Monthly Reading List - March, 2018

Monthly Reading List

Five disability-related items I read in March, 2018:

The Stories We Don’t Tell: My Mom On Raising An Autistic Child And Why She’ll Never Write About Me
Sarah Kurchak, Medium - March 6, 2018

This is a must-read for anyone who doesn't understand why so many disabled people don't like "special needs parent" memoirs. Obviously, parents of disabled children should be able to write about their experiences if they want to. But they absolutely must at least consider how their kids would take what they plan to say, and assuming they'll never read it or understand it just isn't good enough, regardless of their disability. That goes maybe double for people who think about reading such memoirs.

Disabled People Can Have Eating Disorders, Too
Micaela Evans, Teen Vogue - March 2, 2018

The essential point of this piece applies to many health conditions beyond eating disorders. Doctors often don't function at their highest capability with disabled patients because they have a hard time distinguishing between our underlying disabilities and more immediate medical conditions. This confusion is probably the number one barrier disabled people face in getting good, regular medical care.

Record snow creates 'nightmare' for people with accessibility issues, says advocate urging better clearing
David Bell, CBC News - March 5, 2018

There's nothing special about how the article is written. I am including it because winter weather isn't mentioned often enough in discussions of physical accessibility. Obviously, it only directly concerns disabled people who happen to live in places that have snow and ice. But where they do appear, the barriers are profound and chronic. And unlike stairs and curbs, removing snow once doesn't do the job. You have to do it constantly. On the other hand, snow removal isn't actually that difficult in any given spot, compared to building a ramp. So there's a lot to discuss!

Stephen Hawking, Wheelchairs, Death. and Freedom
Karen Hitzelburger, Claiming Crip - March 15, 2018

On balance, I found most of what I read about Stephen Hawking in the wake of his death pretty decent. The only real exception was the recurrent tendency ... for some writers seemingly a compulsion ... to make basically the same faux-insightful remark about Hawking being "free" of his wheelchair now that he's dead. Karen does a good job here not just of calling out the practice, but explaining why so many disabled people really loathe it. As strongly as we feel about it, it's not something that's immediately obvious to everyone ... maybe to most people ... so it deserves a good explanation like this one.

The Overlooked History of Black Disabled People
Vilissa Thompson, Rewire News - March 16, 2018

There's an obvious reason to pay attention to the history of black disabled people. It's a matter of fairness and representation. But that almost implies that it's not an interesting topic on its own, which it is! Come to the subject for the justice of it. You'll stay because it's interesting.