HEARD is a Black-led and disabled-led, cross-disability abolitionist organization. With practically no funding, HEARD has been doing vital work that no one else does.
Tag: Kerima Cevik
[image: Production photo of David Jame Savarese (Deej), a thin white male with short, cropped hair and glasses, wearing a light blue polo shirt and beige slacks, seated at a table facing his girlfriend who is seated in a power chair back to us, facing him. A man holding a camera is standing to their left and caught in the act of filming them. ©DEEJ movie www.deejmovie.com/press] Kerima Çevik theautismwars.blogspot.com “A distinguishing feature of scientific thinking is the search for falsifying as well as confirming evidence. However, many times in the history of science, scientists have resisted new discoveries by selectively interpreting or ignoring unfavorable data.” Wikipedia on Confirmation Bias I understand that professionals who aren’t familiar with autism and autistic lived experience may carry biases about non-speaking autistic people. I don’t accept it, but I understand it. We’re human and all of us have biases. When bias becomes a…
An autistic young person has the right to have an active and willing agency in the process of deciding who to befriend, what boundaries should be set on such friendships and who they are just not comfortable with.
Kerima Çevik theautismwars.blogspot.com The author’s idea of what displaying autism positivity looks like [Image: a Black woman over 50 with braided gray hair wearing Neurodiversity 3.0 by ThinkGeek, a black T-shirt with a world globe design on the upper chest area in the shape of a human brain, colored in physical map fashion i.e., water is colored light blue and land masses green, clouds white, looking to her left over bent wire-rimmed glasses in that way that mothers look at their children when an outrageous behavior has just ensued.] There is an article in a paper called The Daily Net, about singer Toni Braxton’s 16-year-old son Diezel working as a professional model for the past two years. The article refers to him as “formerly autistic.” It goes on to say he has, “fortunately, moved past” autism and is now a celebrity himself. Apparently, when her son was thirteen, Ms. Braxton…
Kerima Cevik http://theautismwars.blogspot.com “Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity.” -James Baldwin The Fire Next Time Photo © Kerima Cevik, posted with subject’s permission [Image: The author’s biracial nonverbal autistic son, at about age five, expressing shock through the gestural language he created.] San Francisco Autism Society Board Member Stephen Prutsman recently posted an opinion piece* to his organization’s blog, and while browsing newsfeeds on social media, I read it. The blog post disturbed me so much I posted a brief response in the comment section (which they did not publish). Mr. Prutsman headed his article with two images, a rainbow infinity symbol image he meant to represent the neurodiversity movement, and a disturbing photograph previously posted by his ASA chapter president (now removed), alleging to show property damage to…
Kerima Çevik intersecteddisability.blogspot.com theautismwars.blogspot.com Kerima Çevik, photo courtesy the author [image: Gray haired Afro-Latina woman next to a windowshade, looking to the left.] [Content note: Contains descriptions of involuntary medical procedure, including sterilization, on Black and disabled people.] I am trying to plow my way through Judith Newman’s autism parenting book To Siri with Love: A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of Machines. It is slow, painful reading. How can I explain my serious ethical concerns about yet another bestselling autism book that capitalizes on presenting the experience of disability from a parent’s reduction of a disabled individual’s worth to how he makes his mother and those around them feel? I can tell you that Newman’s passage about looking forward to acquiring a medical power of attorney so she could involuntarily sterilize her autistic son Gus tainted the rest of the book for me. A vasectomy, she says. That…
Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com [Content note: possible triggers include: forcible sterilization of minorities including Autistic people, forcible gynecological experimentation on minorities, Judge Rotenberg Center, electric shock, stereotypes about Autistics lacking empathy or a sense of humor, stereotypes about Autistics or Black people lacking the ability to feel pain, snakes and feeding live rodents, harmful Supreme Court verdicts, dehumanizing of Autists, getting drunk, preferring drunkenness to talking with Autistic children, humanizing the author of a grossly dehumanizing book.] Come mothers and fathers / Throughout the land And don’t criticize / What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters / Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one / If you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’. -Bob Dylan [image: Book cover: A blue background with informal font white text reading, “To Siri With Love,” with a photo of a…
Kerima Çevik theautismwars.blogspot.com Last week the body of Mikaela Lynch, age 9, Autistic, was found in a nearby lake where she apparently drowned. I am sorry to say that when I saw the red flags of a nonspeaking missing child, a nearby body of water, and unfenced backyard leading to woods, I feared the worst while praying for the best. I’m not going to comment on the article on Mikaela’s death in Cafe Mom’s The Stir because I don’t wish to increase hits on the Examiner article, which vilified the parents without a clear grasp of what happened that day. We weren’t there. We don’t know what happened. We only know what is reported to us. I will wait for the police to finish their autopsy and investigation, and pass on my sincere condolences to Mikaela’s family. We have been engaged in teaching our son water survival rather than swimming since…
Mustafa & Kerima We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We are the people in each other’s neighborhoods, and the more we know about each other — the more visible autistic people and children are — the more common autism acceptance will be. That is our hope. Today we’re talking Mustafa, who loves to swim. His mother Kerima Çevik rephrased our Slice of Life questions so Mustafa could answer them using the iPod app Answers Yes/No. Is your name Mustafa Nuri Cevik? Yes. Is this your favorite website [points to http://www.redfishsoup.com/]? yesyes. Do you have any autistic superpowers? no. Are you happy today?…
Update: TPGA reorganized in Spring 2014, transitioning from a mostly-publishing focus to a mostly social media and information sharing-focus — and parted ways with our affiliate editors at that time. We remain grateful for their positive contributions to our community. —- We have big, wonderful, very exciting news: Five new affiliate editors have joined Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: Kerima Cevik Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg Rob Gross Kassiane Sibley Sandy Yim We believe our new editors will bring unique perspectives to TPGA, and make us a better, more inclusive autism resource. We chose them because we respect them, we think they’re smart, compassionate, and fair, and we think they’ve consistently shown us where the holes lie in our autism coverage. You’ll see them on our Twitter and Facebook streams, as well as commenting on this site for TPGA. Please join us in welcoming them, heartily: Kerima Çevik is the neurotypical, married mother…