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
ArtfullyAutistic.com
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.
