Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Read Sarah Kurchak on “real” autism. Where I saw the first irrefutable proof of myself, though, so many others saw a referendum. “But you’re not really autistic,” an acquaintance posited a few weeks later, when I was still testing out how and if to introduce this new explanation for everything into casual conversation. “You can have …
In 2008, a history professor at UCLA forcibly kissed a graduate student, the start of years of harassment. In 2018, he was fired. Is #TimesUp finally in academia? My latest at Pacific Standard. “”I’m so thrilled I can’t even tell you. There’s 10 years of weight lifted off of me.” These are the first words that …
Boycotts are fine, but we need trust busting in the 21st century. Boycotts are fine, but threats to democracy like the one posed by Sinclair require more than collective consumer action. What we need, instead, is to elect politicians who will implement regulations intended to break up media and other corporate monopolies. As we head …
I wrote about one of the great Civil Rights acts in US History, the “Deaf President Now” protests at Gallaudet University. Read more! “Deaf President Now is an American story. It’s not my story, or only the Deaf community’s story, or Gallaudet’s story, but an American Civil Rights story. It needs to be told in …
#MedievalTwitter. 8 authors on “oooh Vikings used crystals to navigate” story. No historians involved. Vikings particularly susceptible to having this kind of thing spread through MSM. https://t.co/JhU7rTniJD — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) April 9, 2018 In the last year or two we’ve had numerous “oooh Vikings!” news stories hit national and international media, all of …
There’s a new report out from the GAO showing that for 2013-14 (the most recent data), black and disabled kids are penalized heavily and disproportionately in schools, nationwide. Boys and poor kids also disproportionately disciplined. Read the full report here. I’ll be digging in later today to see the more complicated data when they combine …
BREAKING: I sent @JerryFalwellJr a sincere request to pray with us at the #LynchburgRevival. His response? A letter threatening up to a year in jail and a $2500 fine if we attempt to pray on campus @LibertyU, even with students and alumni. Here are both letters. pic.twitter.com/hiGq3C0Zh5 — Shane Claiborne (@ShaneClaiborne) April 5, 2018 Last …
The brilliant author Nicola Griffith has written a new book, So Lucky. As the reviews roll in, she’s been talking online and now blogging about the ways that ableism intersect with sexism in the response. She writes: In How to Suppress Women’s Writing Joanna Russ lays out eleven methods to belittle the work of women …
Review of two recent books on trying to fix policing.
Minnesota remains highly segregated when it comes to adults with disabilities. Read this new Star Tribune report.