crippledscholar

PRESS RELEASE FROM AUTISTIC SELF-ADVOCATES REGARDING THE COLOR THE SPECTRUM EVENT AND NEXT FOR AUTISM

An Open Letter to the Autistic Community Regarding Color the Spectrum

Alek Minassian’s Plea of Not Criminally Responsible is an Insult to Justice and All Autistic People

Image Description: Black Label with White writing that says “Actually Autistic”

Alek Minassian killed ten people: Ji Hun Kim, So He Chung, Anne Marie D’Amico, Andrea Bradden, Chul “Eddie” Min Kang, Beutis Renuka Amarasingha, Geraldine Brady, Munir Abdo Habib Najjar, and Mary Elizabeth Forsyth. He is also responsible for injuring sixteen other people. After the attack in 2018 it was reported…

Cripping Quarantine: Corona Virus, Disability, and Mental Health

Content Warning for mentions of mental health and abuse

Image Description: The words “STAY HOME” written seven times in shades of green, purple, red, and yellow on a pale mint background

I have been in self isolation since March 16, I have only gone out twice since then and those trips were unavoidable to collect prescriptions. On March 16th, I woke up early because I knew that more…

Sarah Kurchak’s “I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder” is the Memoir Everyone Should Read Right Now

Image description: Book cover for I overcame my Autism and all I got was this Lousy Anxiety Disorder. The title is shown at the top under an endorsement from Hannah Gadsby which reads “A treat to read, I’d recommend this book to anyone who struggles to connect to the world, even if you don’t call that struggle Autism” A head and shoulders shot of the author a white woman with pink hair with her…

Image Description: Poster for the Netflix Documentary Crip Camp. The Title is in white in the upper left corner. In the background are white buildings in the foreground a shirtless black man leans a guitar over his right shoulder while pushing a white young man wearing trousers and a white shirt in his wheelchair

Near the beginning of the film Crip Camp which premiered today on Netflix, a…

Image Description: Me, a pale blonde woman wearing a plaid dress and cream coloured sweater standing at a podium, reading names off of a list for the Disability Day of Mourning

On Sunday March 1, I attended the Disability Day of Mourning Service which commemorates the disabled people who have been murdered by parents or caregivers. Attending this year has taken on further meaning as the…

image description: A very crowded grocery store with many people waiting at the checkout like

The world it seems has dissended into chaos as a result of the novel coronavirus. The real problem here is that it leaves vulnerable people at risk of not being able to quire groceries. I am personally am facing imminent food insecurity as the ways I am able to obtain food come into higher demand.

Disabled Children Deserve Privacy

I have always been deeply grateful that I grew up before social media was a thing. I am glad that there are no videos of me for “educational” purposes. I am particularly happy that there are no videos of my trauma going around and had I been born two decades after I actually was there probably would be.

There is again a video of a disabled child making the rounds of the internet and the impact…

The Peanut Butter Falcon and Doing Disability Differently in Film

Image Description. Poster for the Peanut Butter Falcon. The three stars Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), Zak (Zack Gottsagen), and Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) are on a wooden raft while Zak poses with a gun on a river with the movie’s title at the bottom.

The Peanut Butter Falcon is a beautiful artistically shot film that manages to humanize Zak, its main character who has down syndrome in a way most films…

I Stand With Wet'suwet'en: Don't Use Disabled People to Shame Protesters

Disabled people can be a very convenient scapegoat to either be the victim or the villain in just about any social issue. When it comes the environmental causes we have certainly been both.

In the often misguided war on single use plastic we are both the villains for needing many single use plastic products. We are also largely ignored as bans on things like plastic straws gain momentum. The…

On Deserving to Have your PhD Funded

Image Description: A Photo of my Masters of Art Certificate

There is a lot of advice about getting advanced degrees, particularly PhDs one of the big ones being

Don’t do it unless you don’t have to pay for it.

PhDs are expensive and time consuming. When I was accepted to my PhD, I was offered a funding package. It barely covers my rent, much less my tuition. My funding is also contingent…

Rereading my Childhood for my Dissertation: Mine for Keeps

Image description: Book cover for Mine For Keeps by Jean Little. A girl sits among foliage wearing a white hat and a pink coat. She is cradling a little white dog and and underarm crutch can be partially seen next to her. (Source)

This post contains spoilers.

As part of my requirements for my PhD I’m doing a book audit of books from my childhood that were meaningful in some way. Some of…

Making Sense of a Stolen Year: Mental Illness in the Context of an Abusive Therapist

Image Description: A white woman with large glasses smiles at the camera while wearing a Toque (deal with it nonCanadians) for the CUPE local 3903

It all started with the historic 2018 CUPE 3903 strike in Toronto (longest post secondary strike in Canadian history). I mean no it didn’t you don’t trigger your PTSD during a strike only to have it open up flashbacks to your childhood. However, for…

Redefining Independence on the Psych Ward

Image description: A blond white woman wearing a blue, shirt,beige shorts and a fanny pack, walks out of some tall grass arms outstretched

I recently spent eight days in the Humber River Hospital psych ward. It was a strange experience, made stranger by the fact that my presence on the ward made it an atypical experience not just for but for those who work there as well.

There are two…

Vancouver Very Impressed by How People Plan to Adapt to the Straw Ban by Serving Milkshakes in Plastic Bowls with Plastic Spoons

*Satire* Vancouver is planning to ban disposable plastic straws despite it being an important accessibility tool for many disabled people

VANCOUVER–As Vancouver moves forward with a proposed ban on disposable plastic straws in a bid to reduce plastic waste, the city council is pleased with how the city’s businesses are preparing to deal with the ban.

The city’s many ice cream parlours have…

I was “So Lucky” to Review Nicola Griffith’s New Book: A CripReads Review

Image Description: The cover of Nicola Griffith’s book “So Lucky”. The title and author’s name appear in a large font made to look like scraps of burning paper. They appear on a black background

When I was asked to write a review of Nicola Griffith’s upcoming novel “So Lucky” (to be released May 15) I had no idea that the most frustrating part of the process was going to be figuring out how to…