Those who criticize what I do often tell me I use too many words.

Even I think I use too many words.

And yet every word I use is necessary.

I don’t often have the luxury of being short.

Explanations carry explanations.

Points made must have definitive evidence of why that point…is a point.

How I show up here is reflective of my life outside of here.

Dominant culture will find whatever way it can to deny, dismiss…disregard our lives.

We don’t always overshare because we like to, it’s necessary that we do so.

This world doesn’t respond well to our pain, and yet we must always share it to be taken seriously.

To cut ourselves open to show that we bleed.

Just as they do.

It isn’t good enough to state that, “many BIPoC families turn to ABA,” and leave it there.

We have to lay bare every bit of harm, hurt, and pain we live and justify our experience to white people who don’t know the first thing about what it is to be us.

We have to prove to them why this is reality for us.

They don’t often ask for understanding, they ask for proof.

They don’t often want to be taught; they want us to demonstrate how something they find unacceptable is something we have to do. Only they frame it as “choosing to do" which absolves any responsibility this society (a society that benefits them in ways we will never know) has for their role in making our lives a series of limited options and the engagement in things we do not care to do.

I spent years building a community that would serve as a safe space to share my life.

So many cuts to pour my lifeblood into these spaces.

Thousands upon thousands of words used.

And still, many of you require that I use more…even those who claim I use too many.

I don’t often venture outside of my own spaces to talk about the things I talk about because I built this space to be what I didn’t see nor have outside of it. It is a home that I didn’t find anywhere else. Do not call me into yours or another’s. I will not go. I do not fear one single person here, but I do fear my mental and emotional capacities taking hits that take such a long time to recover from. The decision is preservation of self. I love me too much to do that to myself.

I educate on my own terms, in my own space. Or that of those who I trust dearly.

I have provided more than enough of my life and thoughts that are here.

So many others have done the same.

Before one moves to ask for the labor of historically excluded persons, ask yourself:

“Could a quick search of hashtags find me accounts that could talk about this particular subject?”

“Could I ask my audience for specific advocates to follow and learn from?” A simple list of creators/advocates isn’t asking for labor, it’s pointing you in the direction of those whose spaces you will sit in and learn from.

“Do these advocates have any additional resources available that could better my understanding of the issues they are talking about?”

We have been at the center of your revolutions. Screaming and marching and educating. 

For generations. 

Where are we? Still at it. Because this isn’t something that is ours alone to fix. We are doing what we can with the power and privileges that we have.

Ultimately, for the purposes of this particular discussion white people who are either Autistic or work alongside Autistic persons often taking on the perspectives of those white Autistics need to ask themselves, "why it is that I have little to no understanding that in a world where PoGM (people of the Global Majority) experience a racialized existence in every part of their lives, why wouldn’t this also apply to ABA?"

They have to understand that this privilege they carry was born from whiteness and is something they inherited. White people have to understand what white supremacy is, what whiteness is, what white privilege is, what benefits they have as well as the ways it harms them, what levels racism and white supremacy operate on, etc.

If they are not even remotely familiar with the terminology surrounding this work, they needn’t require those who are to educate them further. They have to know what whiteness is, how it works through them, for them, and against them. This is required learning that they themselves sort out. 

Racism is everyone’s problem, and yet PoGM are the primary ones who talk about it. To march about it. To shout about it. To educate about it. The onus should not be on the ones who experience the greatest impacts of racism to repair what is broken (or rather operates as intended with advantages to white persons). 

This is on white people.

Way too many white people will ask, "where do I go?" "How do I become anti-racist?" "Can you tell me..." Some will demand, "PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" 

Nah. 

I don't speak that language. 

One, there’s a plethora of resources out there at your disposal. There are many white people who are engaged in anti-racist work that you can learn from. If you really wanted to listen and learn, you would find a way to make that happen that didn't involve sucking us dry. 

Y’all are requiring that we provide an answer as to why many PoGM would turn to the principles of ABA even when not being ND and not asking yourselves why is it that you don’t understand that whiteness and society’s strict adherence to its standards is why we are often left with little choice?