Hey, so someone playing disabled won an Oscar last night. Later today I am going to write about the worst example of able-splaining I’ve seen in a long time, in which a non-disabled person tells everyone why inspiration porn is great. But first, here’s a disability-related critique of Theory of Everything. Short version – it’s…
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has just alerted me to an ongoing issue in the state of New Jersey. Amazing, New Jersey has come up with a great new plan to move away from group homes and institutions and bring real support into the communities. That model threatens providers’ revenue streams, though, and they are…
I’ve missed a few Sundays, mostly because so much has been going on that I can’t stop writing long enough to breathe and assess. I’ll try to do better. Here’s the week. Published – Facebook and Fear: The story of one woman’s decision to keep her child with Down syndrome, facilitated through some quick Facebook…
A few weeks ago I wrote about an anti-choice bill in Indiana that was designed to drive a wedge between disability rights and reproductive rights activists. I argued: As we head into the 2015 legislative session, we need to be prepared for anti-choice filed a bill last week to prohibit abortions based on fetal determinations…
In Spokane, a woman stabbed her autistic son in the neck. Here is 100% of the information on the victim (link here): Court documents say the 17-year-old son had several cut marks on his neck and throat, but officials say his wounds were not life threatening. The rest of the piece is about how hard…
OPINIÓN: No debemos temerle al síndrome de Down http://t.co/3YRfPluotm pic.twitter.com/zKsFTjcSgO — CNN en Español (@CNNEE) February 19, 2015 I have a new piece up at CNN (here’s the English language version. I’ve just never, to my knowledge, been translated before, so sharing this!). I try to make some big points, but at the core there’s…
It started, as it so often does, with a family member calling 911 for help for a loved one in mental health crisis. Lavall Hall was outside, in Miami Gardens, when police arrived. He had a broomstick. Miami Gardens police officers Peter Ehrlich and Eddo Trimino fired their Tasers at Lavall Hall after he struck them…
This is the 500th post on How Did We Get Into This Mess? I started the blog as a place to dump essays that I couldn’t sell, as I was new to freelancing in May of 2013, and caught up in the rush of public writing. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and pitched and…
Open a new browser window and do an image search for boys. Here’s what I got. All but two images in the first four rows are, in fact, boys (there are two adult male actors in row three). Now do the same thing for the word “girls.” It’s breasts and butts and lace and sexualized…
In America, an English-language Jesuit magazine, Mary Berth Werdel (a prof at Fordham) has a powerful essay about church and her autistic son. She begins with diagnosis and all its complexities, a story I’ve heard many times from many parents (which doesn’t make this story less important or well-written!), but I really want to focus…