(This is a bit late as wordpress did not post it the first time around.)
I recently started reading War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence by Anne McGuire.
And then I heard the sentencing in the death of Alex Spourdalakis.
Honestly, given this and the police shooting right after I started They Can’t Kill Us All, if I didn’t know how prevalent filicide and police brutality were in our society already, I’d be wary of what I read next. As it is, though, I feel I need to read faster.)
Alex was killed in 2013 by his mother and godmother. You can read the very basics here: http://disability-memorial.org/alex-spourdalakis
Emily Willingham has written a brilliant piece here: Here’s Why You Don’t Want To View Disability As An Excuse For Murder (Forbes).
And I just want to say:
people, if a week-long premeditated murder- which, in fact, did not go as planned and offered a chance for backing out of the whole thing but instead resulted in an escalated determination to kill the victim in a desperately gruesome way- a murder in which a mother kills her own child, is treated as “INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER” and the ridiculously lenient sentence essentially dismissed as TIME SERVED-
people, this is not justice.
people, when this keeps happening, and it does, it has for years and decades and is the norm actually, it is genocide.
when there is no MENTION (much less call to action) of the role that pathologizing autism, propogating hateful and harmful quackery as “cures” for autism, or pandering to and manipulating the fears of would-be caregivers plays in abuse and murder of autistic people-
nobody mentions it because nobody sees anything wrong with it.
nothing wrong with believing and being led by hate and lies and fear. nothing wrong with the genocide of autistic people.
a coherent heart 