I wrote a piece for CNN opposing the Ohio Down Syndrome Abortion Ban. Read it here. It’s been picked up and quoted by some interesting folks. I like to track impact of my writing on other journalists. I gave this quote to Mic directly: “But beliefs in abortion rights and disability rights are not mutually…
I have a new piece on Vice about Westworld. It’s a new show coming from HBO and could be pretty awesome. Or, it could just re-tread the “robots become sentient” stuff from Battlestar Galactica and Humans and Ex Machina and whatever. Here’s my hope: Because Westworld is set in an amusement park, the movie deliberately invokes clichés. You might…
Over the weekend, the New York Times had a front-page story on the Ohio GOP’s plan to pass a ban on abortions based on prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. It got a ton of social media play and was the top story on Huffington Post for some hours yesterday, in part because John Kasich, Ohio’s governor, is…
From Damien Walter at The Guardian on The Hugos: A snapshot of today’s sci-fi publishing industry – as opposed to the fandom that ultimately underwrites the industry’s business – does not show a diverse picture. Both bookshelves and cinema screens are currently dominated by the Matt Damon/Andy Weir vehicle The Martian and its archaically old-fashioned (and vastly…
Still blogging. But mostly – I am writing a book: Disability Is Not A Crime I’m home from DC. Amazing time at the NARPA Conference: Beyond CIT Training session I helped run, but mostly honored to meet so many advocates and experts doing the work in the trenches. Special thanks to the folks at Bazelon who co-presented with…
I am flying to DC today for the annual NARPA – National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy – Conference. I’ll be speaking about police violence and disability, along with two people from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. They will focus on policy and law. I’m going to tell stories about deaths, discuss…
Thesis: If you genuinely want to increase coverage of an issue, start with your own community and work outward. Anything else is just an attempt to play one group off another. This will be a little rambling, as I’m working through my ideas. That’s why this is on my blog and not formalized and submitted…
This is just news from yesterday. SFPD were filmed abusing a man with a prosthetic leg and crutches. Initially, the claim was that he was “waving sticks around like weapons” outside Twitter’s hq. Since that claim has been debunked (notice a lack of sticks in the video), they are now claiming they were “helping” him…
Yesterday I announced that I am writing a book about the criminalization of disability in American society. Disability is not a crime, but it’s treated like a crime throughout our society. I’m going to talk about policing, but also the way this mentality emerges in other aspects of society. Here’s one: Parenting while disabled. Disabled…
John Williams was deaf and never heard the policeman who was ordering him to stop. He was shot in the back four times. Ethan Saylor had Down syndrome and didn’t obey orders to get out of a movie seat he hadn’t paid for. He died on the floor, asphyxiated. Kajieme Powell was standing alone in…