Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Prosthetics are everywhere in advertising these days. They look “cool.” They don’t bother typical society (advertising is all about playing to the center, I suppose, when it comes to big brands). They are easily understandable and explainable. They feed our technophilia. After the 2015 Superbowl, I wrote (in a longer piece on inspiration porn): Finally …
Two disabled men were killed by law enforcement over the last few days. Details are still emerging. Both seem to be relatively young white men. Daniel Harris, in Charlotte NC, was Deaf and communicated via sign language. Joseph Weber, in Hays KA, has not been identified by diagnosis, but a local source tells me he …
Suggestion to health reporters: If you are writing about a condition, make sure your reporting includes people who have that condition. From Quartz: How obesity became the new face of disability in America The article opens by comparing “lean” hikers to obese former steel workers in Colorado, then interviews doctors, economists, and public health officials, …
The current right-wing anti-Clinton meme is that she secretly has epilepsy (as evidenced by her nodding once and as evidenced by her needing support from aides while walking up icy stairs in heels). From that central meme, others have emerged, finding fertile ground in the segment of our country desperate to disqualify Clinton from the …
Here’s a new case out of Oakland illustrating the ways that restraint and seclusion practices in schools quickly move from “safety” to compliance. The U.S. Department of Education ruled the Oakland school district discriminated against a 9-year-old autistic boy who was restrained 92 times during one school year, sometimes for up to 90 minutes at …
Kit Mead wrote a new post late last week on ableism on the Left. The Left isn’t especially prone to ableism; rather, ableism is a society-wide phenomenon still in its early days of being discussed, understood, and countered through speech, action, and policy. We’re still having to prove ableism exists, that (in the words of …
The use of “suffers” to describe people with various disabilities is my #1 “to-avoid” tip when I talk disability and journalism (#2 is “wheelchair bound”). It especially shows up in cases of police use of force. In last March’s Ruderman Foundation White Paper, Lawrence Carter-Long and I wrote: The most current disability style guide for …
A few years ago, my wife spent every other week or so working in Boston. It was a hard year, but a good one for her career. While spending lots of time in a hotel, she started binging through years of the show Supernatural and became a fast fan. It’s a show with a large …
Several stories around the same themes. A black child is abused by guards or police in schools. There’s almost always a disability context. 1. A lawsuit alleges a 6-year-old black child in Chicago with “special needs” was handcuffed under a stair for over an hour to “teach her a fucking lesson.” The security guard at …
A terrible crime has been perpetrated in Michigan, and the comment thread is outraged. A family of swans was run over. Meanwhile, a Michigan woman killed her disabled son (he had cerebral palsy), and the comment thread opened with, “this is wong, but understandable” and “she must have cracked under the strain.” It improved thanks …