’s clever and ugly. I removed links in the quote below, as I don’t want you accidentally clicking over. …