As a person with disABILITY, like any within a diversity group, I have experienced harm from words. Before you stop reading and think I’m going to blast the abled population, let me just say that people with disABILITY are often the worst offenders. If I asked every person in the world to throw up their […]… Continue reading SHARING: Careless Words — Hearing Elmo
I’m still around, I promise.
Just me. No filters, makeup, or funny angles. When I have on makeup, people say I'm pretty, like they are surprised. I haven't thought I was pretty since high school, if even then. Up late because my sleep schedule is disrupted from the overnight film shoot last night, when I was just getting on track… Continue reading I’m still around, I promise.
Let’s talk about compassion and care for the ill and disabled, please
Another day, another story about a disabled or ill person being killed or left to die. I, for one, would like to discuss it. Here is what I think about it. What do you think?
Don’t shame us for being chameleon
I identify with much in this post.
I learned I was autistic in my 30s. Not long afterwards, I came across the word chameleon to describe how many autistic people change our communication, voice, interests, and actions to mirror the people we are with, or to fit in with the norms of a group.
Looking back on the way I had survived school, university, workplaces and early motherhood, I totally identified with this description of myself as chameleon. I had indeed skillfully navigated friendships and relationships by taking on the interests and communication style of others.
Having this realisation about my relationships with others was unsettling. I felt like being a chameleon meant I had lost something of myself along the way. It was as if the discovery of one part of me had made the core of me a mystery. I wondered, ‘do I even know who I am and what I like and what I…
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When Disability Meets Apology
Yes! All of this!
Ever tell someone you have a disability/you’re disabled and they immediately offer an apology? For many of us this happens quite often when you disclose that you have a disability and maybe there’s this accompanying puppy-dog pity look of concern that stops short of a pat on the head and a Paypal offer to your, um..charity case-looking self. Insert tight shot of mouth uttering the slow-mo, deep-voiced utterance of whatever the disabling condition is. *needle scratch* Like dance floor cleared from the fusillade of sulfur-smelling farts you let off or something. When conversations that were surfing levity turn undertow serious. A pearl-clutching concern that never, quite, pans out. Or maybe the reaction is akin to throwback rapper, Positive K’s response of “You gotta what? How long you had that problem?”
This is where you know a person has an “infirmed” but not *informed* idea from a comprehensive perspective of being…
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Café de Sourds, a Short Film by a First-Time Deaf Filmmaker
A short post with information about Café de Sourds, a short film that is written, produced, and directed by a first-time deaf fillmmaker in the Savannah, Georgia area. #deaftalent
La Technique of Lipreading — SayWhatClub
By Michele Linder and Chelle Wyatt I recently watched American Masters on PBS, Jacques Pépin: The Art of Craft. La Technique: An Illustrated Guide to the Fundamental Techniques of Cooking was Mr. Pépin’s first book and contained no recipes. While other well-known chefs were introducing people to a world around food and the dishes themselves, […]… Continue reading La Technique of Lipreading — SayWhatClub
The Truth Behind the Viral Meme about Mitch McConnell and His Fight With Polio.
A couple of days ago a meme starting going around Facebook about Mitch McConnell’s history of surviving polio The thing is, beyond the fact that McConnell did in fact have Polio as a child, the rest of the text is false. His care was not government funded. He received care at the frankly prestigious Warm […]… Continue reading The Truth Behind the Viral Meme about Mitch McConnell and His Fight With Polio.
The Washington Post’s Distorted View of Rural Disability
From the post: “Don’t tell your readers that impoverishment increases the likelihood of illness, that the lack of access to prenatal care and education increases the probability of childhood disability. Don’t tell them that the absence of accommodations in pre-school and all subsequent schooling assures failure for children with intellectual disabilities. Don’t tell them. Just insinuate the poor are up to dirty tricks. Don’t remind your readers that Adolf Hitler called the disabled “useless eaters.””
The Washington Post has published an article that purports to examine a steady increase in disability Social Security claims by poor families. Under the heading “Disabled America” the headline bellows: “One Family, Four generations of disability benefits. Will it continue?” If you’re disabled like me and you’ve a sense of disability history you have to shudder since the half-rhetorical question evokes an edict by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who infamously wrote: “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in Buck vs. Bell, a 1927 ruling that upheld the right of Virginia to sterilize “mental defectives” without their consent. (You can read more about the case here.) In short, the Post’s headline raises the specter of eugenics whether the writer or editor knows it or not. Either way its fair to say “shame on them.”
Shame also for committing the journalistic equivalent of what I call “Betsyism” for Betsy…
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A message for pro-lifers
Are you truly pro-life? Read this.
