The Autistic People of Color Fund honors the end of Disability Pride Month
by releasing its 2022 Community Policy Priorities Report
https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report.pdf,
the first such report specifically focusing only on autistic people of
color’s priorities.
Drawing from community surveys conducted between the winter and spring of
2022, the report identifies five strategic areas that the Fund will elevate
under the leadership of incoming Policy and Advocacy Director Finn Gardiner:
(1) health equity, (2) food justice, (3) economic security, (4) housing
justice, and (5) education justice.
For too long, autistic people’s basic human rights have been violated by
regressive laws, policies, and practices at the local, national, and global
levels, within private institutions, and as a result of ableist
interpersonal encounters at the individual level. Autistic people of color,
in particular, face heighted ostracization, marginalization, and
vulnerability due to intersectional discrimination arising from global
white supremacy, racialized capitalism, and structural racism.
“Austic people of color are some of the most exploited, vulnerable people
in the world,” said the Fund’s outgoing Policy and Advocacy Director Tony
Alexander, one of the report’s authors. “Once the wrongs against autistic
people of color are addressed, and action is taken to ensure they are
protected against ableist, classist, racist, and other forms of oppression,
society as a whole will shift for the better. I am ecstatic because the
Fund started as a mutual aid organization. This is our first ever policy
priorities report and our work in this area has the potential to create
long-term, systemic change that will ensure autistic people of color are
ensured their basic rights and able to live out fulfilling lives.”
The report identifies multiple policy objectives, including:
- Advocating for continued and expanded access to remote and virtual
healthcare services, such as telehealth visits
- Expanding autistic people of color’s food assistance benefits and
increasing enrollment for low-income autistic people of color within food
assistance programs
- Ending subminimum wages for all disabled people, along with subminimum
wages for tipped and incarcerated workers who are disproportionately
disabled people of color
- Advocating for restorative justice practices that address serious
issues in schools without resorting to restraints, seclusion, suspension,
or expulsions – disciplinary actions that disproportionately and negatively
impact Black, Brown and disabled students
- Creating solidarity with other autistic people of color led
organizations within and outside of the United States, as well as
organizations and people who work on intersectional issues, such as within
the queer and trans communities where disabled people comprise a higher
percentage of the population
- Increasing the number of public health authority inspection visits
during pandemics at sites where higher-risk, immunosuppressed, and
immunocompromised people live so as to ensure better compliance with health
and safety standards
- Connecting autistic people of color to their local Protection &
Advocacy Systems agencies, which provide lega, technical and training
assistance
Though the Fund is an organization created by autistic people of color for
the wellbeing of autistic people of color, these policy advocacy priorities
will benefit the cross-disability community and even nondisabled people.
The Fund’s approach to policy advocacy situates this work firmly within the
principles and praxis of nonreformist reform, harm reduction, and
disability justice informed policy advocacy.
Read the 2022 Community Policy Priorities Report
https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report.pdf
Read the report in a plain text version (optimized for screen readers)
https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report-text-only.pdf
Report authors: Tony Alexander, Oluwatobi Maeyen Odugunwa, Lydia X. Z.
Brown, and Finn Gardiner, with assistance from Shreya Iyer
Lydia X. Z. Brown
Founder and Director
The Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color's
Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment
Pronouns: they, them, theirs or no pronouns
Our work takes place on the unceded and occupied traditional lands
https://apihtawikosisan.com/2016/09/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments/ of
the Jiwére (Otoe–Missouria Tribe), Pâri (Pawnee Nation), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ
(Ihanktowan-Ihanktowana and Lakȟóta), Piscataway-Conoy, and Nacotchtank
peoples.
Share, Apply, Donate
https://autismandrace.com/autistic-people-of-color-fund/
“We will find other ways (create our own ways) and talk liberation and
access and interdependency with our comrades. We will weave need into our
relationships like golden, shimmering glimmers of hope—opportunities to
build deeper, more whole and practice what our world could look like. We
will practice what loving each other could look like every day.
Courageously. And we will help each other to do it, in the face of
seductive ableism; in the face of isolation as queer people of color,
again; in the face of isolation from political community and movements,
again. We will help each other love each other and, in doing so, love
ourselves.”
― Mia Mingus
The Autistic People of Color Fund honors the end of Disability Pride Month
by releasing its 2022 Community Policy Priorities Report
<https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report.pdf>,
the first such report specifically focusing only on autistic people of
color’s priorities.
Drawing from community surveys conducted between the winter and spring of
2022, the report identifies five strategic areas that the Fund will elevate
under the leadership of incoming Policy and Advocacy Director Finn Gardiner:
(1) health equity, (2) food justice, (3) economic security, (4) housing
justice, and (5) education justice.
For too long, autistic people’s basic human rights have been violated by
regressive laws, policies, and practices at the local, national, and global
levels, within private institutions, and as a result of ableist
interpersonal encounters at the individual level. Autistic people of color,
in particular, face heighted ostracization, marginalization, and
vulnerability due to intersectional discrimination arising from global
white supremacy, racialized capitalism, and structural racism.
“Austic people of color are some of the most exploited, vulnerable people
in the world,” said the Fund’s outgoing Policy and Advocacy Director Tony
Alexander, one of the report’s authors. “Once the wrongs against autistic
people of color are addressed, and action is taken to ensure they are
protected against ableist, classist, racist, and other forms of oppression,
society as a whole will shift for the better. I am ecstatic because the
Fund started as a mutual aid organization. This is our first ever policy
priorities report and our work in this area has the potential to create
long-term, systemic change that will ensure autistic people of color are
ensured their basic rights and able to live out fulfilling lives.”
The report identifies multiple policy objectives, including:
- Advocating for continued and expanded access to remote and virtual
healthcare services, such as telehealth visits
- Expanding autistic people of color’s food assistance benefits and
increasing enrollment for low-income autistic people of color within food
assistance programs
- Ending subminimum wages for all disabled people, along with subminimum
wages for tipped and incarcerated workers who are disproportionately
disabled people of color
- Advocating for restorative justice practices that address serious
issues in schools without resorting to restraints, seclusion, suspension,
or expulsions – disciplinary actions that disproportionately and negatively
impact Black, Brown and disabled students
- Creating solidarity with other autistic people of color led
organizations within and outside of the United States, as well as
organizations and people who work on intersectional issues, such as within
the queer and trans communities where disabled people comprise a higher
percentage of the population
- Increasing the number of public health authority inspection visits
during pandemics at sites where higher-risk, immunosuppressed, and
immunocompromised people live so as to ensure better compliance with health
and safety standards
- Connecting autistic people of color to their local Protection &
Advocacy Systems agencies, which provide lega, technical and training
assistance
Though the Fund is an organization created by autistic people of color for
the wellbeing of autistic people of color, these policy advocacy priorities
will benefit the cross-disability community and even nondisabled people.
The Fund’s approach to policy advocacy situates this work firmly within the
principles and praxis of nonreformist reform, harm reduction, and
disability justice informed policy advocacy.
Read the 2022 Community Policy Priorities Report
<https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report.pdf>
Read the report in a plain text version (optimized for screen readers)
<https://autismandrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Community-Policy-Priorities-Report-text-only.pdf>
*Report authors: Tony Alexander, Oluwatobi Maeyen Odugunwa, Lydia X. Z.
Brown, and Finn Gardiner, with assistance from Shreya Iyer*
___________________
*Lydia X. Z. Brown*
*Founder and Director*
*The Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color's
Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment*
Pronouns: they, them, theirs or no pronouns
Our work takes place on the unceded and occupied traditional lands
<https://apihtawikosisan.com/2016/09/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments/> of
the Jiwére (Otoe–Missouria Tribe), Pâri (Pawnee Nation), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ
(Ihanktowan-Ihanktowana and Lakȟóta), Piscataway-Conoy, and Nacotchtank
peoples.
*Share, Apply, Donate
<https://autismandrace.com/autistic-people-of-color-fund/>*
“We will find other ways (create our own ways) and talk liberation and
access and interdependency with our comrades. We will weave need into our
relationships like golden, shimmering glimmers of hope—opportunities to
build deeper, more whole and practice what our world *could* look like. We
will practice what loving each other could look like every day.
Courageously. And we will help each other to do it, in the face of
seductive ableism; in the face of isolation as queer people of color,
*again*; in the face of isolation from political community and movements,
*again*. We will help each other love each other and, in doing so, love
ourselves.”
― Mia Mingus