AutisticWhileBlack: Against The Erasure of Ron'Niveya O'Neal

 

Ron'Niveya O'Neal, a beautiful
Nonspeaking Autistic Girl wearing
a filter crown of flowers that 
match her pattern pink and white 
sweater.

On April 7, 2018, the body of 9-year-old Ron'Niveya O'Neal was laid to rest in Tampa, Florida. Ron'Niveya was a beautiful, nonspeaking autistic African American little girl who was brutally murdered by her own father, Ronnie O'Neal III. 

I have been following the case. The press had a feeding frenzy with O'Neal III defending himself, shrieking at the jury, and being allowed to cross-examine his now 11-year-old son Ronnie O'Neal IV. Young Ronnie is the only surviving member of that night of familicidal violence. 

Neither the press nor the autism community gave a damn about Ron'Niveya. The media rarely mentions her by name. She is called Ronnie IV's disabled sister, or Kenyatta 'Keke' Barron's daughter. She is the evidence of a double murder. But that is all. Her humanity has been stripped from her.

I have seen no cries for justice for Ron'Niveya. Was she mentioned in the day of mourning rolls? I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that Ron'Niveya mattered so little to all stakeholders in the autism conversation that no one mentioned her. No one cared. And that, after the entire world view of Black suffering shifted in that wake of witnessing the murder of George Floyd and learning about the shooting death of Breonna Taylor is inexcusable.

 I am posting Ron'Niveya's obituary below. Read it. Remember her not because she is a symbol of violence against nonspeaking disabled youth but because she should matter as much as Alex Spourdalakis mattered. She should matter more than those in our community who sat silently while John Elder Robison happily provided autism as an excuse for Dylann Roof, someone who premeditated and murdered innocent African American parishioners at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in the hopes of beginning a race war. 

The erasure of Ron'Niveya and so many other nonspeaking autistic children and adults of color like my son made me so angry that years ago I began writing about them. Trying to keep them visible. But now I am much angrier. Because this did nothing to stop the horror of what a high profile autistic white cis male like Robison did while everyone else except Lydia X. Z. Brown and Sam Crane was silent. 

Everything about how Autistic Black people, especially nonspeakers, are treated in this community needs to change. To those who put themselves at risk to demand change happen, to the true allies against ableist racism in our community, thank you for your tireless efforts. You all have my deepest respect. 

Obituary (via Integrity Funeral Services) :

Miss Ron’niveya O’Neil

Ron'Niveya O'Neal, a
beautiful brown-skinned girl 
wearing her natural hair into 
two high puffs, and huge tulle
 pale pink bow and a pink T-shirt
with a big white heart at its
center with the words 'boy, bye'
written in the middle of the heart. 

A Celebration of Life for Miss Ron’niveya O’Neil will be held on Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. at Greater New Salem PB Church located at 1605 N. Nebraska Avenue, Tampa, 33602 with Elder Dr. Benjamin Curry, Pastor officiating. Interment will follow at Rest Haven Memorial Park.

Ron’niveya O’Neil was born July 29, 2008 in Hillsborough County to Kenyatta Barron and Ronnie O’Neil. Ron’niveya attended school in Hillsborough County. She attended Foster Elementary and continued on to Corr Elementary. She loved getting up and seeing her Mommy and brother. She loved dressing in pretty clothes and wearing earrings. She loved eating Oreos. She loved seeing her bus driver Terry Wallace and her teachers and Corr Elementary. Ron’niveya is preceded in death by her mother Kenyatta Barron. She leaves her cherished memories to her loving brother Little Ronnie, grandparents Booker Ray and C. Barron. Alonzo McNair and Lisa Smith. Her aunts and uncles Jonathan Barron, Alisha Barron, Javario Barron, Daisatta Baldwin, Sasha Eliza, and Tabario Cobbs. Her great grandparents Samuel and Pamela Barron, and Alvin McNair Sr. 

Her great aunts and uncles Latonya Barron, Teresa Barron, Claire Barron, Inez Foxworth, Sabrina Foxworth, Aretha Foxworth, Josephine Holmes, Carolyn McNeal, Jacqueline Monge, Tony Barron, Simmley Barron, Jimmy Foxworth, Eddie Holmes, Rodney Baldwin. Her cousins, Carrieonna Baldwin, Roslyn Baldwin, Rodneya Baldwin, Destiny Baldwin, Rodney Baldwin Jr., Herashiona Crum, Deontae Barron, Tony Barron Jr. , Randy Barron, Tyler Barron, Olivia Barron, Cynthia Green, Chianita Austin, Tavaris, Cammi, Marcus Nesbitt, Lisa and Elaine McCormick, Joyce Ray, Romaine Wint, and a host of other relatives and friends. A special thanks to the men and women of the Hillsborough County Fire Department, the Hillsborough County Sherriff's Department, and to the various staff at Tampa General Hospital.

Nonverbal, Nonspeaking, Autistic Word Navigation

Mustafa Cevik. image of a large, biracial Hispanic presenting
male wearing a sky blue nd white striped
polo shirt sitting in a wheelchair drinking from a water
bottle. Posted with permission from the subject. ©Nuri Cevik

The day I met Lydia X.Z.  Brown, they told me about a gentleman named Michael Forbes Wilcox and the word nonspeaking. Per Mr. Wilcox, most autistic people were incorrectly defined as nonverbal when they were actually nonspeaking.

This is why so many early intervention programs entail depriving autistic children of AAC support while battering them with forcible speech interventions. I guess their logic is there is no apparent physical challenge to producing speech so whatever utterances can be produced should be forced out of the autistic child by any means necessary.

The result adds to the presumption of said autistic child's incompetence because the child may have limited verbal speech ability but much larger AAC supported speech ability.

Thanks to Lydia Brown, I mostly use the term nonspeaking when discussing my son, but his situation is a bit different than most of his autistic peers. My son was diagnosed with damage to an area of his brain related to speech. We were told therefore that he was clinically nonverbal and probably wouldn't be able to speak. At all.

Ever.

 Mu has spoken on occasion in more than one language since that diagnosis and even during the time he was being evaluated. We aren't certain technically how he is able to do it. When it happens I try to act casual. But because when he does speak it is usually related to responding affectionately to either his father his sister or me, I am inevitably overcome with emotion. Just after such a moment, I  quietly remove myself from the room so he doesn't misunderstand and burst into tears of joy.

His voice, as he has entered puberty, is deeper, richer, and more beautiful now.

We were outside yesterday and kids ran by screeching as they played. It disturbed him. It is only on these occasions that I realize how big and different he is from others his age who do use verbal speech freely.

It seems to me, other fourteen-year-olds, talk too much.

His rare affectionate utterances have greater worth to me than the shrieking profanities and loudly whispered ableist slurs of his teenage peers dressed in what they consider their best adolescent finery.

Yesterday I realized again quite clearly that Mustafa, nonspeaking, is a better man than all the howling herd of fourteen-year-olds stomping about trying to figure out who they are by hurling insults at my silent, disabled son.

I love him. As he is. If he never utters a word again. We will continue to stand together, with him leaning on me when he needs physical support, and face the angry ableist racist mob. He doesn't need to speak. Unlike fourteen-year-olds, I know the value of well-placed words in defense of my son's right to navigate the same spaces as they do.

Autism Month should exist to educate those people. It does not. It makes them pity or resent my son and neither he nor I abide that attitude either. They should be taught that words are capital and each moment they spew the wrong ones in misunderstanding, fear, and hatred they bankrupt their own souls. This doesn't diminish my son, no matter how different he may appear to them. Different is not less. It is simply different. Disability and race are the only areas in which difference is not considered rare and precious.

Meanwhile, back at our house, a single word uttered by my son at the right time has the power to bring his jaded old Afro-Latina mother to tears.

Word.


----------------------
Resources

Educate yourselves at Lydia X.Z. Brown's blog:
http://www.autistichoya.com/

More on The Language of Autism by Michael Forbes Wilcox:
http://www.mfw.us/blog/2017/02/27/the-language-of-autism-special-interest-as-a-stigmatizing-phrase/

Autism Month Essays: Who Cares What Causes Autism?

Mustafa N. Cevik asleep at a public library @Kerima Cevik

I have this rather unusual skill set, a result of a fairly odd life. One skill was learned when I was a freshman in college. One of my professors was a research psychologist. After I got top marks in his Psychology 100 course, he appealed to my university to allow me to take a 400 level psych course with a lab. His goal was to get me motivated to change my major to research psychology. During that second semester of college, I learned how to read and analyze research papers. This professor was a speed reader, a talent he tried to encourage in us. He could blaze his way through the latest issue of Scientific American and tell you what was woo and what was not in less than a half hour. Bear in mind this was before the time of the Internet and instant global access to research papers across all disciplines.

I never pursued research psychology. I thought my ability to review research papers a rather superfluous skill until my son was diagnosed a multiply disabled nonspeaking autistic. My husband was working at Johns Hopkins then, and when Kennedy Krieger failed to provide enough answers I began to dig into the research with a passionate determination to find answers. My old psych. professor would have been proud. Though I'm no speed reader, I separated the woo from the valid stuff pretty well. And my was there a lot of woo. 

This reading of research papers led me to seek evidence-based sites on autism. Along with that need, I wanted to find sites that presented a humane approach to autism.  I began to read blogs like Left Brain Right Brain, The Joy of Autism, the original Autism Diva, who was an academic (someone else appropriated the name and is using it now sadly), Kristina Chew's posts on Care 2 and what is now We Go With Him (her son Charles was so much like my son), and all that lead me to a now-archived site called neurodiversity.com. 

Mustafa at age 5, in his wheels, waiting for the school bus @Kerima Cevik

I had tried to plow my way through sites like Age of Autism. They were so depressive that I could not read more than a few paragraphs before deciding all that was just not good for our family. The general theme at the time seemed to be a centralized location for parents to vent about how awful life with their autistic children was, that vaccines were the cause of it all, graphic descriptions of  their children's private health-related crises and episodes, and how brave they all  were for bearing up under the strain. 

I think my abhorrence  for AoA was exacerbated because I'd had a horrible encounter with an autism service dog provider who was all for our family coming up to Northern Virginia to match our son with a good dog and train them to work together until she learned his name was Mustafa. From that moment on it was one insult after another in a torrent of Islamophobic ignorance until fed up, I told her a five-year-old United States citizen who was both nonspeaking and multiply disabled was not a terrorist and hung up on her.  In frustration, I wondered if I could train a rescue dog on my own. Had anyone trained an autism service dog on their own? Finally, I came across an article by someone named Jim Sinclair, an autistic educator who explained how to train a service dog on one's own. That is how I found Sinclair's essays  "Why I Dislike Person First Language," and  "Don't Mourn For Us." I learned that the latter essay had been read at a conference in Canada.

Mustafa at age 9, representing The Baltimore Ravens ©K.Cevik

While I tried to decide whether we could even afford to maintain a service dog, and how I would have the time to train a dog and meet our son's intense support needs, we, like many families of color, learned that when your loved one is nonspeaking and disabled, those with power over them in schools can harm with impunity and without consequences unless said abuse is caught on camera. 

Sometime in 2008, I heard this young autistic college student say "who cares what causes autism?"  during an interview and I felt slapped. What the hell did he mean, who cares? I think it was during an interview on Good Morning America. I was so annoyed then that to this day I can't recall for certain. I read one of several other interviews with him to my husband, a habit of news reading we both do to help one another keep up with things while attending our son. 

Seriously, what did he mean who cares? Cheeky young upstart! But my husband said at least he wasn't acting like autism was the bane of existence and our son would be some useless sack of potatoes we were going to carry on our backs the rest of our lives. At least someone was saying something that wasn't negative. Of course, we were certain he had no clue about our day to day lives as parents of multiply disabled autistic children. Let him fight the IEP teams and the bigots, the Islamophobia and the school bullies and take the kick to my stomach my little son inadvertently landed when the mall overwhelmed him and I was fighting to get him out of there and into a calmer place as quickly as possible. 

So whenever we ran across this guy in the media going on about autistic voices, I was skeptical but did try actually listening to what he said. "Nothing about us without us?" Well, I agreed with that part. But he could speak, read write, eloquently.  Our son could not. But that sentence just kept popping into my mind :

Who cares what causes autism?

Later we heard the cheeky upstart was nominated to be the first openly autistic member of the National Council on Disabilities.  Apparently this young man was attending college in Maryland all this time. I'd never met him. What we thought was "good for him." But we didn't see how that would help our son. They were very unlike, weren't they? We thought meh. Different diagnoses. This Mr. Ne'eman had a dx of Asperger's Syndrome.  He wouldn't care about our son enough to drive the policy changes he really needed. Nope, we were still alone against the world, our son and us. And that damned statement popped up again  like a song that lingers in one's head. 

Who cares what causes autism?

See the truth was research on autism all this time was aimed not at understanding why our son was unable to use verbal speech, or why he had a sleep cycle disorder, or a very weak immune system, or chronic intractable skin rashes and IBS that no one seemed to be able to determine the cause of. The research didn't find more accurate ways to measure intelligence in nonverbal individuals. There was no effort to develop an auditory processing assessment scale for nonverbal autistic children and adults. There was no way of testing our son for facial agnosia but therapists were demanding he look them in the eye.

 The research was all aimed at finding a genetic marker to autism that could allow a test to be administered that would effectively obliterate future generations of autistic children before they were born by letting parents know they were carrying an autistic child and giving them the option to terminate the pregnancy. That along with research toward drugs that reduced overt behaviors that might mark an individual as autistic was where the money was going. No research was being done that would improve our son's quality of life. A great deal of effort was being made to generate drugs that might provide degrees of chemical restraint and compliance for autistic children with behavioral challenges. Obscene quantities of research funding were being used to determine whether there was a link between vaccines and autism. The injustice of that angered me. I found myself thinking :

Who cares what causes autism?

Through a series of events, I ended up meeting the cheeky young upstart. The day we met in person there was no doubt he was autistic. As he walked away from me with a gait very similar to my son's, I realized this clearly. I next saw him at an event attended by other autistic adults. When autistic adults are together in a great group, they relax. When they relax, their concern for one another, their mutual understanding of one another's challenges and support needs, that empathy that is uniquely autistic, is apparent. No one needs to present themselves as someone they are not in those moments, and I became aware that I was given a great gift that most autism parents should be given. Maybe some of you believe that you've seen a gathering of many autistic people. Not like this. This was a gathering completely controlled by autistic adults who understood everyone's diverse support needs and worked to accommodate them. They were patient  with one another in a way that parents and professionals are not. So I kept thinking :

Who cares what causes autism?

Most gatherings of autistic young adults and adults are run and controlled by parents, service providers, and organizations who wish to provide spaces for autistic youth to practice normalcy and social skills. So even events billed as recreational are actually treated as passive therapy and "passing" opportunities. Parents judge other people's offspring during these events by how distinguishable they are from their peers. The more blatantly divergent a child is, the more "help" they are still thought to be in need of and the pity and condescension are felt by those young people. Trust me. Some parents even thoughtlessly shame other parents by demanding function labels to see who is more 'severe,' whose children may not have won the chess tournament, or whose offspring are unable to stop stimming.  That is not the kind of autistic gathering I mean.

This event was so very not that.

Flyer for the event at Georgetown U. reads"Autistic
Empowerment: The Civil Rights Model ©Lydia Brown

Autistics shared coping strategies, new technologies, and problem solved for one another before and after the event. I was part of a panel of speakers and one of the speakers, Hope Block, was a nonspeaking autistic, like my son, and typed to communicate. I had the honor of having Ms. Block seated to my left and Ari Ne'eman, the cheeky upstart, to my right. When Lydia Brown asked if I would like to participate in an event they were organizing I had no clear idea that was going to happen. When it was all over, I turned to my left and thanked Hope for being there representing my son. She locked eyes with me and hugged me. I was overwhelmed. There was so much caring during that panel. This is a single example of one of the many reasons I get so frustrated with people declaring autistics lack empathy. Empathy requires this care and concern something that was front and center throughout that evening. 

Who cares what causes autism?

Eventually, there came a day that Ari Ne'eman met my son. It wasn't a good day for my son. At all. But Ari did something that day very few people had in my son's entire life. He introduced himself as he would to anyone my son's age. He shook our son's hand. 

Mustafa Cevik, large and in charge, in his wheelchair at
his big sister's graduation, age 12. @C.Nuri Cevik

Most people who meet our son are intimidated by the combination of his nonwhite identity, his visible neurodivergence, and his size. Our son is a body language reader. He senses their fear and in response believes there is something to fear and therefore becomes shy, then nervous, then agitated. Ignorant people, upon meeting him, have had the nerve to ask how I can be homeschooling and managing our son without help. They never realize the obvious; he isn't hard to manage at home. And this implies that our son is actually not as others perceive him when they see him for an instant in time, or when his incredible patience has worn thin. He is more than what he appears. I don't believe a single author of  recent histories on autism could manage to engage Mustafa long enough for a handshake much less communication. He doesn't like being touched unless he initiates the handshake. He is at times painfully shy and always unsure when first meeting someone. He has learned the hard way that people can't be trusted. Yet he shook Ari's hand. Only two other people managed a response from our son that day and one of those two was a petite autistic woman.

Who cares what causes autism?

Sometime after all these events, I realized that the types of research papers I was reading changed. The trips I was taking to Annapolis had a different purpose. I am not certain of the moment when the cause of our son's autism ceased to matter to me. I don't know when top priority became making sure that our son had the same rights in our society that everyone else did. I wanted my son to get the education he deserved. I can't recall when I said to myself that I didn't want any more teachers educating him who had so little regard for him that they'd say "oh who cares if he missed a trip to the pumpkin patch, they don't remember anything anyway." as his preschool teacher did. When was the instant I said my son deserved better than that? I think it came when I knew my son remembered every single place he'd ever been and ever single thing he'd ever done. I knew this from his reactions when we were on our way to those places. He knew where to go, even when I, who have a terrible sense of direction, did not. 

At some critical moment, I left the blame game behind. I just couldn't accept the myths being put before me about how I should view autism and therefore how I should think about my son.

I couldn't mourn for his loss when he was right there with us. No one took him from us, no one kidnapped him. He's a really cool dude that so many people are uncomfortable with because he can't hide his neurology. No one takes the time to try and get to know or understand him. That was the reality I lifted out of the woo of all the autism rhetoric of the past to reach this moment. Our son was here, lived, was and is loved, deserved to be respected.

Who cares what causes autism?

Can you understand what Ari Ne'eman meant in that interview? I don't care what caused our son to be born divergent. I care about helping him by ensuring he has the best quality of life he can achieve. I want to help him be as autonomous as possible. I don't believe the myth that my son's life is forfeit and several levels of hell await him should I die any more than I would for my grown daughter who does not carry his disability labels. We went from hopelessness and people screaming "mourn him" and "cure him" at us to understanding that once all that wasted energy was freed, we could focus on truly helping our son. 

Who cares what causes autism?   

I don't. It's an incredibly joyful and liberating place to be. Join me.

Resources:

Searching for autism blogs: 

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/

http://joyofautism.blogspot.com/

http://www.esteeklar.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/autismdiva

http://autism.typepad.com/

https://kristinachew.wordpress.com/

http://www.neurodiversity.com/main.html

Jim Sinclair's Don't Mourn for Us

http://www.larry-arnold.net/Autonomy/index.php/autonomy/article/view/AR1/html

Concurrent topics in the autism conversation:

Identity First Language:

Jim Sinclair

http://autismmythbusters.com/general-public/autistic-vs-people-with-autism/jim-sinclair-why-i-dislike-person-first-language/

Lydia Brown at Autistic Hoya's posts are on Identity first are also excellent: 

http://www.autistichoya.com/2011/11/identity-and-hypocrisy-second-argument.html

http://autisticadvocacy.org/home/about-asan/identity-first-language/

Prosopagnosia/Facial Agnosia

http://www.humanuniqueness.org/do-you-suffer-from-face-blindness-seven-signs-and-symptoms-of-prosopagnosia/

Unstrange Mind's Sparrow Rose Jones'  excellent post on Non24

https://unstrangemind.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/too-many-hours/

Back in the day, on Ari Ne'eman:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=5033594&page=1

http://magazine.umbc.edu/umbc-magazine-winter-2009/abnormal-ambitions/

http://www.newsweek.com/ari-neeman-and-controversy-over-autism-cure-222706

http://www.newsweek.com/could-gene-test-change-autism-79713

A Mouse that Roars - Standing in Defiance of Autism Speaks

Trauma Trigger Warning for language and ableism

On November 13, 2013, Autism Speaks will unleash the full force of its corporate lobbying budget and political action money on Washington D.C.. Autism Speaks is bombarding the District of Columbia with advertising, showering universities with research funding and overwhelming the locals with overwrought, ableist, tragedy rhetoric in order to fulfill their corporate agenda. Anyone in their way will be crushed underfoot. Any person objecting to or criticizing how they do business will be legally dealt with. Autism Speaks has repeatedly made that point, and it was again made clear when they rescinded a job offer to the mother of an autistic teen who requested reasonable accommodation to care for him during her work day (click here for details on that incident).

Tomorrow, autistic disability rights activist Lydia Brown will face down this bombastic display of corporate wealth and power and try to be heard. She will stand in defiance of Autism Speaks' three day "national policy summit" that excludes the voices of autistic adults who advocate for their peers. I am the mother of one of those "children who will need help all their lives". I am an autism mother. I stand with Lydia Brown in defiance of Autism Speaks. 

Yes, gentle people. I am asking that all of you stand with us against this frightening force lumbering forward with no interest in our families or in autistic people who are growing up and aging. Autism Speaks is inhumanely imposing their idea of what our community needs and attempting to mandate everything from how my son will be housed to funding research that has no real benefit to my son or his peers. Note that no research funding is going to technology that provides more effective augmentative alternative communication devices, when the primary challenge to autistic individuals throughout their lifespan is communication. Assistive technology solutions for autonomous living are not funded by Autism Speaks research money. Mrs. Suzanne Wright refers to autistics as "the autism crisis", dehumanizing them in a most ableist manner. She goes on to equate my son and his peers, who are still very much here as being "missing", a clear reference to the highly offensive "Ransom Notes" campaign launched by New York University discussedhere. Her exact statement in this excerpt from her blog post, entitled Autism Speaks to Washington - A Call for Actionis

"This week is the week America will fully wake up to the autism crisis

If three million children in America one day went missing – what would we as a country do?

If three million children in America one morning fell gravely ill – what would we as a country do?

We would call out the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. We’d call up every member of the National Guard. We’d use every piece of equipment ever made.

We’d leave no stone unturned.

Yet we’ve for the most part lost touch with three million American children, and as a nation we’ve done nothing."

Suzanne Wright

Her entire disturbing post can be read here.

For all those saying that Autism Speaks is understanding neurodiversity, the message is clear that at Autism Speaks, tragedy, ableism, and fear tactics are still the order of the day. My son's challenges are enough without Autism Speaks using them to push their own agenda in his name without his voice in his own affairs. He's not lost. Only Autism Speaks has lost touch with the very autistic people it professes to represent. Autism Speaks has no autistic governing representation of any significance on their board of directors. Please take the time to read Ms. Brown's latest post here.  Read about how autistic adults were treated by people who were participating in the juggernaut Autism Speaks fundraising event machine here when these young autistic activists exercised their right to protest the event. Autistic adults are our children, grown up. Do we want our children to be voiceless and passive, accepting what people who do not understand or care about them decide about their lives? Or do we want to know that they are standing together to defend their own right to speak for themselves and control as much of their own lives as they can?

Autism Speaks promotes ABA thoughtlessly, ignoring documented harmful outcomes like learned helplessness that must be dealt with years after this intervention ends. Parents and autistics of all ages who are capable of self advocacy should be given the right to choose what accommodations, supports, services and help they need. What the wealthy grandparents of an autistic child deem worked for him must not therefore be mandated for all of us. Autism families and autistic adults who don't agree with the way Autism Speaks approaches autism should not be simply subjected to their dictated national policy. No organization has the right to remove my son's right to be heard and mandate whether  and how my son is included in his school and his community.  I will not let Autism Speaks silence my son as he grows up. I will not allow Autism Speaks to usurp my voice as a parent and mandate what it thinks my son needs. Autism Speaks does not have that right.

Autism Speaks has no right to perpetuate policies that leave my son at the mercy of strangers in isolation from his own community, chemically lobotomized because their organization is uncomfortable with his apparent differences and degree of impairment. I look different from people who are white. My nose is wider. I will not narrow it. My skin is darker. I will not lighten it. I am visibly different from Mrs. Suzanne Wright. Should she then speak for what I need because she is in a position to bestow large quantities of money on those who make decisions? I thought this was the United States of America. I can speak for myself and adults with my son's degree of impairment can speak for him, until he can clearly communicate his needs himself. Only someone who knows what road my son will travel as an adult can know what he needs. Sorry that is not someone who is not autistic.

I will stand with Lydia Brown and disability and human rights activists in defiance of the mega nonprofit Autism Speaks.  For those of you who say Autism Speaks has good intentions, I respond that the road to a hellish future for my son and too many of his peers is being paved with their good intentions. We are at the crossroads of a very dangerous turn in the road of nonprofit public policy lobbying. Will this organization dictate the lives of your children? Is the future that you see for your grown son or daughter? A future of poverty and dependence on people paid to care for them after you are gone? Look further. We have the technology to vastly improve the quality of life for my son and his peers. Isn't it sad that the push for assistive technology development for wounded warriors is encouraged but that drive does not exist for our community? We must take a breath, step away from sadness and ask each day how our children will live as independent adults. 

The goal is autonomy. I want the whole American Dream for my son. I want lifetime educational access so he can continue learning until he reaches his highest potential. I want supported employment beyond him pushing a shopping cart. I want him to live on his own in clean, safe, housing beyond poverty. I want him to be an active part of his community. No revamped institutional residential housing is going to be accepted by me for my son. I have seen segregation. That didn't really work out for us people of color at all. We decided that was enough of that. How is that supposed to be ok for my disabled son?

I will be a mouse who roars. Even if I cannot be there in person, I want to be there in spirit, and so today I roar for Lydia Brown, and all those who will stand with her. A friend has a blog with a title that describes the unstoppable force headed Autism Speaks' way tomorrow.  The title is "Small But Kind of Mighty".

Lend your voices to ours, online and in person. Roar for your progeny. Demand more.

Here is my thank you to every brave soul who stands and speaks for my son. In solidarity.

Nothing About My Son Without HIm.

At The Intersection of Disability and Injustice

The Christmas truce was a series of widespread, unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas 1914, during World War I. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many soldiers from both sides – as well as, to a lesser degree, from French units – independently ventured into "no man's land", where they mingled, exchanging food and souvenirs. As well as joint burial ceremonies, several meetings ended in carol-singing. Troops from both sides were also friendly enough to play games of football with one another.[1]

- Wikipedia

I met James Gallini, Esquire, at the intersection of disability and injustice, during a moment of truce in the Autism Wars. The truce occurred without fanfare, appropriately in December, just as the holiday hustle and rush began. James was standing across the virtual crossroad, firmly and passionately fighting for justice for his client, Emily Holcomb. He stood and fought, as his wife very aptly put it, like Gandalf staring down the Balrog  on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and shouting “You Shall Not Pass!” at the horrible injustice brandishing evil at his nonspeaking autistic client.  I have written about Emily’s nightmare indirectly through a discussion of her mother Jenny Holcomb here.  James finds discussions on his career accomplishments boring and dismissive of his clients. But he is not aware that the desperate crisis of Emily Holcomb was the instigating factor in the Christmas truce of the Autism Wars. It began a series of episodic ceasefires during which our entire community put aside differences and came down on injustice by the hundreds in anger and shock, campaigning united against autistic people being harmed at school and denied care in hospitals.  As a result, I met a valued colleague and accepted him, as he was, never asking whether he espoused the medical or social justice model of disability, simply accepting that in that moment, we sought the same thing, to keep autistic people safe from deadly harm and wrongful imprisonment.

Very much like those men in the trenches, I crossed the invisible line to no man’s land and began discussing matters of people I advocated for and asking James for referrals when these families needed legal help and were in other States. Each time, he did his best to help me find resources, when others were just too self-important to bother. Therefore, I was able to see him as a colleague and friend.

James Gallini’s passion for special education law comes from his love of his family. I am fortunate enough to see that in a slew of photographs, the look of love and pride on his face as he stands with his family for a holiday photo, hugging his sons before they leave for church in their Sunday best, or a quick photo of James endeavoring to teach his beautiful autistic daughter the finer points of bowling.  He didn’t have to tell me he loves his family. Each photo made that apparent.  One day I read that James and Jenifer decided to compromise on their daughter’s wish for Christmas in July. They compromised, and made Christmas happen in her bedroom complete with blow up Santa and that did it for me. She was happy, they were happy. I was happy.  I knew in my heart that these parents loved and more importantly listened to their autistic daughter. They acknowledged her input. They loved her. In a world where the sleepless depressed parents fan the flames of their discontent by gathering in groups to drown in misery and blame it on autism, the refreshing nature of this family warmed my heart almost as much as Jenny Holcomb did doing the requisite redecorating of her daughter’s room to make it as grown up as Emily is becoming. Just as any mother would do for a teenaged daughter. No infantilizing.

And so, I have come to realize that I must navigate the no mans land more often and look at people for who they are and what they do rather than accept my preconceived opinion of what they may stand for ideologically. Just see how they actually behave and speak about their autistic loved ones. Love can’t be hidden. Passion for justice is apparent. And James Gallini has both. If only more special education attorneys were more concerned about their clients and less concerned with establishing a relationship with the school district, the educational life of our children would be perfect.

Please welcome the very brave James Gallini, Esq., his lovely wife Jenifer, and their four wonderful children, into our autism advocacy community. There were always here. If you hear a cease-fire moment in the Autism Wars, walk to the middle of the intersection of disability and injustice. They will be standing on the side of justice, and you will all see them as I do.


Much love

This is the third segment in a series on people who need to be recognized for the work they continue to do for the betterment of the autism community.

The Great Shain Neumeier, Esq.

Remember the Autism Wars post Mother's Day? I mentioned people who everyone should know. One of them is Shain Neumeier, an eloquent attorney, writer, and speaker on topics of autism and social justice. Shain is one of my personal heros. So here's a brief introduction to Shain, with the hope that more people will get to know more about this outstanding attorney and champion of social justice.

Shain Neumeier giving a presentation on restraint, seclusion
and aversives in schools and programs for Education Law.
Rocking the T-shirt version of the white polo shirt worn by my son,
and designed by autistic disability rights activist Lydia Brown. 

Shain Neumeier is a disabled attorney living in Portland, Oregon. Shain has researched issues involving institutional abuse of youth and disabled people for a number of years and currently works with the law firm of O'Donnell, Clark & Crew in seeking damages from a notorious "emotional growth" boarding school for decades of abuse. Both as part of a research assistant position and out of interest, Shain attended last year's trial over the Judge Rotenberg Center's abuse of Andre McCollins.

During the trial, the Judge Rotenberg Center and its representatives, faced with having to explain video evidence of their abuse to a jury and to the public at large, attempted to paint Andre McCollins both as irrationally and almost untreatably dangerous and as able to work with and learn from a program that punished him for doing so much as tensing in fear. On the other hand, Andre's mother Cheryl and her lawyer Benjamin Novotny presented a compelling case that showed this "treatment" to be as senseless and cruel as the video footage would suggest. The outcome of the trial and its media coverage went beyond the undisclosed settlement between the parties, leading thousands worldwide who viewed what happened to Andre to demand an end to the torture. That end, with continued efforts, may well soon be achieved.

Shain's seven part series on the Andre McCollins trial was published on the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's site and can be read here.

This is the second segment in a series on people who need to be recognized for the work they continue to do for the betterment of the autism community.








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Mother's Day

Today finds me going back to why I felt the need to write a blog in the first place, and where I want to take the blog from here. It is sometimes a good thing to hit the brakes on what I'm doing, look to see where I am going and decide if I really am in such a hurry to get there.

My original purpose in writing this blog was to have a body of work for my son and my immediate family. This body of work was to be a clear statement of how I felt about my son being autistic. It was to make it apparent how much I loved him.  It was meant as a vehicle for everyone to know my wish that he be as autonomous as he is capable of being.  This body of work should make it clear to any reader:

• Our son is loved unconditionally. He is not loved despite his autism diagnosis.
• I have faith in our son and presume he is competent even when others do not.
• Whatever advocacy work I do is done to gain acceptance, inclusion, and accommodation for our son and those like him.
• That my purpose is to stand by my son and not have anything I do, including advocacy, overshadow that critical purpose.

This blog was to be proof of how proud I am to be his mother, and what an amazing person I believe he is. Mustafa has great creativity, determination, and strength of purpose. These qualities are laudable in any human being, but in him they are opening the way for him to succeed in a world where he is seen as less than the least of God's children, because he is a minority even among his peers. So as he fights for mastery over his environment, it is my task as his mother to fight for a rightful place in society for him.

I decided to set the direction of The Autism Wars blogs back on that course. To that end, I am choosing topics I think are important to him, and people I think are role models for him and examples of what we all can be as advocates ourselves.

 Today I decided to talk about people who fit that criteria; those who quietly wage war against great odds for neurodiverse adults and children, and continue to speak out and fight for all people on the autism spectrum while seeking justice for their own children and loved ones. Since it is Mother's Day, let's start this new journey with two amazing Autism Moms who don't blog.

Andre McCollins and Mom Cheryl in happier times

Cheryl McCollins fought for 10 years to have the video of her son Andre’s torture at the Judge Rotenberg Center released to the press. She continues to fight to close the ‘school’. Cheryl sued the JRC for the funding Andre will need for his care the rest of his life. Andre has never recovered. Cheryl joined protesters outside the JRC and continues to use her voice to speak out against JRC and the torture of young Autistic people in the name of discipline. Cheryl even created a petition on Change.org asking for support in demanding the State of New York cease sending students to this center.

Emily Holcomb and Mom Jenny Parker Holcomb,
photo courtesy of the Holcomb Family

Jenny Parker Holcomb was completing an IEP meeting for her daughter Emily when the sheriff's department appeared with a police complaint against her daughter, accusing Emily of slapping a teacher. Jenny had to explain that Emily was on the profound ray of the autism spectrum, nonspeaking, with intellectual disability. Emily had been so mistreated at her school placement that at one point she was restrained for 55 minutes by staff. With the help of special education attorney, activist, and father of a child with autism James Gallini, Jenny began the fight for Emily's future. Lydia Brown, who read about Emily's situation on Landon Bryce's ThAutcast blog, offered to write a petition on Change.org and that petition began a social media crisis that no one was prepared for. Assault charges against Emily were dropped. Emily has since thrived in an appropriate educational placement and community activities that give her the life skills training she needs to transition to adulthood and autonomy. Jenny realized from Emily's own horrific experience that this should never happen to anyone else. She has since led parent support groups and online action groups, empowering other parents to stand with their children and take on whoever abuses them.

Happy Mother's Day

This is the first segment in a series on people who need to be recognized for the work they continue to do for the betterment of the autism community.

Note: James Gallini, Landon Bryce, Emily Titon, Shain Neumeir are names you should know. They play very important roles in these stories, as you'll see later.

White Polo Shirts, Autistic Eyes

Multiracial boy whistling, sitting on brown leather chair  wearing a white polo shirt

 with the words "stand against restraints, seclusion, and bullying by teachers" 
© Kerima Cevik

About a week ago I was looking for a recent picture of my son stimming as my annual contribution to Paula Durbin-Westby's Autism Acceptance Year site, and came across one of my favorite recent photos of him. I decided that this would be his official Autism Acceptance Month photo this year. But why I made this decision requires the story of how he came to be the proud owner of what I believe is the only white polo shirt with the provocative words "Stand Against Restraint, Seclusion, and Bullying by Teachers" manufactured anywhere, to date.  That slogan was emblazoned on t-shirts and is now part of the history of the protests brought to the very door of the Judge Rotenberg Center in the course of a valiant war to release one of the few tapes of sustained torture that survived the purging of evidence related to charges brought against the center over  the many years of its existence. So here is the story.

Mustafa was one of the first customers to order a t-shirt created by autistic activist Lydia Brown, for those of us who were families fighting against the maltreatment of autistic children in school placements of all kinds. By this time Emily Holcomb was safe and Chris Baker's petition letter was being passed through all internet social networking channels. No one knew that  Cheryl McCollins would come down like the wrath of the Lord on the JRC in court and request the court release the video of the hours of torture her son Andre suffered at the hands of staff to the media. Everyone got their new t-shirts and was happy. The problem was, once the shirt was on him, Mu would not take it off. As happens with some children, he liked the shirt and wanted that shirt on every day. Of course, it began to fade from frequent washing. And there was no guarantee that he would like a new identical t-shirt as much. More importantly, he needed to dress more formally for some of the places we were going and that t-shirt was too casual. I posed the problem to Lydia and asked if they could do me a favor that might make both Mu and me happy.  The result is the white polo shirt in the photo above. Even though the writing beautifully stitched on the right breast area makes special needs service professionals wince, they regularly compliment him on the how great the white shirt looks against his dark tan complexion.

The magnitude of what this photograph means to me becomes clear when it is realized that although Mu did not choose to stop whistling while I was taking the photo, he did look right at the camera. He is, by nature, someone who does not look directly at anyone, so when he does it means you have been given a gift. This is also the first photo in which he is beginning to look like the man he will become. And that small sign of a different operating system, his autistic eyes, look for a brief instant directly into mine. If you have spent any time around autistic adults and they graced you with those eyes you will recognize the eyes of your children and catch your breath. The feeling is one of finding a long lost cousin of your child at a family reunion. You see the eyes, even in complete strangers, and you don't have to ask. Even when they don't say "I am autistic", you know.

 It came to me recently that one of the many reasons I care so much for all of these activists, and all those autistic children and adults they fight for,  is because they have, regardless of color, my son's eyes.  When they are able to look directly at me for an instant, it is a gift and a surprise, and at that instant, I remember my son and how much we love him.  I "see" my autistic son is growing up.