In the world of Down syndrome, we talk about “presuming competence” (hey, go buy a shirt!). That instead of “awareness,” we’d like to see a shift to a general presumption of competence first. More on this in pieces to come. I’ve been working, though, on ways of re-describing the strategic problems with police procedure as…
In South Carolina, a state trooper pulled over a man for a seat belt violation. The man got out of the car, as he was heading to a gas station, when the trooper confronted him. The man ducked his head into his car to get his license and the officer opened fire. The man leapt…
Yesterday I had a piece at Vitae on ending the conference interview and last week I had a blog post on the same topic, as a sort of prequel. Today, I offer a few fundamental premises. 1. The job market today is about adjuncts, not graduate students. A lot of my friends and colleagues and random…
Ableism in Action – These are comments from my recent CNN article on Kanye West. These are not trolls. These are people genuinely trying to express their thinking. Italics are me. Many of the issues here relate back to my post on “Hidden Disabilities,” featuring longer comments from readers. hgflyer lollardfish • 7 minutes ago…
Special Olympics Washington tweeted to me this: Special Olympics WA@SO_Washington@Lollardfish Our apologies. The intent was not to glamorize or offend. The name has been changed to “Run with the Cops”. Plz read below: They then deleted that tweet (hence no link), but later re-confirmed that they are changing the name. Here’s their statement in full. I…
In Washington State, the Special Olympics organized a number of “Run From the Cops” events, with the final one taking place next week. I’ll let them explain. Grab a “partner in crime” and support the more than 10,000 Special Olympics Athletes across the state in this unique nighttime 5K. Walkers, runners, kids and costumes are…
This week was focused on what the Kanye West incident tells us about disability in our culture. I wrote a brief blog post about it here, linking it to another post on the “pencil test.” It got a very good response, so I wrote another piece about it for CNN, building on the argument. That too…
Last Tuesday, CNN published an essay of mine that took the occasion of Kanye West’s bad behavior, in which he demanded fans prove their disabilities, to talk about the way that this happens to people with disabilities all the time. Response was mostly very positive, but I always pay attention to criticisms, even though I…
I started writing about police violence and disability because of the death of Ethan Saylor. I had read stories like this for years, but when Ethan died, unlike during previous tragedies, I had a few links to media. I first wrote this piece for The Nation. I then wrote this widely-read piece for CNN and…
On Chronicle Vitae, today, I will have a new essay about ending the conference interview. In it, I offer ways to make the shift into a positive rather than a surrender to austerity. Listen. The conference interview is, in fact, already dead. Video interview technology is getting better and better, funds are limited, and like…