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An Open Letter to Radiolab: Stop Your Dangerous Autism Reporting

Dear Robert Krulwich, Jad Abumrad, and the Radiolab team: Your autism-focused episode Juicervose has destroyed my faith in Radiolab and the integrity of its reporting. Rubbernecking about autism and autistic people is usually the realm of inexperienced journalists, but you don’t have that excuse. In fact, you have a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient on your team specifically because of your focus on “bringing new ideas to people.” So why did you choose to amplify the same hurtful, tired autism stories the media always airs? And why didn’t you show more compassion for autistic people themselves? Sure, you talked to Temple Grandin. With respect to both her and your team, every person on the planet has heard what Temple Grandin has to say about autism. Her ideas are not new ideas. And yes, you talked to Owen Suskind. It was wonderful to hear his voice and his perspectives. I am sincerely…

Words Matter: Thanks, Ricky Gervais, for the Pitch

Emily Willingham biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com daisymayfattypants.blogspot.com For background on this post, see the coverage and update at LoveThatMax.com. -The Editors When I was young, I lived a somewhat sheltered life. My parents never used racial or ethnic slurs around me or not around me, and even though I grew up in a small-ish, very southern town, the only slur I ever learned before middle school was the N-word, which I am myself to blame for having learned. At age five, rapt with the poetry of rhyme, I was working my way through the alphabet, rhyming with the word “Tigger.” When I reached N, my parents became rather dramatic and, let us say, instilled in me a permanent repulsion for the word. I was in Texas, so naturally, I did manage to hear that term again here and there. But it wasn’t until high school that I came across other slurs, mostly having…