The Voiceless Minority

The picture above is of Michelle Zeman. She is wearing glasses and a green blouse.  As you may or may not have heard by now, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently shared some statements about people with autism in an April 14 press conference. The rhetoric that he is spreading is causing an uproar within the autism community.   If you're new here, RFK has made some… bold (for lack of a nicer word)... statements about autism. : They will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted." Do his comments represent me? Not. However,…is this a reality for some people with autism? Absolutely. That being said, it does not mean that they should be treated like they are less than a neurotypical person.   Another statement that he made was that autism is a preventable disease." It doesn't take...

As humans, we crave interaction with others. Indeed. when we don’t have social interaction with other people, feelings of despair and loneliness can overwhelm us. However, in the age of social media have we gone too far? Every aspect of most people’s lives is available for consumption by others now. This may be a new concept to the majority of the world but for one segment of the population, I argue that a lack of privacy is not a new concept. Indeed, it may even be a bigger problem for people with disabilities than their able-bodied counterparts.  Frequent readers of this blog know that I have a disability known as Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy, for my new readers, is a congenital disability that occurs at birth. It usually occurs during the delivery process; it is not genetic or at least there is no evidence that it is as of yet. There are many forms of Cerebral Palsy and it can affect people in a variety of ways. Some people with Cerebral Palsy have a slight limp when walking, ...

Your friendly neighborhood super advocate is back! This time I have a question. Have we reached a point where it is okay to tell a “casual lie” rather than the truth? You may ask what made you pose the above question. The answer is sad but simple. During a recent follow-up appointment with my pain management doctor, I began talking to his nurse. I have been to the office several times in the last few months because my pain pump needed to be replaced. On this particular occasion, I found it easy to talk with the attending nurse for that day. For privacy purposes, I will not give her name here.  Throughout my appointment, we chatted easily. She asked me general questions about my education and other topics, and I did the same. As the appointment progressed, it eventually came out that I was a disability blogger. I told her about this blog and mentioned that we had a Facebook page. She seemed genuinely interested, so I invited her to like the page and add me on Facebook. Truth be told...