Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Don’t miss this story about policing and disability from Chattanooga. It’s a perfectly awful example of the #cultofcompliance. Hardaway, the victim here, is black, disabled, and homeless. First encounter: Weeks before, Hardaway said his wheelchair had died nearby, leaving him stranded on the sidewalk for eight hours, with no one offering help. He eventually fell …
The things we criminalize reveal a lot about risk and value much more than actual dangers. Here’s a fascinating piece from The Baffler on “distracted walking.” The issue isn’t safety but enforcement of car culture. “Distracted pedestrian” laws aren’t really about the evidence, though. They are about maintaining the privileges of car culture as that culture …
On NPR, Joe Shapiro has a powerful new series on sexual abuse and intellectual disability. I’ll have more to say about that later in the week. Here’s one reaction though from a fellow parent that’s incredibly important. The author thinks about all the ways that we train folks with Intellectual and developmental disabilities to be …
There is no de-escalation training that can build better policing. There is no video monitoring that can hold police accountable. So long as cops can say, “I was afraid,” even when video evidence shows that they are lying, they are legally entitled to commit murder. Patrick Harmon, a black man with, according to his sister, …
Four years ago, a police officer in Ontario shot Michael MacIsaac, who was running naked through his suburban neighborhood. He was allegedly holding a metal chair leg of some sort, and when he didn’t drop it, Constable Brian Taylor shot and killed him. An inquest into the shooting has just wrapped. One of the participants …
The video linked here shows an aide hitting a 6 year old autistic child in the face. The school’s excuse – the child spit on the aide. There’s plenty to be said about the lack of training of aides, lack of standards, the rise of video surveillance in school and the potential problems (video can …
911 for man in mental health crisis, family asks for calm intervention. Cops kick open door, tase and beat. He dies. https://t.co/6v7xgHbVsd — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 29, 2017 It isn’t safe for families to call 911 when their loved ones have mental health crises. It isn’t safe for families to not call 911 …
In Ottawa, a teacher decided to cut an autistic boy’s hair without permission. For weeks, the teacher had been calling the parents of the boy, saying his hair was too long and he chewed on it. From the CBC: The special needs teacher complained that Dominic, who has autism, was chewing on his hair and …
Americans have always been willing to put on uniforms and perform unspeakable acts. The Trail of Tears, those who hunted down slaves, internment, participation in lynching, ignoring lynching, policing minority communities, etc. Americans have always been willing. Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” is a useful way to consider these acts of evil, but we can’t …