On August 19, an 88-year-old Oakland man named William Roberts killed his 57-year-old quadriplegic daughter Marion Roberts and then turned the gun on himself. Information about the case has been sparse, but it’s clear that Mr. Roberts was terminally ill…
Read MoreThe scapegoating continues. This week’s New York Times Op-Ed page features an utterly irresponsible article in which psychiatrist Paul Steinberg baselessly blames schizophrenia for mass shootings. In a truly chilling fashion, Dr. Steinberg argues that, in order to prevent such…
Read MoreDespite a number of clarifications in The New York Times and on ABC News, NBC News, and CNN that Asperger’s is not a predisposing factor for premeditated violence, the spurious association of Asperger’s with the violence in Newtown, CT is…
Read MoreLast Friday, there was the infamous I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother piece. This Friday, there is an equally disgraceful piece called My brother is not Adam Lanza, but he could be, in which the author, under her own name, with…
Read MoreYesterday morning in Newtown, Connecticut, a young man murdered 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, along with six adults, having already killed his own mother. When I saw the news, I broke down and cried. All I could…
Read MoreTrigger warning: Contains a quoted example of disability hate speech. I am finding it difficult to begin this piece. It’s not that I can’t find the words. When I’m writing, I can almost always find the words. It’s that what…
Read MoreDear Mr. Scarborough and MSNBC: Nearly one week has passed since you, Mr. Scarborough, made the false and unsupportable claim that most people who commit the kind of violence seen in Aurora, Colorado are on the autism spectrum. Your statement…
Read MoreWe in the disability community knew it was coming. We’d known it for days. After a young man in Aurora, Colorado took the lives of 12 people, wounded 58, and left nothing but grief and misery behind him, we knew…
Read MoreThe following is a revised version of a post I wrote for Journeys with Autism about the murder of four-year-old Daniel Corby. — Another autistic person has been murdered. This time, a four-year-old boy named Daniel Corby has been killed,…
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