screen2bshot2b2019-03-102bat2b4-09-002bpm-8429183

Inspiration Porn: How the Media and Society Objectify Disabled People

Photo via Time.  [image: Florida State football player Travis Rudolph, a Black man with short natural hair, eating pizza in a school cafeteria at a table with a  white boy with very short red hair and glasses, who is seen from behind.] Kit Mead kpagination.wordpress.com A while back, an example of inspiration porn crossed my Twitter feed: a Florida State University college football player sat down and had lunch with an autistic boy in a cafeteria. The story got picked up by the New York Times. I don’t fault the college football player very much, if it all (but I hope he asked the autistic student if the company would be welcome). The football player probably just saw a person likely excluded by classmates. He wanted to make sure the student was not alone. At worst, there is the element of pity involved, but the act itself was not ill-intended. I…