Rise Up While You Can - My Speech for the 2014 Day Of Mourning:

http://goo.gl/7LIW4D

Though ASAN is the main sponsor of the Day of Mourning, it’s important to realize that this issue is truly cross-disability. This isn’t just about people with developmental disabilities, or intellectual disabilities. There is not one disability group that has been untouched by the murders happening in our community. Though we are divided at the best of times, during these times of trouble, we must unite to stand (and sit) in the path of injustice.


The problem is two-fold. First is the murders themselves. They represent a shocking lack of value for disabled lives, by the very people who are supposed to love unconditionally. Though we are often told to put ourselves in the shoes of these very parents and caregivers, those same people take lives without putting themselves in their victim’s shoes. 

The second is the public and media reaction to these murders.

What To Do When You Meet An Able-Bodied Person

http://goo.gl/wy5kB9

How can I best assist able-bodied people?

Because able-bodied people move around solely on two legs, their balance is often compromised.  Offer to help able-bodied people when you see them on the street, particularly in wet or icy weather.  Though the over-powered musculature of their lower body can compensate quite well for their shortcomings, sometimes assistance is still needed.  If you see an able-bodied person struggling, always offer to help.  They will be grateful for your assistance.

Third Annual National Day of Mourning: Is Your City Holding an Event?

http://goo.gl/2VhTvF

For the last three years, ASAN, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, and other disability rights organizations have come together to mourn disabled people murdered by their parents or caregivers, bring awareness to these tragedies, and demand justice and equal protection under the law for all people with disabilities. On March 1st, we will come together again, and we ask you to join us. So far, thirty seven volunteers have signed up to serve as site coordinators for vigils across the country. As March 1st approaches rapidly, we ask anyone who might have been waiting to sign up to hold a local vigil to do so now.

Black history of 504 sit-in for disability rights: More than serving food – when will the healing begin?

http://goo.gl/Qr4Z4m

Since I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1991, I’ve listened and read many stories about the disability rights movement and the 1977 historic sit-in at the Federal Building in San Francisco to get the government to pass strong regulations to implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act when I worked at many nonprofits for people with disabilities on both sides of the Bay. At that time all the way to today, names were thrown around like Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann and so many more, but my ears perked up when the story was told how the Black Panther Party got involved – with people like Brad Lomax, Chuck Johnson, Gary Norris Gray, Don Galloway, Johnnie Lacy, Brigardo Groves, Ron Washington and Dennis Billups – because they looked like me, Black and disabled.

In Disaster, the Disability Community is Always Forgotten

http://goo.gl/zFNHkT

September is National Preparedness Month. In honor of that, I’m about to go on a full-fledged rant.

I’m a fixture on Twitter and Facebook; I follow various government and nongovernmental agencies, as well as media outlets, tweeting and retweeting information to my followers when disasters and emergencies occur. I post and share information on Facebook, as well. Without fail, when I ask about people with disabilities, there is no response. Nothing. Crickets.

I can’t get answers on anything–accessibility status on shelters, numbers of people with disabilities who have been evacuated, if or how people with disabilities have been impacted by disasters, numbers of people with disabilities involved in emergency planning or management, numbers of people with disabilities being served, or who volunteer to help out during a disaster – nothing! It’s as if someone clicks on the ignore or the delete button when they see my question

Temporary Impairment May Be ‘Disability' Under Amended ADA, Fourth Circuit Rules

Sensible interpretation. We will see if it survives the environment of nonsense....

http://goo.gl/sc1d6a

Given that legislative context, “the EEOC's decision to define disability to include severe temporary impairments entirely accords with the purpose of the amended Act,” the court said.

“The stated goal of the ADAAA is to expand the scope of protection available under the Act as broadly as the text permits,” Motz wrote. “The EEOC's interpretation--that the ADAAA may encompass temporary disabilities--advances this goal.”

“Moreover, extending coverage to temporarily impaired individuals produces consequences less 'dramatic' than Altarum seems to envision,” the court said. “Prohibiting employers from discriminating against temporarily disabled employees will burden employers only as long as the disability endures. Temporary disabilities require only temporary accommodations.”

Altarum argued that even if the court defers to the EEOC's regulations, Summers's temporary impairment can't be an ADA disability because it was caused by an injury, not a permanent underlying condition.

But the court said “nothing about the ADAAA or its regulations suggest a distinction between impairments caused by temporary injuries and impairments caused by permanent conditions.”

‘You work until you die:’ Inside America’s fragmented safety net for the disabled

http://goo.gl/1XnV5D

Joe and his dad Charles Entwisle met me last Friday to discuss what he regards as widespread misperceptions about the lives and capabilities of people who live with significant disabilities or functional impairments. We met on the street in the Loop and wandered into the Harold Washington Library to find some quiet space to talk. Joe deftly maneuvered the tight spaces in his high-tech wheelchair, which he operates through a combination of sips and puffs into an air-tube. Using a special stylus he holds in his mouth, he operates his Android phone with similar dexterity on various forms of social media.