I wish you wouldn’t interpret my silence as silence. My silence is, in fact, a compliment. It means that I am being my natural self. It means that I am comfortable around you, that I trust you enough to engage my way of knowing, my way of speaking and interacting. When I dilute my silences [...]
In many respects, I think the subject heading says it all. I hear this a lot lately, primarily from undergraduate students who find autistic self-advocacy reprehensible and/or incomprehensible. In fact, at our protest this fall, someone actually came up to us and said, “If you can self-advocate, then you’re not autistic.” Way to disempower much? [...]
On Sunday, October 10, I joined forces with a dozen individuals and protested the Autism Speaks Walk for Autism at Ohio State. We faced 18,000 walkers, several of whom screamed at us, berated us, tried to exact physical harm upon us. One walker had to be physically restrained by a friend and a walk official; [...]
I’ve been reading a lot of stuff lately — and by stuff, I mean several articles that, per academic ritual, I should probably cite right here — stuff that deals with the role of the author in a narrative, with identity and positionality, with the influence of the researcher upon the researched, with authorial interpretation. [...]
