#ddom2018

TW for filicide, ableism, murder of disabled persons.

On March 1st, 2018, I had the honor of presenting my speech “How Many Ways” for the Disability Day of Mourning vigil hosted by Autistics United Vancouver—Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Territory In recognition of the day, I am sharing it again.

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these atti­tudes, and the debates they dri­ve about whether some lives are wor­thy to go on, and whether some peo­ple should be enti­tled to the same legal and human rights as every­one else, are not con­fined to class­rooms.

TW for filicide, murder, violent ableism.

On March 1st, 2018, I had the honor of giving an address for the Disability Day of Mourning vigil hosted by Canadian Autistics United (previously ASAN Vancouver) @canadianautistics

Today is March 1st, 2018, and the Disability Day of Mourning for disabled people murdered by caregivers. 

This is a non-exhaustive reading list. You can also read and share ASAN’s Anti-Filicide Toolkit here.

You can browse the ASAN Tumblr for more readings and updates.

I felt the need to do this, for DDoM 2017. It’s not good but it came from something real. by @glittersnowflakes​

“But the truth, it seems, is much more cruel a thing for them to be able to see / We are not fairy children; nor angels, nor starseeds or demons from under the sea, / We are human beings, with hearts and souls, our blood is red as yours when we bleed”

On Our Backs We Will Carry Them by Ari Ne’eman at the ASAN website

“Had they lived, they might have found us someday... They might have become a part of the precious sweet moments that bond us together in joy and not in sorrow. They might have been a part of our conversations, our arguments and our debates... The names on that list were robbed of us, and we were robbed of them as well...  We are gathered here today to take back the personhood of all those names who we read today.”

Speculative Fiction To Read On The Disability Day of Mourning by Ada Hoffmann: 

“Media shapes the stories that we tell ourselves about real life – often without us realizing. So media has a role to play in reminding us that disabled lives are worth living. Often the media doesn’t do this job; sometimes it does the reverse... But more often I see media fail by accepting our preventable deaths with a sad shrug.” 

BADD: Connecting dots by Bev at Square 8

“Somebody calls autism a tragedy. Somebody kills an autistic person. Somebody doesn’t see how these two events are connected. I try to explain. I try harder. It happens again and again and again and somebody ‘splains it away.”

List of Disabled Filicide Victims of Color at the Autism Wars

Honoring the Dead at Autistic Hoya (Lydia X. Z. Brown)

“And when in the popular media the most common response to a disabled person's murder is, “what a relief it must be that society and their family no longer has [sic] to bear the burden of caring for them,” that type of rhetoric tells me exactly where we still are and the kind of fight that we still have, the kind of challenges that we still face.“

Memorial to Katherine (Katie) McCarron at Ballastexistenz (Mel Baggs)

“There’s even a number of communities of autistic people. I don’t always get along with them, but maybe you would have. Even though I often find trouble in these communities, the people in them still understand me better than most people do, and I have some close friends there. That level of understanding was unthinkable most of my life... but adulthood has been worth it, and I wish that you could experience what this is like.” 

Killing Words by Zoe Gross

“Let me present to  you a sequence of events. If you wrote an article about George Hodgins’ murder, or if you gave a quote for one, or if you covered it on television, or if you blogged about it, or if you commented on it, and if you said that no one should “judge” the murder as wrong, if you said that Elizabeth Hodgins was “driven to murder” by George’s autism or by “lack of services,” if you called the murder “understandable,” if you said “it wasn’t a murder, it was a mercy killing,” if you said “all parents of special-needs children have felt this way,” please take a minute to wonder if Patricia Corby heard you.”

Letter To A Baby Who Was Thrown From A Bridge by Astra Milberg