Black-Aspie Alliance?

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I have a number of black friends. During my talks with them, I've come to realize that many of the social and institutional struggles that their skin color imposes on them in many ways parallel the struggles we face. Does anyone else think that there should be more cooperation between the black and autistic communities to assert our civil rights/call for social justice in our communities?

I think segregation of ASD kids from NT kids is the solution. There are local ASD schools near me where they teach the ASD kids in dim lights, low noise, and education directed to ASD learning. WOW! I could only dream of going to one of those schools as a kid.

However, how would the black community regard segregation? The black civil rights movement was originally about de-segregation and how segregation is racist. Now we would need them to promote segregation and talk about how great segregation is. So we might not have common ground.

I guess that makes me a "neurologicalist", because of my promotion of separate neurologically-oriented schools.

I wish I could go to a school like that. That would be amazing.

Not only black people / people of color / minorities, but also women, LGBTQ, low income, religious minorities such as the Jewish community, immigrants, and more. I think the term you're looking for is intersectionality and kyriarchy. Audre Lorde wrote a book called Sister Outsider where she chronicled her experiences of being black and gay - and concluded that there was no hierarchy of oppression.

Kyriarchy and Privilege 101:
http://privilege101.tumblr.com/post/598 ... n-progress

I think the greater concern is the disparity of diagnosis between youth of color and white youth - kids of color whether black, Hispanic, Asian, Native etc are less likely to be diagnosed than white youth, and there is also a disparity depending on your income level and where you live. Such as rural vs. suburban.

Is this because white parents are more engaged parents ?

I always find these kinds of statistics bordering on deception, because Hispanic people are largely white.

According to wiki, which cites the US census, see here , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi ... ted_States

More than 1/2 the Hispanic people in the U.S. self-identify as "white". 26,735,713 million of the them self-identify as "white" out of a population of 50,477,594. Also, a large percent of the ones reporting as "Hispanic" - which identifies an ancestery - not a race - like the infamous "George Zimmerman" - are likely to have a lot of white or nearly white people, since no race is specified. So, the percent of Hispanic whites will be even higher.

So, somehow these white persons and near white persons are "of color", and "white" at the same time. That makes perfect sense though, since "white" is a color.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 26 Nov 2013, 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Segregation just validates the abelist argument that we can't handle the "real" world. As a segregated people it would make us an easier target for genocide if it ever came to that. The gay slowly but surely infiltrated the straight world to the point that they became human and indispensable.

So ASD kids with sensory problems, speech difficulty, and learning disabilities should just suck it up, and suffer, so some higher functioning AS people can win a political argument that autism is not disabling?

I lived through sensory hell, speech problems, and learning disabilities. It is pure torture to be in a regular classroom.

No AS people should have the schools accommodated sensory hell just as they make ramps for students who can't walk. AS people should lobby the science world to recognize the sensory issues are probably as if not more important to the spectrum as the social issues everybody talks about. If the deaf can have hearing aids to make themselves somewhat functional hearing aids can be invented for sensory hell.

I am not saying that every person can attend a "regular" school . There are some that can't. But I was reacting to a blanket statement that spectrum people should be separated. The one size fits all trend is wrong but that is another conversation.

For this reason alone, I believe that an alliance between Blacks and Autistics just isn't gonna happen.

Fnord; I have spoken to a couple of churches seeing if they would possibly bake some goodies for the retreat in February. The black church I spoke with is excited about participation, because, of course, of an understanding about oppression and persecution.

I agree that complete alliance would be difficult because, as stated, we need more segregation something many have fought against, and some even died for their cause. When I spoke with the minister of the black church, she totally agreed that for US that is probably the best bet.

The ramp accomodation is the same in theory but in practice they are nothing alike. Accomodating non-walking students by adding a ramp requires...adding a ramp. You just add a physical object. But a great lot of the sensory issues for many kids (such as my daughter) come from the large numbers of other students. The only possible accomodation is to greatly reduce the number of students per square foot by either spreading them more thinly across many schools or by making the campus much, much larger. This is not financially possible for any school district.

My daughter suffered terribly because it was sensory hell for her being surrounded by hundreds of other children. Too much noise and motion. There is no way to accomodate that common sensory problem without drcreasing the number of children. The sensible solution is to segregate such students in very, very small schools with limited numbers of students overall and per class. She is now thriving in such a school. But the cost per student is about quintuple what it was in the mainstream school because it is so cost-inefficient to have so few students in one place. However, this is the only way to accomodate those whose sensory difficulties are caused by being around very large numbers of other children.

Smaller classes would be good for most people Spectrumites or not but it is costly. If the sensory issues are debilitating enough (ie hell) separation needs to be done. But this is a spectrum disorder. People who for lack of better words are "sensory uncomfortable" can be accommodated, and should learn to live with a certain level of discomfort, thus should not be separated.

My mom asked me, "Why aren't ever proud of me?" I answered, "You send me into those schools to be tortured".

It is not just sensory hell. ASD kids are teased and beaten. The teachers make fun of you too, because they assume you are like everyone else.