The Voiceless Minority

  Imagine that you are a photographer covering a story. You aren't the story's subject - your only purpose is to zoom in, adjust the settings, and click the button. The subject(s) of the photo are the story - they know what to expect and how to respond given the situation. However, you're not in the picture as the photographer - you're just observing. You aren't asked to be in the photo, let alone be involved in the story, outside of clicking the button. You see the final image, and you publish it online, and when people see it, they comment on the people within the photo and the event that occurred. That is what life is like from my perspective of being on the Autism spectrum - I am on the outside looking into neurotypical life.   Growing up, I didn't have many friends. In elementary school, I went to a Christian school. You would be incorrect if you think a Christian school is different from a public school in terms of how friendships are created. There w

  Luke Jackson (pictured above) has been working with Disability Advice and Welfare Network (DAWN) and Suffolk Law Centre on the Autism Education Leavers Passport. On October 14 th , lawmakers in Canada approved an educational passport, thanks to a University of Winchester graduate. The passport is geared toward helping young neurodivergent people transition from education to work. The 25-year-old, who graduated with a degree in Computer Aided Design in 2023, contributed to the content and design of the 35-page booklet. Luke drew from his experiences as a job seeker and the skills he learned at university. “I enjoyed what I learned at Winchester and the one-to-one tutoring I received,” said Luke, a volunteer with DAWN, where he is a website administrator. The booklet comes in response to the findings from the Office of National Statistics, which showed that almost 80% of autistic adults are not working and that they are the least likely disabled group to be in any employment. Thi

 We are less than two weeks away from the 2024 presidential election. Both campaigns are making their final pushes for votes because they are aware that this election may come down to just a few thousand votes. However, there is one group of people that both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have not paid much attention to people with disabilities.   In this instance, people with disabilities are without a voice. In an article written for Disability Scoop written by Michelle Diament earlier this month, she notes that there are      40,200,000. People with disabilities who are eligible to vote. She also pointed out that if people were counted based on disability, the number of eligible voters would outnumber the combined total number of eligible black and Hispanic voters. The article also points out that disability organizations have not received responses to their questionnaires. As noted in the article, Lisa Schur, the co-director of the Rutgers Progr

  This past September, an article was published in a disability magazine known as Disability Scoop. Michelle Diament wrote the article. It highlighted an incident where former President Trump equated having a mental disability to poor job performance. He did so when he attacked Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at back-to-back political rallies. I will attach the original article to the bottom of this piece. The rest of this piece will not discuss that particular incident but use it as a jumping-off point to analyze the former president and his behaviors as a whole. I am political, but I am nowhere near a politician. In my 38 years on this planet, I would like to think that I have seen quite a lot and know a little something about a lot of things and a lot about a few things. Unfortunately, having a disability in today’s world means you encounter a lot of misunderstanding, ignorance, and discrimination. A recent incident with former President Trump highlights an overall problem that still

This post is from Jason's literary corner. It discusses a book I recently read about disability and what it means to have one. I hope you enjoy it.  Thank You, Alice: How Year of the Tiger Reignites a T-Rex's Passion   I recently finished the book “Year of the Tiger,” written by Alice Wong.  I thought I would be reading another disability memoir, but I was wrong. Alice’s book was not a memoir. It was what I like to call an anti-memoir. Her book made me rethink the direction that my advocacy is meant to take. The rest of this piece will highlight key concepts of the book that I believe will improve how I advocate for people with disabilities.  Finally, it will serve as my version of a thank you letter to Alice for her tremendous honesty and bluntness. Her book is divided into seven sections. Each section follows a theme and comprises several essays embodying that theme. For example, all the essays in Origins describe how Alice’s activism began. Two essays in this section resonat

Times are crazy here at The Voiceless Minority. Over the last month and a half, we have had overwhelming support from both the disabled and the able-bodied community, and today, we continue that momentum.   Today is the beginning of a new era here at The Voiceless Minority. Today, we welcome our newest voice for the voiceless, Michelle Zeman. Michelle is an Autistic Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) living in Winter Springs, FL. She discovered the value of self-advocacy and activism through her career in behavior analysis and her time in Partners in Policymaking (PIP). She's a 2023 PIP Graduate, a FL SAND Fellow, and an advisor to FL SAND's MAGICAL self-advocacy group serving greater Orlando. Michelle is passionate about policy change in behavioral health services and disability training for all community workers. Below is Michelle’s first contribution to the blog. The content has not been altered. It has only been edited for clarity purposes. Thank you for joining the te

 The movie-going experience has been part of American life for decades now. At the same time, being disabled has also been a part of the human experience since the beginning of time. This piece will address the idea that although we are thirty-four years into the ADA era, movie theaters in Ocala, Florida, demonstrate how little respect people with disabilities have earned in thirty-four years. Over the weekend, I was treating my friend/caregiver, who I will call Jane, on a trip to the movies for her 24 th birthday. She was nice enough to not only drive my van for only the 10 th time since she started working with me but also because my power wheelchair broke several weeks ago and there was a delay in the delivery process of my new chair; she was willing to push me around. The first of many problems we encountered that day occurred when we got to the front door. It was only then we noticed that even though disabled people do go to places by themselves without caregivers or attendant