Journalist – Historian – Speaker
(Reposted from 9/16/15 on a defunct part of the site) In West Virginia, a young man with Down syndrome is being told he can’t attend the inclusive school near his house. It all started when Roy’s parents noticed he was becoming more disinterested in school while attending Magnolia High School during his freshman year. In …
I wrote about Autism Speaks a few weeks ago, and my email box has been lively with parents telling me to “check my facts” or sorrowfully wanting correct my “”unsound and terribly flawed” information. One of the issues with Autism Speaks is that they define Autism as tragedy. Then, when confronted by autistics who are …
Content Note: This post does not describe rape, but does describe the way our justice system embodies rape culture. In March, 2013 – I wrote about a rape case involving a woman with Down syndrome. Her rapist was convicted, but the judge threw out the case because “she didn’t act enough like a victim.” The …
Yesterday I announced that I am writing a book about the criminalization of disability in American society. Disability is not a crime, but it’s treated like a crime throughout our society. I’m going to talk about policing, but also the way this mentality emerges in other aspects of society. Here’s one: Parenting while disabled. Disabled …
I missed this story of a police officer tasing a man who was having a stroke. This is from May. The officer has resigned.
The front screen door opened and then closed. I thought it was a package. But then I heard male voices on my porch. Was the delivery man saying hi to a neighbor? After a few minutes, when they continued, I opened the door to find a police officer on my porch, another on the sidewalk …
Many work wellness programs work like this – get regular checkups, hit various benchmarks of health, get money! It’s a way for business to lower their health care costs by rewarding people for making healthy choices. Except that according to the ACLU, these bonuses are basically closed to people with disabilities. Moreover, there’s no real …
I have a new piece out at Al Jazeera America on the concept of inspiration porn. Inspiration porn still dominates depictions of disability in the news, so her work continues. In the last few weeks, three stories about disability have gone viral. A high school quarterback in Pennsylvania took a girl with Down syndrome to prom, …
Prisons are the asylums of our age. We just don’t call them that. Then, when people with mental disabilities end up incarcerated, they are horrifically vulnerable to abuse from both prison employees and other prisoners. Moreover, prison staff even when not intentionally abusive, are not well-trained in responding to the needs of people with disabilities, …
When Eric Garner’s killers were not charged, I wrote a piece for CNN about the intersection of disability and race in his and other deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Ever since I heard that Freddie Gray asked for an inhaler before the police closed the door on the van and began give him …