[This post was originally published on the ASAN blog.]
Let me present to you a sequence of events.
On March 6th, a 22-year-old autistic man named George Hodgins was murdered in Sunnyvale, California. His mother, Elizabeth, pulled out a gun, shot him point-blank, and then killed herself.
In the following days and weeks, journalists wrote about George Hodgins’ murder. In their articles they called him “low functioning and high maintenance,” and called Elizabeth Hodgins “a devoted and loving mother.” They sought out quotes from other parents of autistic children, who normalized the crime by saying things like “every mother I know who has a child with special needs has a moment just like that.”
People came to comment on these articles. They said that they felt sympathy for the mother. They called her George’s “guardian angel.” They said no one should judge her unless they had walked in her shoes. They said that it wasn’t wrong because he was autistic, and autistic children are hell to raise. They said that it wasn’t wrong because she was obviously responding to a lack of services. (In fact, she had refused services.) They said that it wasn’t wrong because he was disabled, so and his life couldn’t have been very good anyway.
On March 8th, Robert Latimer went on television to talk about how loving and compassionate it was when he gassed his disabled daughter Tracy. He called for “euthanasia” – the murder of disabled children by their parents – to be legalized in Canada. A woman who appeared with him agreed. She has two disabled children who she would like to kill, but she can’t because it is against the law. No opposing viewpoints were presented.
On March 17th, the Autism Society released a statement about “the tragic story of Elizabeth Hodgins,” which “shows that high stress on parents is very common in the autism community.” The statement, signed by both Autism Society presidents, blamed her actions on a lack of services. They also noted that “the divorce rate among parents with a child with autism is as high as 70 percent due to the pressure,” (this is actually a myth that was debunked in 2010). They never even mentioned George’s name.
On March 31st, Patricia Corby drowned her 4 year old autistic son Daniel in the bathtub, in San Diego, California.
***
We need to start looking at these murders as copycat crimes, which are encouraged when murders of disabled people receive positive press coverage. Just as Katie McCarron’s murder followed “Autism Every Day,” Daniel Corby’s murder follows George Hodgins’ murder, and subsequent media coverage which excused, explained away, or even promoted the murder of disabled people by our parents.
When journalists call murderers “loving and devoted parents,” when television shows give Robert Latimer airtime, when parents normalize murder by saying that all special-needs parents have murderous thoughts, the result is an environment in which these murders are seen as acceptable. Media coverage like this sends a message that homicide is a normal, understandable response to any discomfort one might experience while parenting a disabled child, and we can’t pretend that other parents of disabled kids aren’t hearing that message.
***
Let me present to you a sequence of events.
If you wrote an article about George Hodgins’ murder, or if you gave a quote for one, or if you covered it on television, or if you blogged about it, or if you commented on it,
and
if you said that no one should “judge” the murder as wrong,
if you said that Elizabeth Hodgins was “driven to murder” by George’s autism or by “lack of services,”
if you called the murder “understandable,”
if you said “it wasn’t a murder, it was a mercy killing,”
if you said “all parents of special-needs children have felt this way,”
please take a minute to wonder if Patricia Corby heard you.
Showing posts with label the way we talk about things is important. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the way we talk about things is important. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, May 9, 2011
Domestic Hate Murder Coverage Style Guide
(GREAT BIG WARNING: This post deals exclusively with parents who murder their disabled children, and the ableism in media coverage of these murders.)
I woke up this morning to news of yet another autistic child murdered by their parent. In this case, the child is Glen Freaney, whose mother is currently on trial for strangling him last May. As usual, the grief I felt for Glen was aggravated by rage at the deeply ableist way his murder was covered in many of the articles I read. I have written before about journalists' tendency to express sympathy for parents who murder their disabled children. This time, I decided to take a new approach.
Since it is apparently very difficult for journalists to write respectfully about disabled children whose parents have murdered them, I took it upon myself to create this style guide. If you are a journalist about to begin covering one of these cases, please take these simple tips to heart:
DO NOT write that the victim “suffered from” their disability. Not only is this incorrect terminology, but it is very inconsiderate when in this case what the person really suffered from was being the child of a murderer.
DO talk about who the victim was as a person. What did they like? What were their hobbies? What were they struggling with? Did they like ice cream? What was their favorite color? If you don’t have enough space in the article to talk about the person whose murder you are covering, I recommend that you make room by cutting the obligatory paragraph where you write in horror about how they still wore diapers when they were killed, or how they would have needed 24-hour care for the rest of their life, as if these things were mitigating factors in the crime. It’s not wrong to write bluntly about the victim’s disability, but it absolutely is wrong to use the facts of the victim’s life to garner sympathy for the murderer.
DO NOT ask the readers to put themselves in the shoes of the murderer. DO NOT prominently feature the same old interviews by double-talking fellow-parents-of-disabled-children, who say that while they cannot excuse the murderer’s action, they can understand it. DO NOT seek opinions from experts on the suffering of murderous parents. DO NOT end your piece on a “thoughtful,” “balanced,” note in which you ask a provocatively open-ended question about whether society should really hold the murderer to blame for killing their own child.
DO interview the same people that you would usually interview in a murder case – the victim’s friends, teachers, faith leaders, whatever. Oh, you can also interview those of the victim’s family members who didn’t think that killing them was an awesome idea.
DO NOT lay this corpse at the feet of the special education system, or Medicare, or SSI. There are plenty of problems with each of these systems for you to investigate in detail. Please, do an exposé or five on how this country doesn’t adequately care for its disabled citizens. But DO NOT state or imply that the natural, logical consequence of these failed systems is child murder. If you want to link this specific tragic event to a larger societal ill, DO critique the ableism in a society where child murderers can find sympathy if their victims meet the right requirements.
DO use the phrase “hate crime” where appropriate. DO NOT FUCKING DARE refer to the murder as the desperate act of a loving parent. DO NOT try to tug the reader’s heartstrings with paragraphs upon paragraphs detailing the murderer’s worries for their child’s future. DO remember that if the murderer was concerned about their child’s future, they would not have prevented their child from having one.
DO remember as you write this article that when a parent murders their child, this is a bad thing.
I woke up this morning to news of yet another autistic child murdered by their parent. In this case, the child is Glen Freaney, whose mother is currently on trial for strangling him last May. As usual, the grief I felt for Glen was aggravated by rage at the deeply ableist way his murder was covered in many of the articles I read. I have written before about journalists' tendency to express sympathy for parents who murder their disabled children. This time, I decided to take a new approach.
Since it is apparently very difficult for journalists to write respectfully about disabled children whose parents have murdered them, I took it upon myself to create this style guide. If you are a journalist about to begin covering one of these cases, please take these simple tips to heart:
DO NOT write that the victim “suffered from” their disability. Not only is this incorrect terminology, but it is very inconsiderate when in this case what the person really suffered from was being the child of a murderer.
DO talk about who the victim was as a person. What did they like? What were their hobbies? What were they struggling with? Did they like ice cream? What was their favorite color? If you don’t have enough space in the article to talk about the person whose murder you are covering, I recommend that you make room by cutting the obligatory paragraph where you write in horror about how they still wore diapers when they were killed, or how they would have needed 24-hour care for the rest of their life, as if these things were mitigating factors in the crime. It’s not wrong to write bluntly about the victim’s disability, but it absolutely is wrong to use the facts of the victim’s life to garner sympathy for the murderer.
DO NOT ask the readers to put themselves in the shoes of the murderer. DO NOT prominently feature the same old interviews by double-talking fellow-parents-of-disabled-children, who say that while they cannot excuse the murderer’s action, they can understand it. DO NOT seek opinions from experts on the suffering of murderous parents. DO NOT end your piece on a “thoughtful,” “balanced,” note in which you ask a provocatively open-ended question about whether society should really hold the murderer to blame for killing their own child.
DO interview the same people that you would usually interview in a murder case – the victim’s friends, teachers, faith leaders, whatever. Oh, you can also interview those of the victim’s family members who didn’t think that killing them was an awesome idea.
DO NOT lay this corpse at the feet of the special education system, or Medicare, or SSI. There are plenty of problems with each of these systems for you to investigate in detail. Please, do an exposé or five on how this country doesn’t adequately care for its disabled citizens. But DO NOT state or imply that the natural, logical consequence of these failed systems is child murder. If you want to link this specific tragic event to a larger societal ill, DO critique the ableism in a society where child murderers can find sympathy if their victims meet the right requirements.
DO use the phrase “hate crime” where appropriate. DO NOT FUCKING DARE refer to the murder as the desperate act of a loving parent. DO NOT try to tug the reader’s heartstrings with paragraphs upon paragraphs detailing the murderer’s worries for their child’s future. DO remember that if the murderer was concerned about their child’s future, they would not have prevented their child from having one.
DO remember as you write this article that when a parent murders their child, this is a bad thing.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Headlines: Abuse and Empathy
(WARNING: this post discusses child abuse)
We are two weeks into Autism Awareness Month and I count three casualties so far. Two stories in the news this week, of three autistic children murdered or abused by their parents and caretakers.
In Washington, two autistic boys (ages 5 and 7) were discovered locked in a cage, where their father and his fiancee kept them every day, in unsanitary conditions. They weren't allowed to walk around the house or to go to school. I don't know their names. Their father, John Eckhart, told police: "What am I supposed to do? Let them run around the house? They're autistic."
In Massachusetts, Kristin LaBrie was found guilty of "attempted murder, assault and battery on a disabled person and a child, and child endangerment," after she withheld chemotherapy drugs from her 9-year-old autistic son, Jeremy Fraser. This actually happened years ago, but was in the news again this week because of the sentencing. Jeremy was non-verbal and had lymphoma (blood cancer). He had been getting treatment at a local hospital, and his cancer was in remission. When he was moved home from the hospital, doctors gave his mother medication to give to him, and predicted that he would recover. But LaBrie did not administer the drugs, and Jeremy's cancer recurred, this time as leukemia. Jeremy died in March 2009. This week, LaBrie was sentenced to 8-10 years in jail, and 5 years on probation.
These are only the cases which have made it into the news this week. There are many more autistic people out there, right now, facing abuse and neglect in their homes, in their schools, in institutions. Their suffering is being permitted, hidden, or ignored.
Autism "experts" have already spoken up, defending the parents involved in these two cases. Neatha Lefevre, of the Autism Society of Washington, presented a stunningly sunny picture of the Oregon case. She told reporters: “The behaviors [of an autistic child] can be very challenging." Referring to Eckhart, who kept his sons in a dirty cage, she said, "When [parents] do this extreme, they feel this is the safest way to keep their children. The family will choose extremes because they don’t have good information.”
As for the Massachusetts case, apparently even the prosecutor "[expressed] sympathy for the challenges of caring for a sick, disabled child." TIME Magazine ran an article which began by asking readers to place themselves in Kristin LaBrie's shoes: "Imagine you are a single mother suffering from depression, overwhelmed with caring for an autistic, nonverbal and developmentally disabled son. If he were diagnosed with cancer, what would you do?" The article quotes a Boston-area attorney as saying:
"It can be so overwhelming for a single parent to deal with a child who is autistic, nonverbal, and developmentally delayed. It is cruel to add to that burden a diagnosis of cancer and a requirement that the mom administer medicine that will cause the child even more pain."
TIME also quotes medical ethicist Cynthia Rushton, whose take on a mother withholding life-saving drugs was: "I suspect this mother was really trying to do the best she could for him... what does it mean to be a good parent in this circumstance?" The article's author writes, "Was justice done? It's hard to know. Certainly, disabled children have rights. But moms do too, and it appears that LaBrie did not have adequate support."
As with most cases in which a parent abuses or murders a disabled child, there are a lot of voices urging us to feel empathy for the parent, to imagine how hard it is to have an autistic child. As far as I know, these "experts" have yet feel empathy for the child, to imagine how hard it is to be an autistic child with abusive or murderous parents.
Meanwhile, former PBS news anchor Robert MacNeil is returning to television with a special report called Autism Now. In a promotional interview, MacNeil described autism this way:
"It delays the most -- delays or impairs for life -- the most human thing we have, which is our ability to look into each others eyes and feel that other person's existence and what might be going on in their mind, and to empathize with them. That is denied -- largely denied -- to children with autism."
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg addresses this claim with an open letter, posted here.
Every day, autistic people are being murdered and abused by people who are supposed to provide them with love and care. And every day, people tell each other that autistic people are the ones who lack empathy, never pointing out that often, it is neurotypical people who do not have empathy for us.
Let's take a moment to remember the connection between people who speak about us as though we are not human and people who treat us inhumanely.
We are two weeks into Autism Awareness Month and I count three casualties so far. Two stories in the news this week, of three autistic children murdered or abused by their parents and caretakers.
In Washington, two autistic boys (ages 5 and 7) were discovered locked in a cage, where their father and his fiancee kept them every day, in unsanitary conditions. They weren't allowed to walk around the house or to go to school. I don't know their names. Their father, John Eckhart, told police: "What am I supposed to do? Let them run around the house? They're autistic."
In Massachusetts, Kristin LaBrie was found guilty of "attempted murder, assault and battery on a disabled person and a child, and child endangerment," after she withheld chemotherapy drugs from her 9-year-old autistic son, Jeremy Fraser. This actually happened years ago, but was in the news again this week because of the sentencing. Jeremy was non-verbal and had lymphoma (blood cancer). He had been getting treatment at a local hospital, and his cancer was in remission. When he was moved home from the hospital, doctors gave his mother medication to give to him, and predicted that he would recover. But LaBrie did not administer the drugs, and Jeremy's cancer recurred, this time as leukemia. Jeremy died in March 2009. This week, LaBrie was sentenced to 8-10 years in jail, and 5 years on probation.
These are only the cases which have made it into the news this week. There are many more autistic people out there, right now, facing abuse and neglect in their homes, in their schools, in institutions. Their suffering is being permitted, hidden, or ignored.
Autism "experts" have already spoken up, defending the parents involved in these two cases. Neatha Lefevre, of the Autism Society of Washington, presented a stunningly sunny picture of the Oregon case. She told reporters: “The behaviors [of an autistic child] can be very challenging." Referring to Eckhart, who kept his sons in a dirty cage, she said, "When [parents] do this extreme, they feel this is the safest way to keep their children. The family will choose extremes because they don’t have good information.”
As for the Massachusetts case, apparently even the prosecutor "[expressed] sympathy for the challenges of caring for a sick, disabled child." TIME Magazine ran an article which began by asking readers to place themselves in Kristin LaBrie's shoes: "Imagine you are a single mother suffering from depression, overwhelmed with caring for an autistic, nonverbal and developmentally disabled son. If he were diagnosed with cancer, what would you do?" The article quotes a Boston-area attorney as saying:
"It can be so overwhelming for a single parent to deal with a child who is autistic, nonverbal, and developmentally delayed. It is cruel to add to that burden a diagnosis of cancer and a requirement that the mom administer medicine that will cause the child even more pain."
TIME also quotes medical ethicist Cynthia Rushton, whose take on a mother withholding life-saving drugs was: "I suspect this mother was really trying to do the best she could for him... what does it mean to be a good parent in this circumstance?" The article's author writes, "Was justice done? It's hard to know. Certainly, disabled children have rights. But moms do too, and it appears that LaBrie did not have adequate support."
As with most cases in which a parent abuses or murders a disabled child, there are a lot of voices urging us to feel empathy for the parent, to imagine how hard it is to have an autistic child. As far as I know, these "experts" have yet feel empathy for the child, to imagine how hard it is to be an autistic child with abusive or murderous parents.
Meanwhile, former PBS news anchor Robert MacNeil is returning to television with a special report called Autism Now. In a promotional interview, MacNeil described autism this way:
"It delays the most -- delays or impairs for life -- the most human thing we have, which is our ability to look into each others eyes and feel that other person's existence and what might be going on in their mind, and to empathize with them. That is denied -- largely denied -- to children with autism."
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg addresses this claim with an open letter, posted here.
Every day, autistic people are being murdered and abused by people who are supposed to provide them with love and care. And every day, people tell each other that autistic people are the ones who lack empathy, never pointing out that often, it is neurotypical people who do not have empathy for us.
Let's take a moment to remember the connection between people who speak about us as though we are not human and people who treat us inhumanely.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Community: I don't think it means what you think it means
I've been noticing something that's been bothering me a lot, and that is the way the phrases "autism community" and "autistic community" are used.
I find that when these phrases are used, in all sorts of media, they tend to refer to parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and lovers of autistic people, as well as doctors, therapists, behaviorists, staff, and other professionals who work with autistic people. Who is not likely to be consulted when some journalist or blogger needs the perspective of "the autism community"? Actual autistic people.
Guys, I think this is a problem.
For those of you who like analogies (and I really do), imagine if whenever someone used the phrase "the gay community," they were actually referring to PFLAG, a group for straight allies. That would be not so good, right? Because as lovely as PFLAG is, they are by definition mostly straight people (not that gay people can't be parents and friends of other gay people, but I don't think that's what PFLAG is for) and therefore not a good choice to be the voice of "the gay community."
But actually, the way the phrase "autistic community" gets used is even worse than that hypothetical situation. Because PFLAG is at least genuinely supportive of gay rights. On the other hand, a lot of the parent-and-professional groups that get referred to as "the autistic community" really want autism -- and therefore, autistic people -- to go away forever. In my opinion, this is not good community-building sentiment.
I think this is fairly self-explanatory: if you want a community to be eliminated from the planet, you are not part of that community. You are not even an ally. Hell, why would you want to be part of that community anyway? You obviously don't like us very much.
If you're reading this and wondering whether it really matters how people use the phrase "autism/autistic community," let me tell you what I believe the misuse of this phrase does.
It perpetuates the idea that autistic people as a group can't represent ourselves and need non-autistic people to speak for us. It centers the concerns of neurotypical people in discussions of autism, when really it is our needs, our concerns, our rights that should be prioritized. It means that there are people claiming the support of "the autistic community" for positions that a lot of autistic people find morally offensive. It's one of the tools people use to keep our voices from being heard. In other words, yes, it matters. This is really bad news.
I find that when these phrases are used, in all sorts of media, they tend to refer to parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and lovers of autistic people, as well as doctors, therapists, behaviorists, staff, and other professionals who work with autistic people. Who is not likely to be consulted when some journalist or blogger needs the perspective of "the autism community"? Actual autistic people.
Guys, I think this is a problem.
For those of you who like analogies (and I really do), imagine if whenever someone used the phrase "the gay community," they were actually referring to PFLAG, a group for straight allies. That would be not so good, right? Because as lovely as PFLAG is, they are by definition mostly straight people (not that gay people can't be parents and friends of other gay people, but I don't think that's what PFLAG is for) and therefore not a good choice to be the voice of "the gay community."
But actually, the way the phrase "autistic community" gets used is even worse than that hypothetical situation. Because PFLAG is at least genuinely supportive of gay rights. On the other hand, a lot of the parent-and-professional groups that get referred to as "the autistic community" really want autism -- and therefore, autistic people -- to go away forever. In my opinion, this is not good community-building sentiment.
I think this is fairly self-explanatory: if you want a community to be eliminated from the planet, you are not part of that community. You are not even an ally. Hell, why would you want to be part of that community anyway? You obviously don't like us very much.
If you're reading this and wondering whether it really matters how people use the phrase "autism/autistic community," let me tell you what I believe the misuse of this phrase does.
It perpetuates the idea that autistic people as a group can't represent ourselves and need non-autistic people to speak for us. It centers the concerns of neurotypical people in discussions of autism, when really it is our needs, our concerns, our rights that should be prioritized. It means that there are people claiming the support of "the autistic community" for positions that a lot of autistic people find morally offensive. It's one of the tools people use to keep our voices from being heard. In other words, yes, it matters. This is really bad news.
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