What does a white disabled Autistic woman have in common with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter Movement?

Atypical Day of Injustice

Poetry About Autism & Racism

Atypical Day of Injustice

It’s not that boys are the only Or a rarity in girls It’s that both fall on the Spectrum Regarding genderality

It’s not Rain Man from the film Or Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang It’s that if by chance you’ve met one You’ve only met just one

It’s not just rocking oddly The child’s flapping hands you see It’s a word that we call stimming Reposeful repetitively

It’s not a lack of Empathy Or that the myth is just not true It’s that our Empathy is Affective Repleted exponentially

It’s not a blessed disguising Or meeting wolves clothed as sheep It’s that that our trusting nature Reverberates naivety

It’s not the monologuing Or that we go on and on It’s the missed clues of disinterest Rewired brains just can’t see

It’s not that we don’t see you Or distracted in some way It’s that our book of body language Redacted non-verbal cues

It’s not that just deficit social ability Or wanting lack of social reciprocity It’s that the pain of prolonged isolation Raises our risk for mortality

It’s not the strenuous pounding Of square pegs into round holes It’s that this peg is Autistic Rebuked for our identity

It’s not that we think differently Or that we really do not care It’s that honesty, truth, and justice Resound with intensity

To Black Lives comes my solemn oath And Autistic Communities To “Take a Knee” in sovereignty There are times we ride the same boat

Although I am a white female And an Autistic pacifist too Few Police think I am a threat To them, to others, or myself

It’s not a fad we simply choose As Black Lives Matter to us too We see injustice as the proof And we’re honest and tell the truth

Irrefutable mens rea A crushing knee upon his neck Without a shadow of a doubt The criminal intent evident

His gasps ignored until his death With many pleas of “I can’t breath” Quickly dying on the street In eight minutes, forty six

To all and to his memory His name, let us never forget Freedom of Speech is guaranteed It’s first, Constitutionally

America, land of the racist From every walk of life of hate Protect and serve turned rough and cuff Then falsely claim that we resist

Racial Injustice can’t persist If from the North, South, East, and West And from suburbs to alleys back In unity, we stand steadfast

Please do not get me wrong I’ve heard this way too long The Police do not bleed systemically There are just “a few bad seeds”

Until juried and found guilty In a White House made of cards Sits an undiagnosed sociopath A man-child of narcissistic tendencies

It’s time to settle the score With no empathy, he’s annoyed So let’s silence his egregious voice By shouting the name “George Floyd”

And when his lies feel the wrath With failure to re-elect enmasse His name will stand for even less Than a loser liar never missed

Citations

[1] Ruderman Family Foundation March. (2016, March). THE RUDERMAN WHITE PAPER ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT USE OF FORCE AND DISABILITY; a Media Study (2013–2015); and Overview by David M. Perry, PhD

This Poem Originally published at https://www.artfullyautistic.com on June 7, 2020.