“Expanding vouchers would advance economic and racial equity for disabled people…The benefits would be greatest among Black and Latinx people, who are disproportionately likely to face rent burdens due to a long history of…racial discrimination.”
I’ve been facing disbelief over sensory experiences from people in my life lately, and it’s left me very frustrated. This is something so many other autistic people face in their lives. Since allistic (non-autistic) people have such different sensory systems, it can be really difficult for them to actually believe what autistic people feel. This creates a lot of difficulty for autistic people. It’s important that our sensory experiences are believed!
Invalidation and disbelief looks like: “It’s not that loud in here!” “The lights aren’t that bright.” “I just don’t understand why you need your headphones right now.” “Nothing is wrong with this fabric!” “You’re being dramatic.” “I don’t think it’s that bad.” “But this didn’t bother you yesterday!” “That’s just the way the world is.” “You just need to learn to deal with it.” “These are just regular noises.”
An important fact for anyone who’s neurotypical to understand is you have completely different sensory experiences than autistic people. This concept needs to inform the way allistics respond to autistic people. The pain of having your sensory experiences invalidated, disbelieved, and ignored is awful. Autistics experience the world a completely different way, and that is healthy, normal, and needs to be believed.
This is especially important when it comes to parenting. Consider this example: an autistic kid is covering their ears in a “normal” situation. Their parent could respond with “Stop covering your ears! It’s not loud in here!” OR they could respond with “I see this is overwhelming. Let’s find a quieter place.” One of those responses denies their child’s sensory reality, while the other accommodates it.
So final reminder: autistic sensory experiences are reality. We’re not being dramatic, over-responding, or ignoring you. Autistic brains literally function differently than allistic brains! Believe autistic sensory experiences, accept sensory coping tools, and work to affirm any autistic kids in your life so they grow up to become autistics who accept and accommodate themselves. Our sensory experiences are real.]
“everyone just hated this guy” tells absolutely NOTHING of the story! charles boycott was an english land agent in 1800s ireland. for those unfamiliar, english gentry owned better than half of ireland’s farmlands at the time, and rented the land to farmers in one-year lease contracts. our dearly detested mr. boycott was something like a property manager overseeing a large parcel of land owned by an english landlord; boycott resided in the manor house and was responsible for leasing the farms and issuing evictions.
in 1880, tenants demanded a reduction in rent owing to a poor growing season - to pay the rent in full would have left them without any money at all. boycott, rather than accede to the farmers’ demands, issued eviction notices to many of the households. charles parnell, a hugely influential figure in the irish land league, had days earlier delivered a speech in which he recommended a policy of ostracism against yeomen who abused the irish farmers, and our guy boycott would become the first target of this strategy. servants in boycott’s household and fields were advised to withdraw their labor, shopkeepers in town wouldn’t do business with him, and even the postman agreed not to come around to his manor house. eventually he had to arrange to have food shipped in from other towns.
the word “boycott” doesn’t come from a guy that everyone hated. it comes from a coordinated strategy of denial formed by a colonized people to force their oppressors to hear their demands.
