Weekly Reading List

The GOP health care plan could force Americans with disabilities back into institutions
Ari Ne'eman, Vox.com - March 23, 2017

This is quite simply the best explanation I have ever seen of the complex relationships between home care, nursing homes, and Medicaid. It's such a core issue for a portion of the disabled community, and although it's not hard to understand if you are directly involved, it has always seemed unusually hard to explain to the uninitiated. This is great, and will continue to be essential reading, even though the specific health care bill it addresses is now dead.

Farms For Disabled People Aren't A New Idea
Kit Mead, NOS Magazine - March 15, 2017

Not many things annoy me more in the disability rights field than happy, naive stories about "innovative" new approaches to "taking care of" disabled people ... approaches that are almost always merely cosmetically modernized versions of old-time institutions. In fact, the ongoing and renewed seduction of institutions is a fascinating topic all on its own. Why do individualized, community-based approaches never seem to catch fire the way newfangled "facilities" and "assistive living communities" do?

Losing Friends To Ableism
Erin Hawley, The Geeky Gimp - March 18, 2017

I'm Celebrating Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month For the First Time
Keah Brown, Teen Vogue - March 24, 2017

Why I Call Myself "Disabled"
Karen Hitselberger, Claiming Crip - October 15, 2015

I group these last three pieces together, because they are all outstanding examples of disability blogging on the personal nature and facets of ableism. It's especially meaningful to me, because I spent most of my life ... including over 20 years in Independent Living ... being kind of dismissive of the emotional side of disability. I still sometimes feel a Gen-Xer's nagging concern about too much "navel gazing" in the movement. But it's mainly writers like these who finally broke through my shell and got me to take issues of body image, language, and internalized ableism seriously. I am very grateful.