Alright, so if you read even one of my blog posts then you know that I fiercely and with no apologies advocate for children with autism that are low-income and/or Minorities in Minnesota and to some extent nationwide.
So, what does this have to do with MN Autism Task Force? Well – first let’s explain the MN Autism Task Force. It was created by Sen. Senjem a MN GOP from Rochester years ago and again by Rep Mack from Apple Valley also a MN GOP. The goal was to write a statewide autism plan and implement it. Autism is a life long neuro-developmental disorder that affects each child differently. One in 68 kids in the U.S have autism and 1 in 32 Somali kids in Minneapolis have autism.
In Minnesota, there are lots of autism services and resources, but disparity is still high and prevalent. As a minority autism advocate – I am always asking or begging a reporter to do an autism story from our lenses. And, in all fairness, Mpls Tribune – especially Maura Lerner has done fantastic stories that really shaped autism policies towards positive and equal opportunities. Sadly, Maura no longer covers health so I decided to not bother the Tribune as much because I always get a feel that many of the reporters there are one sided and not fact based. Plus, not many of them reflect the diversity of this state and explaining to a Caucasian man autism racial disparity is like explaining a man to childbirth. They just don’t get it.
Imagine my surprise when I got a call from Mr. Dan Browning stating he is with the Mpls Tribune and was interested in doing an autism story. Initially, I thought – wow Thanks. Then I asked why the interest now. He said he is one of the health reporters and an autism mother called him asking him to do a story about autism and transition services in Minnesota. So far so good – so I thought. Then he said first he wanted to write about the MN Autism Task Force and he spoke with its previous chair Mr. Trahan who resigned because God forbid I asked sharing of HRSA grant funds with minority owned agencies.
Let me explain a little more, personally I like Mr. Trahan and feel his pain as an autism parent. I think he cares about autism families and wants to help them. However, Mr. Trahan does not understand autism policy from poop. For example, he did not understand the Federal agency HRSA’s grant or why MDH did not want to share the resources. He kept saying, “I have Black friends”. First as a Black person – when I hear some White man say that, it sounds cheesy and insincere. Really, African-Americans don’t care if a White person has Black friends and that is their defense to I am not racist.
2nd, MN Autism Task Force is a public committee and all meetings and discussions should be public including Mr. Trahan’s comments and votes on the HRSA grant. Sadly, Mr. Trahan chose to collect supposed votes via email that no one else saw and kept saying to me no one wants to vote on sharing this grant with minority owned agencies. Well that could not be true because I know all four agency leaders told me they liked the idea of sharing the resources with minority communities as well as reps from other entities. As a result, I asked and demanded that we vote publicly and let your vote speak for you on the record. Needless, to say MDH sent the grant application to HRSA with my recommendations of sharing the resources and putting actual dollars into it.
Mr. Trahan then got mad because how dare equality prevail and he quit the task force, yet somehow he wants to keep injecting himself into it every chance he gets.
In parallel, Rep Norton and Sen. Eaton both MN DFLers are task force members who have written so many disparity creating autism bills since 2010 and we have fought them every session and won every time. Keep in mind this is the party that preaches equality, yet when push comes to shove they practice salty policies. My take is this, Mr. Trahan should not have quit and should’ve acted like an objective chair and put every decision to a vote. Let the majority win through their vote – period. We as MN Autism task force members should vote publicly and be proud of our votes. In other words, we can’t preach sugar and practice salt. The goal here is to defeat Rep Norton, Rep Liebling and Sen Eaton at the polls so that they can’t just ignore their constituents emails instead of addressing their issues. If you are interested in defeating Liebling this year, contact her opponent. No one is running against Norton yet, but there is always hope. And, we have to come back in 2016 and defeat Sen Eaton who represents large minority voters that she has neglected time and time again.
In terms of Ms. Dalbec who heads up the children with special needs area within MDH. I think the only reason she was hired and still is there is something called White privilege. If you don’t understand that, please come out of living under a rock. I can write books on White privilege and Minnesota DFL politics. Plus, MDH did something after I complained about her. First, MDH hired two minority staff for autism. Second, HRSA asked MDH to improve their phone and website and follow CLAS guidelines. In fact, MDH asked Wendy from National Center for Cultural Competency to come and help them with their website and phone line this summer. Third, HRSA has implemented more disparity reduction policies for MDH and other state health departments in the country to follow in reducing racial health disparity. Another fact, I just recently received a letter to my questions of how MDH can be more diverse and in reducing autism racial disparity from the administrator of HRSA – Dr. Wakefield. Let me put this in laymen’s terms, me a rookie autism advocate got a response from Dr. Wakefield who was nominated by President Obama to head Federal agency Health Resources & Services Administration. The agency in charge of the country’s child and maternal health leader thinks some of my ideas are good. It doesn’t get better than that and I am so grateful and thank Dr. Wakefield, Laura, Diane, Denise and Bonnie at HRSA for that.
So, you see Mr. Browning – change has happened because of my advocacy in both Minnesota department of health and HRSA. Heck, I even got invited to lunch with MDH Commissioner. Therefore, Mr. Browning’s words of nothing happened after I contacted MDH and HRSA is simply not true and wrong. I really hoped Mr. Browning got the facts and the real story instead of silly he said – she said. Autism is too important. My advice to Mr. Browning would be cover autism from more important angles and there are many. And, my advice to Mpls Tribune would be try to see things from minority views, from conservative views and maybe hire more reporters that actually reflect the diversity this state. My advice to minority students especially Somalis would be study to be journalist, reporters, news directors and news producers, otherwise our stories will never be told from our perspective. In order to shape policy, we must have reporters that can tell, write and shape our story from our lenses and Mr. Browning ain’t it.
In terms of current Bloomington School Board – Ms. Dawn. I respect her and wish her well. But yes Dawn like millions of others in Minnesota and nationwide only wanted to fight and advocate for wealthier private insurance autism families because that is what they see and need. I on the other hand – see and need low-income and minority autism families to get equal access in autism therapy and services. We all advocate from our views and from our life experience. The difference is when I asked Dawn to add public insurance coverage to the recommendation, she brought it up for a vote and the majority voted for both public and private insurance coverage for autism services. Imagine if Mr. Trahan actually put everything to a vote rather than dictate and try to intimidate.
Interesting note; when Somalis read this – it energized some of them because they could see how important it is to follow your legislator’s votes and legislations because what they say during campaigns is very different to what they do when elected. I hope our community votes for candidates that will reflect us in policy, such as Askar for district 60B, Abeler for U.S Senate and Johnson for Governor. I support them because I know they support autism families.
I am very glad Sen. Senjem is eager and determined to continue this important MN Autism Task Force and I hope that members are able to chew gum and walk at the same-time. We don’t have to be BFF, but we must stay on task and address autism in Minnesota – period.
Vote wisely on August 12th! And on Nov 2014.
By the way, in case you live under a rock or think I keep talking about racial disparity and Minnesota for no reason. Google a little and maybe read this. You might also want to read once a while one of two only African American news organizations, Minnesota Spokesman Recorder.
Thanks!
Above words do not represent any committee, agency or candidate.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate