Disability Futures

The little black boy in me frantically searched for faces that looked like mine. Where are the voices of self-advocates who look like me? Where were the keynote speakers and facilitators of workshops and webinars that I could identify with? Without much resolution to my search, it was then that the term invisible disability took on an entirely different meaning for me. It was in that moment I truly felt invisible. When current statistics show that African-American children are diagnosed with autism sometimes as late as two years later than white children, we need to discover more ways to intentionally include advocates who look like those little black boys and girls. When reports show that regressive autism may occur as much as 50 percent more often in black children than in white children, our community must do a better job at reflecting diversity by including the voices of black autistics into the mainstream so that parents and children have someone to identify with.

One of the primary talking points about autism is that it is truly a spectrum. It is a mantra many in the autism community live by. While I wholeheartedly believe autism is a spectrum, I also believe the strength of our community will be increased when the spectrum ceases to be segregated.