Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Horrible people in Chicago attempt to use zoning rules to stop parents trying to build a ramp for their disabled child. Their reason – ramps are too ugly. Steve Weiss, president of the Old Town Triangle Association, wrote a letter to Ald. Michele Smith (43rd), detailing his objections to the project. “I understand that the …
WBEZ has a breathtaking scoop about CPS hiring auditors, some of whom billed as high as $350 an hour, with no background in special education, to reshape CPS special ed! The results have been disastrous. Here’s how it worked: 1) Declare CPS is broke. 2) Declare Special Ed is too expensive, especially for black and …
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) needs to be understood as disability for many reasons. First, it’s a disability, requiring numerous varieties of interventions and accommodations. Second, it’s incredibly common, so when we understand it as disability, it challenges our notion of normal, whole, or abled. These are lines we need to blur. From Chicago Tribune, …
The US Department of Health and Human Services has given Chicago 1 million dollars to address “trauma” in its neighborhoods. But it seems like most of the money will go to training cops. The grant will: * Establish a Chicago ReCAST (Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma), Institute to design and deliver trauma-informed training …
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 …
On Tuesday night, The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will host a hearing on police violence in Chicago. Advance Youth Leadership Power – a group focused on organizing disabled youth of color – will lead an action before it to focus on the intersection of police violence against people of color and …
Next week, I’ll having a conversation with the brilliant Ada Palmer about her debut novel, Too Like the Lightning (from Tor). Her scholarship on Renaissance reception of Classical knowledge is impeccable, but she’s also the author of a complex, innovative, work of speculative fiction, the first of four books, just released last week. Instead of …
A relatively new piece by Mother Jones examines the current state of Crisis Intervention Team training for police in Chicago. As regular readers know, I think CIT training is fine but limited in its utility. It gives officers resources to apply to situations involving certain kinds of disability in crisis mode, but does little to prevent …
Donaldson has a disability, uses a wheelchair and is living on limited income. “You have to decide between living day-to-day and rent,” she told me. Finding an accessible home that she can afford is a challenge, and the struggle is compounded by landlords who turn her away because she is in a wheelchair. “When you …
I’ve been out of town so haven’t been commenting directly on the Laquan McDonald killing. Two major points. First, I believe that the elected officials of Chicago tried to cover this up and delay justice for political gain. The Cook County prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, must have had probable cause to indict Officer Van Dyke for …