Thursday, March 1, 2018

Disability Day of Mourning 2018

The folks at DDoM are aware of 143 disabled people killed by their parents or other caregivers in 2017 (if I counted correctly). 117 since the last Day of Mourning. 11 disabled people are known to have been killed in a similar fashion so far in 2018.
I wrote about the Disability Day of Mourning last year for Pacific Standard, after collaborating in a white paper for the Ruderman Family Foundation on media coverage of these types of murders. I wrote:
Small, marginalized communities are used to grief. They’re also used to being blamed for the violence perpetrated against them. A disabled person is killed by a caregiver — usually a family member — at least every week. While individual stories sometimes splash sensationally across page and screen, there’s a sense among activists that the broader context remains unknown or ignored. Worse, too, often those sensationalized stories perpetuate the idea that it’s better to be dead than disabled, rewarding the killers with sympathetic profiles and understanding.
Mourn the dead. Fight for the living.