By Ouyang Dan on 21 December, 2009
Brittany Murphy died today. It took exactly five seconds for the speculation to start up about why she would die of cardiac arrest at the tender age of 32, and not quite double that for the snarky comments to seep out of the woodwork. Because certainly if she had an existing heart condition we all [...]
Posted in disability activism, feminism, justice, media and pop culture, social attitudes | Tagged ableism, abuse, feminism, media and pop culture, problematic attitudes, social treatment, things people say
By abby jean on 17 December, 2009
A periodic feature in which we highlight some of the more ableist posts and comments in the blogosphere – the things that made us throw up our hands and ask “FOR CEREAL???” * Today’s edition: a post at Jezebel titled “Woman, Go Take Your Pills!”: Schoolgirls Respond To Samantha Bee’s Christmas Conspiracies. Which, already – [...]
Posted in disability activism, feminism, For Cereal?, justice, language, media and pop culture, mental health, social attitudes, television
By abby jean on 17 December, 2009
I read a blog post recently by a woman with muscular dystrophy and her experiences going out to eat in restaurants. The author mentioned how wait staff rarely give her a menu, or give her a children’s menu instead of the standard menu. When this happens, she often just looks on with her mom’s menu [...]
Posted in activism, disability activism, feminism, gender, identity, mental health, resistance, social attitudes
By s.e. smith on 30 November, 2009
“Treat us like you would anyone else.” It’s a common catchphrase you hear in some spheres of disability rights activism when an able bodied person asks about how to behave around people with disabilities. Pretty simple, right? Treat us like you would anyone else. Acknowledge that we are human beings. That we have a right [...]
Posted in 101, accessibility, disability activism, normality, social attitudes | Tagged accommodations
By abby jean on 14 November, 2009
I find this quote helpful when I’m feeling worn down and need a little inspiration and motivation to keep fighting. “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ” – Paulo Freire, “Pedagogy of freedom: ethics, democracy, and civic courage” (1998). [...]
Posted in activism, disability activism, justice, Quotations
By Anna on 10 November, 2009
Reading Rights is a US-based advocacy group that is campaigning to have equal access to electric book formats through text-to-speech on the Amazon Kindle. Their campaign is based around the American Author’s Guild demand that people must either prove their disability to the satisfaction of the Guild (and thus give private information over to e-book publishers) or pay extra for the same access to books.
Posted in accessibility, activism, autonomy, disability activism | Tagged disability activism, print disabilities, reading rights
I’d Rather Be Dead
By kaninchenzero on 24 November, 2009
I didn’t think I’d need to do this but it has come up: This post is not a place to discuss the merits of assisted suicide. Many disabled people, including me, find it really unsettling. In the context of able-bodied and neurotypical people telling us our lives aren’t worth living it is especially inappropriate. Comments [...]
Posted in blaming, disability activism, From the comments, i'm right here, justice, normality, representations, resistance, shaming, social attitudes, violence