All the Weight of Our Dreams On Living Racialized Autism

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Abstract

For those of us who are autistic and racialized, we often struggle to find representation in mass media, academic work about autism or race, and the activist and advocacy movements that focus on autism, neurodiversity, disability rights, or racial justice. Most autism and autistic organizations, publications about autism, and broader neurodiversity campaigns are predominantly white. Yet disabled Black and Brown students are most likely to be impacted by the school to prison pipeline; the vast majority of U.S. prisoners are disabled and Black or Brown; racialized people are a global majority (which means that autistic people of color far outnumber white autistic people in the world); and the combined impact of race and disability severely increase likelihood for hate crimes, police violence, all other forms of abuse, and repeated retraumatization. Our stories matter and must be told. We hope that this collection will not only speak sharply against our constant erasure and invisibility as (at least) doubly impacted, but will also provide solace and familiarity for our own out there waiting for stories like theirs to be told.