CN racism

So, like, I’m struggling with the way we handle talking about racism in neurodiversity spaces right now.

I’ll link the thread that got me thinking about this in collaboration with everything down-thread.

I’m frequently seeing kind of an implicit judgement when non-white autistics talk about racism, and kind of going “oh well that’s activism” or “that’s controversial” and then saying that you shouldn’t have to talk about it.

Let me explicitly state: that shit is privilege.

Like, for example, I won’t name the groups (if you put together which ones it is DO NOT HARASS THEM) but there are spaces in the autistic community that are deemed “activism free” or “controversy free” places.

And, like, on the surface level it seems like that possible. Like, say it’s a cooking group for ND people (it isn’t in this case, but pretend). Surely we can just avoid talking about racism here

I mean, no. Food deserts. Budgets. Cultural norms around food.

It sounds all well and good to go “no ~controversial talk~ here!” but that’s inherently gonna privilege people for whom access to most kinds of food is uncomplicated.

Statistically speaking, that’s a lot likelier you be white people.

You’re just making it ~safe~ for one group.

And I see this train of thought become “well if you don’t like what I have to say, don’t stay on my page” when anyone tries to criticize inherent racism or point out a lack of intersectional ideas around race in someone’s ideas, in ND spaces

And like...in general, that’s not how you learn. That’s not really how online spaces work.

It’s a table in a restaurant, not your bed-desk in a private room. If someone overhears you, and what you have to say can harm someone else, expect them to say something.

Like, is it possible for misunderstandings to happen? Absolutely, we don’t all know each other. And there’s absolutely instances of taking things too far (e.g. credible threats of murder).

But. That doesn’t mean that you get to pretend you’re in a vacuum.

It can be harder to accept mistakes and to cope with the emotional weight of causing harm, as an autistic person. I accept that.

That doesn’t exempt us from *having to do that* though, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean non-poc autistics get to use that to avoid accountability

Anyway, Black NDs have been talking about this longer and way more competently than I have, read some stuff from them here: https://twitter.com/afrodykee/status/1343396147361144839