Alright – so, arguably Hennepin County is my least favorite county to advocate. They are rude, arrogant, racist, bias, walk on a high horse, and enormously powerful. They are the biggest county in Minnesota and have the most racial disparities in almost every category.
I feel tired just writing the above sentence. Not because I am old and would really like to retire from advocacy, but we have been down this road before a decade ago. I along with other Somali autism parents have advocated in Hennepin so many years ago with the help of previous MN House of Reps Speaker Margaret Kelliher, and Hennepin County Commissioners Jeff Johnson and Gail Dorfman. Back then the county hired minority social workers including Somalis, helped autism families, and even did a video on autism and our community.
Unfortunately, all of these went out of the window as there are new people in charge now and here, we go again. It is painfully tiring and frustrating to keep advocating about the same thing. Why are equality and equity so hard in this county and even in this state? I am simply baffled why so many in this county create and promote biases. Some do it consciously and some are unconscious.
There are all new commissioners now, some are even minorities. Yet, this county is still notoriously racist and has a huge gap between whites and minorities. A white autism family in Minnetonka and a black autism family in north Minneapolis who have similar situations are treated so differently. What makes this county even worse is they do it with impunity and unapologetically.
I am not even sure where to start now, but nothing energizes more than racism and over-rated government employees whose responsibility is to help autism families not do what they are supposed to do.
So, here we go again. Elections have consequences. Everyone who lives in this county has a commissioner who represents them. I say to anyone who feels they are not being treated equally or fairly to start there.
The above words do not reflect any candidate, agency, or committee.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom