APA awarded $600K for PIKSI

Congratulations to the American Philosophical Association, which has been awarded a $600,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support PIKSI and other undergraduate diversity projects. See the full announcement at the link below.

http://www.apaonline.org/news/209190/APA-receives-Mellon-Foundation-grant-to-support-undergraduate-diversity-institutes.htm

Disability and dehumanization

Reader tdhssp sent in the following long comment, which probably should be its own post.  So, wala!  –raw

I believe this is an excellent article for readership. The page which follows below highlights the ignorance associated with disability and trials one faces in achieving sufficient medical care or respect from professionals in various humanities if one has a diversity. Persons with disability are often dehumanized; life devalued to the point that here in Alberta, a child with a chromosome duplication syndrome was referred to as, “IT” by an Alberta Justice solicitor, a young woman who obviously has neither insight, nor compassion towards differences. It is horrific to fathom that these are persons who are considered leaders of Justice in Canada.

Furthermore, a vast percentage of the population within the Child Welfare industry is comprised of children with disabilities. For some families, surrendering guardianship is promoted as the sole way to achieve medical supports, services and funding for medically or developmentally diverse needs. No loving family should ever be forced to relinquish custody in effort to access medical care! : (

VM

http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/publications/voice/2010/08

Deadly Compassion

16 June 2010, Ottawa, ON—People with disabilities are not strangers to the fact that nondisabled people cannot imagine life with a disability. They tell us that they would rather be dead than living with a disability. This is because disability is equated with pain, suffering, and dependency. At times, this attitude translates into a deadly compassion, where it is seen as a kindness to help a person with a disability to die. As a result, people with disabilities are being harmed. On 16 June 2010, two Canadians with disabilities, Rhonda Wiebe and Jim Derksen, appeared before the House of Commons Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care on behalf of CCD to explain how deadly compassion puts us in harm’s way and to suggest how to improve the medical care and public policy environments, as both are affected by this insidious stereotype.