Alright – so, I have technically and hopefully in reality retired from advocacy. I have had a chance to reflect how I and soooo many other Somali autism parents and Somali community did this and what we actually did.
First, to advocate is to change whatever the status quo is. This means people who are benefiting from the current situation are not going to be happy. Why should they? They are most likely enjoying and reaping the benefits of the current status.
Our response was – boo hoo and cry me a river. You do not have to like us, but we will advocate to change laws and policies; we will elect people who look like us and we will ensure your bias creating rules and policies are deleted and amended. If you do not like us – take a number.
Second, what happens next is they will undermine you, call you names like angry, ranting, yelling, unreasonable, difficult, so on and so forth.
Our response, the more they called us or even called me personally ranting, angry yada yada – I knew I touched a nerve. We let this useless side show be just that – useless side show. We kept going and stayed focused on our goals.
Third, then the oppressor or those benefiting from the current situation will say – ok then if you are not going to stop ranting and raving, we will tune you out. We just won’t listen to you. This is my favorite one. Yep!
Our response: If you work at a private company maybe like your own shoe store or an ice cream shop then go ahead and ignore me. I am fairly certain I will not be in your shop. But if you work in a public state agency or are an elected official, then consider us your permanent hemorrhoids.
Fourth one is they will get people who look like you to oppose you. This is called divide and conquer. This is classic move for the oppressor and is how this country benefited from free Black labor by creating house negro vs field negro. This is also how Africa is the poorest continent even though it is showered with abundance resources. They always find the village idiot cousin to go against you.
Our response: This is a hard one to fight because you do not want to picker with your own people, which is exactly what they want. What we did was say and do nothing, just show them what we were doing and why. I remember, one time Rep. Norton brought Somali autism parents to testify against us. Lovaas – the racist SOB also knows this tactic. We just stayed focused and eventually most of those folks saw what we were doing and realized they were being used. There will always be one or two that kisses ass. You just have to pray for those.
Fifth, they will undermine your work and what you are doing. They will never give credit where credit is due. They will even try to take the credit for your work.
Our response: We knew we were doing all of this for our children and community, which was satisfying. I for one do not need the oppressor to be grateful for rocking their comfortable boat.
Now, if you look at the history of this county and minorities, our issue is tiny in comparison. The oppressors here owned people as though they were furniture. Then they created laws to free people in parallel to laws that ensured minorities were never successful. For example, you are free but own nothing, have no education, cannot vote if you cannot read and cannot read because we make sure you never learn or get educated – so on and so forth. If you look at the history of anyone who fought for equality and equity, the oppressor always undermined them, called them names, etc. What and how we have been treated by so many state agency employees and leaders is sadly nothing new.
So, what did I and so many in our community do about these, see our responses above.
The above words do not reflect any committee, agency, or candidate.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Retired Advocate