r/autismpolitics

Dear Fellow Autistics, 

Villains exist in real life. Except they’re not always the kind of people you might think they are. They are career criminals, gang members, terrorists, scammers, muggers, robbers, thieves, drug dealers, serial killers, need I go on? These kinds of people enjoy bullying and victimizing us and anyone who’s invisibly disabled because they think we’re somehow an easy target. This may sound obvious, but all these people are the reason why police exist. Which brings me to my next point. 

You might hate police because you think they’re state sanctioned thugs, incompetent, useless to society, and are somehow still part of an old system that doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t hate police generally but the only reason I hate them is because they won’t let me (and to a somewhat lesser extent, anyone who is autistic) be one of them. Do you understand how stupid that is? They’re not open to being as diverse as the kinds of communities they’re interested in serving. And hiring autistic people is so much more cost effective for them than training police who are so NT that their NT-ness hits you in the face as soon as you look at them, to interact with autistic people. That’s months of training compared to years of lived experience they’re choosing to hide from. 

All this being said, we now come to my point. If I cannot become a cop, I implore you to try to become one if you do not have the same disadvantages I have and are ok with having a job that can get autism-unfriendly. I know I said that they don’t let autistic people join but that sometimes is not the case. The future of autistic people depends on you. This could be the difference between whether or not the problems between police and autistic people you’ve heard about or experienced get solved. Hell, you might even get a chance to put your former high school bully behind bars forever. Idk about you, but that sounds like true justice to me. As a victim of such bullying myself, it doesn’t matter to me that my former bully is a law abiding citizen now. That’s never gonna erase what these kinds of bullies put you or me through. In fact, If I could change the laws in my country, I would make it a legal requirement for the bully to pay their victim or victims an apology tax for as long as the victims live so that they and everyone else can see how big a deal bullying is. To me, that kind of bullying should be treated like a serious crime. Also, you might even become better at enforcing laws no matter what unwritten social rules there are that would prevent an NT cop from enforcing them. And you’ll likely have a decent reason to laugh at someone else’s stupidity. 

How both NPR and PBS lost opportunities to progress and change, and how they can gain them back by taking risks and working with communities.

will American Republicans give/let Trump have powers back

AP called it first in America it seems

Some of you might have seen a viral story about two influencers openly admitting to having an abortion just because the fetus tested positive for down syndrome (mind you, a test that isn't even totally reliable). I'm pro-choice, but discrimination and eugenics are wrong and if you aren't 'ready' to have a disabled kid you aren't ready to have kids.

Many of us are aware of projects like MSSNG that are attempts to locate 'genes' and prevent Autistic people. We must resist this by any means necessary. No action is 'too far'. Because NTs can no longer use overt genocide like Aktion T4, or institutionalization to remove us, and social murder (exclusion/rejection/isolation) is taking too long to kill us, they put resources into "cure" research.

We CANNOT let this stand.

We need to fight back.

I just want to say that we're autistic and have ADHD, we also have CPTSD and DID (albeit undiagnosed, our therapist does agree with our suspicion and we are on the road to making it official), and I am. Frustrated, I suppose.

Every time I see the "neurodivergent" label used in this community and nearly every other neurodiverse community that isn't specifically for a particular disorder other than autism it's used as a synonym for autism, ADHD, and maybe anxiety and PTSD/CPTSD, and it's very tiring.

"Neurodivergent" is a word for any and everyone with neurological and mental differences, and claiming the word for just a handful of disorders is extremely exclusionary.

Anytime we talk about our DID within the context of being neurodivergent we feel excluded because people always think it just means autism. Our friend was kicked from a neurodivergent group because he isn't autistic, but he is bipolar, which also falls under the neurodivergent umbrella.

This has happened several times to the friends we have that aren't autistic! Another just has PTSD, and they're excluded as well. Same for our friend who has CPTSD and OSDD.

I love the neurodivergent community, it's been a place we've lurked in and come to for years and we feel seen a lot, but we only ever feel seen within the context of AuDHD.

You can disagree with me, but I just feel like this needs to be acknowledged by more people and especially the autists in these spaces. The rest of us are tired of being ignored.

I've currently been watching "Love on the Spectrum" (which I will be referring to as LOTS for the sake of brevity) thanks to an NT friend who recommended it to me because of my trouble with dating. Since this is a show with very little autistic input, I immediately gave it the side eye. Before watching, I consulted various autistic YouTubers on the subject; "Savvy Reads Books" and the British YouTuber "I'm Autistic, Now What?" Both came to the conclusion that the show was more detrimental than beneficial. Granted, I'm a male (African American, 35 and single), so I'm not in a position to tell a woman how to think about topics like this. To that end, I started to understand the conundrum that faces both autistics and NTs alike: Autistic people are always critical of work that talks about us-without us (as we should) and NTs with applaud anything dealing with autism even if it's problematic for the sake of "inclusion" and "visibly".

I'm pretty sure that most people in this community either hate LOTS with a burning passion or don't particularly care about it. After listening to "Savvy Reads Books"'s two-hour long video essay about the show for a second time. Me and her agree on one thing in particular: The show seems to only be for the financially sound and the affluent. Since many of the cast are not paid for their time, you have to have a significant neat nest egg of funds to make up for time not at work-something that not even many NTs can do-let alone autistic people; many of us who suffer from chronic underemployment and unemployment. Not only that, but those of us who can work, the vast majority of us are working-class/working-poor. I dare say 90% of us are in this category as the crow flies. So, Netflix basically alienated a vast, vast majority of the autistic population for us to figure how Conner can afford to go to London (to take his girlfriend on a date, no less) on a grocery store salary, while many of us struggle with employment, being poor, and having unstable families/people in their lives. Savvy brings up another good point about the show being "too polished". Gurl (😂) I couldn't agree more. Having a working class autistic person on the show would force people to see that autistic people are REAL people with REAL lives. Thus, a lot harder to infantalize. NTs talk so much about the "real world" not caring if we're autistic and then when we take a page out of their book, they give us shit for being "bitchy" or "rude". I'm like "you built this world for us to lay in, now you complain when we live in it." Having a "rough around the edges" autistic guy like me would break this narrative of autistic people as stuffed animals or pets. Also, I could challenge the audience on how they themselves view people on the spectrum. Potentially calling them to act on injustices which is something that they, quite frankly, don't want to do. Lastly, Madison and Tyler visiting Andrew Jackson's home in Nashville, considering who Jackson was as a person, as the epitome of cringe. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

Society hates poor and working class autistic people, but in our capitalist system, would you expect anything less?

I feel I already know the answer but I’m maybe not understanding. I am seeing videos of what is happening in Delaney hall in America. I saw a video of a man grabbed by ice and nobody moved to help him everyone just silently watched.

is there protesting etiquete? like I know the obvious answer is it would get crazy really fast if people rushed to help. but also… if EVRERYONE did- do you understand what I am asking? I just don’t understand why protestors just stand there and watch someone get grabbed

I can't even begin to tell how mad and dissapointed twitter makes me. Ever since it was bought by he who won't be mentioned, it has become a breeding ground of neo nazi, MAGA, neo confederate white supremacist albelist racist website I have ever seen. I want to enjoy twitter, I do, but where there are 2 good posts, there are like 6 bad ones. One time I was having an argument with this guy about minorities and disabled people, and he reaponded by saying in quotes, "people". Ive never wanted to just close a website faster in my life. If internet anonymitity wasn't a thing, I doubt he would have said that. Anyways at least there's bluesky!

I don’t know if anybody has heard of the Rick chow court case that has just concluded recently, but if you haven’t here’s a brief summary. It’s basically covering a case of a older store owner who claimed that a 14 year old boy had “stolen” a water bottle from his store even though that’s clearly not what the footage from the store shows. Despite that he, Rick Chow, and his son chased this boy down for, I think over 100 yards before claiming that while that boy was running for his life, he somehow pulled out a gun?? And pointed it at them, and they said Rick tried to tell him to put it away but Rick claimed he said no, and he claimed then that’s when he shot him, (despite the forensics team literally showing evidence of how Cyrus’s wound would match to him being shot in his back.) and despite the inconsistencies in this man’s story somehow the court still found him completely not guilty at the end.

Rip Cyrus Carmack Belton

I’m just incredibly in enraged not just because of how young this boy was, but this is but another example of a black child being gunned down and not a semblance of justice being carried out. It’s just this time it’s not a cop carrying out the violence it’s a civilian..

I’m just tired of being both, not just autistic but black in a country that wants both dead.. I’m sorry if just turned into a rant, i needed a place to share how I’m feeling At this moment of time.

Disclaimer before I get downvoted to oblivion: I did not participate in this! I just merely got caught up in it by accident.

For context, Henry Nowak was a student at the university of Southampton, who was murdered by a Sikh man, Vickrum Digwa, with their Kirpan (a bladed weapon that is one of the 5Ks in Sikhism).

When Nowak was stabbed, Digwa lied to the police claiming self defence in a racist attack, and the police handcuffed Nowak and insisted he was faking being stabbed. Nowak died before making it to hospital.

Unfortunately Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe have used Nowak’s death to incite hatred against Sikhs, and that sparked a riot in Southampton.

The body cam footage, which I won’t share since it is incredibly distressing, shows what happened.

Now this hit close to home as I am in Southampton, and just graduated last year from the university. I was taking a driving lesson when I was driving through Portswood towards St Marys, and this is where I had to stop due to the crowd marching on the road. I had stopped at the part between 2 Gurdwaras too. This crowd was legitimately massive and I was stranded for a full 10 minutes before the road cleared enough for me to move again. No photos cuz I was driving and didn’t fancy breaking the law.

Firstly, I think some people in this protest were genuinely wanting justice for Henry and didnt realise it was hijacked by the far right. I feel sorry for them, Henry deserves justice because what happened to him was diabolical, and makes me deeply concerned about my police force that’s supposed to protect and serve me.

Secondly, I felt bloody uncomfortable and nervous. I had to quickly explain to my instructor what we had driven in to, so we closed up the windows and that’s when the shouting started. Some of them joking I should get a lesson discount blah blah, then others were chanting white power, white lives matter, deport the *insert racist slurs here*. There were also quite a few nitties who I was worried could kick something off at any moment too. I was worried I may start kicking something off if one of these Nazis thought I wasn’t supportive of them. The urge to tell them to fuck off or otherwise engage them was honestly real, but I knew that would not end well for me if I did.

I also saw children and babies in the middle of this. I’m sorry but you are an irresponsible parent if you take your kid to a protest that could kick off violently at any moment. That disheartened me massively to how low some people are.

I also just felt super betrayed first hand seeing these thugs waving my countries flag around like they’re proud of this hate. One cunt who happened to be Sikh murdering someone doesn’t justify demonising the entire group.

The people as well recording themselves saying slurs might also have caught me in the frame. Idk cuz I haven’t seen anything but honestly, I’m just an innocent bystander stranded by people unable to drive away.

I still feel uneasy now even though I’m home and away from where the riots taking place, cuz I don’t think I’d ever been in high alert more in my life tbh.

I obviously support the right to protest but this honestly felt pretty nasty. (Hopefully) once in a lifetime experience.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Edit: those fuckers fucking recorded me in their streams and I was very easily able to find myself. I’m definitely reporting this to YouTube. I absolutely do not want any association with this.

Don’t let the gov tell you who to love and not to love ❤️

Hello and sorry for the completely random question, I do t know if this is the correct place to ask this question but I was just curious.

I have lived all my life in the Spectrum but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any current or running candidate that is firm with the rights of those on the Spectrum. I do suppose that disability rights count but I never quite liked being bunched into a single category, hopefully that makes sense.

I just want to find individuals that I can help out in any way possible to help break the stereotypes about the Autism Spectrum, adding first hand experience and my unique perspective to things.

Sorry again to bother if this isn’t the right place to post, I do hope that you all have a good rest of your day or night bye.