#AutisticWhileBlack The Sacrifice of Andre and Cheryl McCollins

One of the most influential images of all time is the photograph of the beaten and mutilated body of Emmett Till, a teenager from Chicago visiting family in Mississippi, in his simple pine casket.Emmett's mother Mamie made a heartbreaking choice when preparing for Emmett's funeral that changed the course of modern civil rights history.

"Mamie Till was the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, at the age of 14, after being accused of flirting with a white cashier woman, Carolyn Bryant, at the grocery store. For her son's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." " - Wikipedia

Years later, Carolyn Bryant admitted she lied, and Emmett was innocent.

André McCollins with his mother Cheryl in happier times.
Image of a light brown African American male presenting teen  with crew cut hair
and a sky blue t-shirt smiling beside a mahogany brown skinned African American
 woman with short straight hair  Credit McCollins family

André McCollins is the victim in one of the few videos of students receiving repeated shocks investigators were able to retrieve from the Judge Rotenberg Center. His screams of agony now fuel the rallying cry of disability rights activists and organizations calling for an end to the use of electric shocks on disabled children.

ADAPT is now embedded in Washington DC trying to get the FDA to implement the already approved restrictions on these shock devices. Read about ADAPT's latest effort here.

Cheryl McCollins, faced with Mamie Till's choice, looked at her beautiful son who has never recovered from the harm done him, and decided the only way to  make certain no one else's loved one was harmed was to get the video of what they had done, those 31 shocks that put Andre in a coma, and give it to the press.

She went to court and fought for that horrific tape and won. That single battle, fought by a lone African American mother, and the decision she made to get that video to the public has changed the course of disability rights history.

We don't have any idea what it means to be Andre McCollins, Black, autistic, innocent and irreparably harmed, then having to have the evidence of that traumatic event played over and over because the institution that harmed you and so many others is backed by powerful people who just don't seem to care that this is being done to disabled students.

We don't have any idea what it means to be The Emmett Till of the African American autistic community, have your torture video be used to save others, but be erased while still being very much alive.

Imagine being Cheryl McCollins. She is trying to carry on her life and Andre's care amid threats to keep quiet and still made this choice that Mamie Till made. To live with the doom of seeing over and over again that they hurt your boy to a point of no recovery and you were powerless to save him.  

People are fighting now all around them. Disability and human rights activists to finish this over 30-year fight to end the torture, powerful wealthy families afraid of the idea that they may have to take a direct interest in their abused disabled loved one's life after years of GED shocks to keep their families members locked away and victimized by multiple shocks daily. All the while Andre and Cheryl, and so many other survivors are forced to relive the trauma of what was done to them.

Do you think it was easy for Mamie Till, to make that choice, to show the battered and broken body of her beautiful boy in an open casket, knowing that it would be the image forever linked to his name?

I've forgotten. Some of you wouldn't know who Emmett Till and his mother Mamie were. Before your time, not of your world perhaps. Here:

"Mamie Till was the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, at the age of 14, after being accused of flirting with a white cashier woman, Carolyn Bryant, at the grocery store. For her son's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby." " - Wikipedia

Years later, Carolyn Bryant admitted she lied, and Emmett was innocent.

Cheryl McCollins made Mamie Till's choice. To have Andre be the symbol of harm in one of today's so-called modern day institutions, to show that this is not the path to help our loved ones no matter how violent and out of control we believe them to be, that torture of this nature is not the answer. 

I have conveyed my gratitude to Cheryl. I told her that my state was one of the states sending autistic youth to the JRC. I told her Andre could have been my son. We grieved for the harm done and I let her know what Andre endured will never be in vain.

While we are all out there, telling Andre and Cheryl's story for a cause while others omitted it from any history of autism, remember Andre and Cheryl are suffering as this video is aired again and again and used in petitions and rallies and actions to end the shocks to others. Don't let Andre and Cheryl become Elsie and Henrietta Lacks, dehumanized archetypal objects of their victimization; their lives dissected packaged and marketed to discuss the use of Henrietta's cells rather than for the human value of the lives of a mother who died in tremendous pain from cancer the disabled daughter she gave up to the only institution for Blacks in Maryland, both used for experimentation for the progress of science. 

 Andre lives on despite having never fully recovered from the harm done him.We need to be mindful of this as we continue fighting and invoking his video trauma. Give them respect and remembrance beyond their use as graphic human slogans for a cause, and do so for every surviving victim of JRC GED shock torture.

While we are fighting for justice #RememberAndre. and all the disproportionately Autistic survivors of color.

For Emmett and Mamie Till, Elsie and Henrietta Lack, and Cheryl and Andre McCollins, in heartbroken gratitude for their sacrifice.

----------------------------

About the Judge Rotenberg Center and ADAPT's latest action to end the torture:

http://nosmag.org/adapt-protests-at-white-house-to-stop-the-shocks/

Follow National ADAPT on Twitter and Facebook to learn how you can help 

The De-voiced Black Disabled Activist

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

James Baldwin

Image of the author in profile, an Afro-Latina disabled woman
with gray natural hair,  looking sadly at something in
the distance. Image rendering Prizma credit K. Cevik

Unless you are one of us,  a person carrying the label of being disabled while Black, you cannot possibly understand the visceral nature of moving through space with a target on your backs, and knowing your body is in constant jeopardy because you are both Black and disabled. It isn't the same if you are disabled with racial privilege. It isn't the same if you are another intersectional combination. Because there are those hundreds of years of struggle to prove we weren't chattel while simultaneously trying to prove that as disabled people we have a right exist as well.

There continues to be experimentation and involuntary sterilization and redlining and all the systemic racist ableism in between. So it broke my heart to see Dr. Perry's article Police killings: the price of being disabled and black in America even though I’ve included it below, not because it wasn't well written, nor because he didn't interview and cite Black disabled activists, but because he continues to benefit from our suffering and tragedy by having the privilege to be able to gain platforms for his writing while being neither disabled nor African American, having an education unrelated to disability rights or critical race studies, and operating from a position of privilege that a majority of Black disabled activists cannot.

That is the very definition of white privilege.

Nor could we possibly produce this thoroughly researched an article with this turnaround. Not with the meatspace struggles of surviving with the labels we carry that each day demands. Add to that those who have responsibility for families without equal access to services and supports, and there is not even a level field for competition.

This article may have been well-written but this was our story to tell and we were not granted the opportunity to tell it without appropriative white narration, and in a time of oppressive white supremacy, it feels extremely wrong that a white cis male with no background in disability or critical race studies should both write this and brag about gaining a payday for his writing about us without us, particularly since in the past he claimed to be an ally. He now defines himself as "accountable."

At a time when we have been handed a verdict that makes it open hunting season on myself and my disabled racial peers, unreasonable or not, it hurts me that we again end up nothing more than photographs and quoted content in our own story, analyzed, explained and narrated by an author (however kind and making an effort to present the topic to a global audience) who is neither our race nor disabled.  It is too much like profiting from our suffering. My mind understands the good intentions but my heart says good intentions pave the road to white patronizing patriarchy. Perhaps it is my fey mood and only now getting to read this thoroughly. But that, however wrong to others it may be, is how I feel.

Feel free to tell me how you feel about this article. I’ll come back to it when I’m less sad.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/22/police-killings-disabled-black-people-mental-illness

How Not To Endorse An Anthology

Tom Wiggins aka Thomas Greene Bethune, holding a copy of his composition
Rain Storm Photo By W. L. Germon of Philadelphia - tennis*elbow,
 Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25192531

A historic event in the timeline of the history of autism and disability rights activism is about to happen. The Autism Women's Network, probably the most diverse nonprofit organization in autism rights advocacy, is about to publish an anthology consisting entirely of nonwhite voices. "All The Weight Of Our Dreams" was edited by three powerful activists of color, Lydia X. Z. Brown, E. Ashkenazy, and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu. This may be the only anthology actually allowing the voices of autistic people of color to speak without validation or qualification of parents or professionals. This will be groundbreaking. 

I was therefore shattered when I read a piece by NeuroTribes author Steve Silberman giving the book a brief mention in a recent article entitled "The Invisibility of Black Autism." Why would a white best-selling author of a history of autism and neurodiversity's acknowledgment of an anthology on race and autism upset me? I wrote about the erasure of Black autistics from histories of autism, including Mr. Silberman's in the article "Autistic While Black: The Erasure of Blacks From Histories of Autism."

Since the message has not been understood, here's what is wrong with Mr. Silberman's article, and it is a primer about how not to write about race and autism.

1. Don't be a hypocrite.  If a white author excludes any mention of Black autistic historical figures in a comprehensive history of autism, he has no place writing about the topic as if he is an authority on it. Mr. Silberman excludes Black autistics from his history of autism, where Blacks, in general, are only mentioned to give scenery and import to the heroes of his book. He also applies the n-word in his book unnecessarily, as the use of the expletive adds no value to the narrative at all. Imagine my surprise when suddenly he's writing about the trials and tribulations of Black autistics.

2. Don't conflate the issue by choosing a misleading topic title. "The Invisibility of Black Autism" is a nod to a CNN article by African American Autistic music producer Mike Buckholtz you can read about here. The title conflates invisibility and what is actually happening which is erasure. Articles like "The Invisibility of Black Autism" actually contribute to erasure.  Black autistics are visible; the issue is how they are impacted by disparities in health care support, misdiagnoses based on presumptions founded in structural racism, disparities in educational and ADA supports and services, and research that excludes and abuses them (I disagree with Mr. Silberman that the exclusion of single parents is a factor, this is an example of how a generally known statistic about a socio-economic group within a racial minority is both overgeneralized and used to presume causation of factors that may correlate but not be relevant to the issues discussed). Invisibility implies Black autistics are not visible; erasure makes it clear that Black autistic representation, Black autistic voices, and Black autistic people are having their efforts appropriated, used for the benefit of others, and as a result wiped away.

3. Don't write if you don't know your topic. When an uninformed white author tries to write about race and disparities in research, inevitably the history of the use of the Black body as a human lab rat is excluded from the narrative, and cultural stereotypes like the single Black parent phenomenon and cultural limitations within our community are pursued as a cause for lack of accurate data. Black families are leery of studies with just cause, and when trust is given to researchers the consequences continue to be devastating, as recent events like the disastrous Kennedy Krieger lead paint study lawsuits continuing in Baltimore have made clear. Never discussed are infrastructure planning decisions resulting in toxic environments for disproportionately Black and Brown communities, and how such environments impact disability and Black and Brown attitudes about research as well. See the latest civil rights lawsuit filed against the state of Maryland about the building of an additional power plant in Brandywine, MD bringing the total of plants in one community that is 75 percent Black to 5. The impact of environmental injustice on disability and race would not be addressed by an author who would fail to realize its disproportionate impact on our community.

4. Don't plug an Autism Speaks supporting site in the same article you plug the anthology of three powerful autistic fem activists of color fighting for disability rights of intersected people.  The Color of Autism site promotes Autism Speaks' 100-day kit and the medical model philosophy of autism. While their documentary attempt to give voice to the need for services is admirable, it uses the autistic youth in the film in the same manner they are used in any Autism Speaks PSA and this is infantilizing, appropriative of their voices, and diminishes them. Mr. Silberman appears to be attempting to placate potential audiences for his book,  and straddling a fence to gain the good graces of parents rather than supporting a great anthology by disability rights activists who are experts on the topic. Numerous sites on disability and race exist, along with blogs from disabled disability rights activists of color, parent allies, and academics who write on the topic of disability rights and critical race studies. I can therefore only conclude that the choice to mention The Color of Autism was clearly meant to promote Autism Speaks supporting parents of color.

5. Don't begin an article with a slave trope presentation of an important Black autistic historical figure and force readers to read a degrading portrait of him in a racist oppressor's account of a man who spoke through his musical compositions, regardless of who that racist white person was. Mr. Silberman continues to use Black people as objects in their own stories by placing the emphasis on famous white people and their dissection and denigrating view of said Black disabled people. The presentation of Black autistics in this fashion relegates historically important people like Tom Wiggins to chattel and this serves no purpose but to limit the reader's view of African American disability history as beginning and ending with slavery. Wiggins, who earned enough money while enslaved to hire a composer to teach him to compose blind, then fought until he was granted the right to have his own name on his compositions managed a monumental accomplishment for a man who was declared 'non-compos mentis' simply to keep him enslaved. He created variations in his compositions that do not fit the stereotype of the blind autistic savant pianist as understood today, so his groundbreaking work and his successful fight to put his name on his intellectual property were the ultimate triumphs despite his unlawful near lifetime enslavement.  Listen to this piece, The Rainstorm. Blind Tom traveled extensively and his musical expressions and influences were the sum total of his world travels, not just his life as a slave child on a plantation, a life he left at age 5 to begin a life as a traveling performer.
The Rainstorm by Tom Wiggins:

6. Don't erase Black autistic people from their own stories. The shock of not seeing a photo of the historical figure mentioned in the article, but instead, in a long article about the invisibility of Black autistics, the only image in the body of the article is that of white Leo Kanner, who would never have included Blind Tom in his classification and studies of autism in the first place, speaks volumes about erasure that while I'm certain Mr. Silberman did not intend happened again and with impunity in his article.

7. Don't talk about autistics of color without them. This piece of writing should not have happened. Instead, Mr. Silberman might have used his privilege to interview Lydia X. Z. Brown, E. Ashkenazy, and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu about the history of autism and race in general, the reasons they embarked on this project, and their individual and organizational goals with regards to the promotion of the voices of nonwhite autistic people. This means proper representation beyond simply requesting a quote, or using references from sources without noting their origin, thus erasing the voices of marginalized people speaking for themselves. Instead, we are subjected to a graphic of bursting black puzzle pieces, so the subliminal message is hammered home that Autism Speaks speaks for all Black autistics when they most certainly do NOT.

The article Mr. Silberman wrote is symptomatic of the structural racism embedded in our society, perpetuates stereotypes on race and autism, and erases autistic voices of color while its apparent intent was to bring these issues to light. How can this article be believed to aide endorsing any book on race and autism?  The road to hell is again paved with good intentions.


The Weight of Our Dreams is a powerful anthology and everyone who worked on it deserves a better endorsement. I hope they get one.

Resources:

The Weight of Our Dreams information can be found here:
http://autismandrace.com/
The Autism Women's Network information can be found here:
http://autismwomensnetwork.org/?gclid=CKP6guSC5MwCFQ9ZhgodrSMMiw
Autistic While Black: The Erasure of Black from Histories of Autism is here:
http://intersecteddisability.blogspot.com/2016/01/autistic-while-black-erasure-of-blacks.html
Steve Silberman's article title was derived from Mike Buckholtz's CNN article interview "The Invisibles" which can be found here:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-768049
Steve Silberman's Mark Twain references on Wiggins came from a medical model narrative probably here:
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/profiles-and-videos/profiles/blind-tom-a-19th-century-marvelous-musician/
Steve Silberman paraphrases a reference I made to a scene from the documentary "Refrigerator Mothers" taken directly from my article where Dorothy Groomer discusses racial reasons why University of Illinois doctors refused to label her son Steven as autistic that excerpt can be directly accessed here:
https://youtu.be/DtKJ0PCz4QI
A JHU Kennedy Krieger Institute Lead Paint Research study which harmed disporportionately poor black community members in Baltimore, disabling children, is the subject of ongoing multiple lawsuits which can be read about here:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2014-06-07/health/bs-hs-lead-lawsuit-new-20140607_1_kennedy-krieger-institute-children-study
A Civil Rights complaint has just been filed against the state of Maryland for approving a new fossil fuel power plant in Brandywine, a community that is 75 percent Black, brings the total plants producing toxic output to the community to 5 and can be read about here. 
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2016-05-12/energy-policy/civil-lawsuit-filed-against-maryland-over-power-plant-in-brandywine/a51868-1
John Davis Plays Tom Wiggins here:
https://youtu.be/A2Y-l0bsriE