Journalist – Historian – Speaker
I mostly share pieces now via Twitter and Facebook, but am going to make a new site to share stories (Both mine and those of others) soon! Just waiting to see what next year brings at Pacific Standard. Meanwhile, here’s my latest: Speaking as an American Jew, one reeling and in mourning over the massacre …
Savannah Leckie, an autistic teenager, seems to have been murdered by her mother. The autistic community, led by ASAN, has long sought victim-centered narratives when such murders happen. This, from Ozark County Times, tells us about Savannah. Over the next few weeks, we will see increasing discussion of the killer’s mental health. We won’t see …
Yesterday 11 Alive News Atlanta wrote a story about the murder of Dustin Hicks with the headline: “Dawsonville mother kills son, self, in possible mercy killing.” They followed that with the lede: “Murder-suicide or mercy killing?” As social media began to comment on the phrase, the headline changed to “Dawsonville mother shoots disabled son, self.” …
A woman murdered her disabled son in Georgia. It’s a tragic story. His father discovered when he came to pick up his son for a visitation. This is just brutal: The boy’s father came to pick him up for regular visitation but when he got there, no one came to the door. And that wasn’t …
Every year on March 1st, the disability community gathers to mourn people killed by their parents and caregivers. We mourn all untimely deaths, of course, and there are far too many deaths by accident, stranger violence, police violence, and more. But there is something specific to the disability community in which caregivers kill and then …
Content Note: Child Murder. I wrote a piece for CNN about the murder of children with disabilities. I wrote it because of the media discourse I saw surrounding the death of London McCabe. I wrote it because that framing was not unusual when this kind of murder happens. I wrote it to provide a …