We're Not Broken

by Eric Garcia

  a reason she can be so strident: Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland, “Person of the Year: Greta Thunberg,” Time, December 2019, https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/.

  climate change in primary school: Greta Thunberg, “The Disarming Case to Act Right Now on Climate Change,” Ted Talks, January 28, 2019, https://www.ted.com/talks/greta_thunberg_the_disarming_case_to_act_right_now_on_climate_change/transcript?language=en.

  8. “Say It Loud”

  behavioral aide of Arnaldo Rios-Soto: Aneri Pattani and Audrey Quinn, “What Happened Next to the Man with Autism Whose Aide Was Shot by Police,” Washington Post, June 22, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/06/22/what-happened-next-to-the-man-with-autism-whose-aide-was-shot-by-police/.

  bleeding for twenty minutes: Francisco Alvarado, Michael E. Miller, and Mark Berman, “North Miami police shoot black man who said his hands were raised while he tried to help autistic group-home resident,” Washington Post, July 21, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/21/fla-police-shoot-black-man-with-his-hands-up-as-he-tries-to-help-autistic-patient/.

  was shot and killed by a Hispanic police officer: Emily Shapiro and Julia Jacobo, “Minnesota Officer Fired from Police Force After Acquittal in Philando Castile Shooting,” ABC News, June 16, 2017, https://abcnews.go.com/US/minnesota-officer-found-guilty-fatal-shooting-philando-castile/story?id=48003144.

  justified the shooting: Alan Gomez, “Police Union Says Officers Accidentally Shot Miami Man,” USA Today, July 21, 2016, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/21/north-miami-police-shooting-accidental-union-says/87414898/.

  “perpetual child”: Maxfield Sparrow, “It’s Time to Prepare the World for Your Child,” Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, December 20, 2018, http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2018/12/its-time-to-prepare-world-for-your-child.html.

  “No one wants to be looked at”: A. J. Link, interview with the author, 2019.

  nine of them were from Anglo-Saxon families: Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” 248.

  represented either in Who’s Who in America: Steve Silberman, “The Invisibility of Black Autism,” Undark, May 5, 2016, https://undark.org/2016/05/17/invisibility-black-autism/.

  one of those cold and unloving parents: David E. Simpson, Refrigerator Mothers, Kartemquin Films, March 28, 2003, https://kartemquin.vhx.tv/products/refrigerator-mothers.

  “had 2.6 times the odds of receiving some other diagnosis”: David S. Mandell et al., “Disparities in Diagnoses Received Prior to a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 37, no. 9 (December 8, 2006), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861330/.

  said that the gap between white children diagnosed with autism: “Community Report on Autism 2020,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/documents/addm-community-report-2020-h.pdf.

  white and Black children are 1.2 times more likely to be diagnosed than Hispanic children: Community Report on Autism 2020.”

  they required more time in treatment before they were diagnosed: David S. Mandell et al., “Race Differences in the Age at Diagnosis Among Medicaid-Eligible Children with Autism,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 41, no. 12 (2002), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12447031/.

  the CDC confirmed that Black and Hispanic children get diagnosed later: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Community Report on Autism 2020,” 15.

  “I would often skip exams or not turn in papers”: A. J. Link, interview with the author, 2019.

  5.1 times more likely to be diagnosed with adjustment disorder: Mandell et al., “Disparities in Diagnoses.”

  a diagnosis of conduct disorder: Mandell et al., “Disparities in Diagnoses.”

  “difficulty following rules, respecting the rights of others”: “Conduct Disorder,” American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, no. 33, updated June 2018, https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Conduct-Disorder-033.aspx.

  might also diagnose Black children with oppositional defiant disorder: Mandell et al., “Disparities in Diagnoses.”

  “I feel that I experienced a lot of disproportionate disciplines”: Finn Gardiner, interview with the author, 2018.

  “I got in fights with other kids a lot”: Sara Luterman, interview with the author, 2019.

  Black parents reported fewer concerns: Meghan Rose Donohue et al., “Race Influences Parent Report of Concerns About Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Autism 23, no. 1 (November 3, 2017): 106, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1362361317722030.

  “cultural norms surrounding discussion of ASD”: Donohue et al., “Race Influences Parent Report,” 107.

  “the combined effects of practices”: Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no. 1 (1989): 149, https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf.

  “my own people don’t understand me”: Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, interview with the author, 2018.

  “The first way I got into the in-crowd”: Timotheus Gordon, interview with the author, 2018.

  30.4 percent offered general developmental screenings: Katharine E. Zuckerman et al., “Pediatrician Identification of Latino Children at Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Pediatrics 132, no. 3 (August 8, 2013): 448, https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/132/3/445.full.pdf.

  “it’s such a confusing situation for kids”: Katharine Zuckerman, interview with the author, 2018.

  “There’s a reason I didn’t get that diagnosis when I was younger”: Arianne Garcia, interview with the author, 2018.

  “I had trouble nursing”: Debra Garcia, interview with the author, 2019.

  “parent knowledge about ASD”: Katharine E. Zuckerman et al., “Disparities in Diagnosis and Treatment of Autism in Latino and Non-Latino White Families,” Pediatrics 139, no. 5 (April 24, 2017), https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/5/e20163010.

  “I’m not saying most Latino parents think that”: Katharine Zuckerman, interview with the author, 2018.

  calls for the arrests of the officers who killed her: Aja Romano, “‘Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor’: The power and the peril of a catchphrase,” Vox, August 10, 2020, https://www.vox.com/21327268/breonna-taylor-say-her-name-meme-hashtag.

  video was captured of George Floyd’s murder: Evan Hill et al., “How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody,” New York Times, May 31, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html.

  Jacob Blake’s shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin: Christina Morales, “What We Know About the Shooting of Jacob Blake,” New York Times, September 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/article/jacob-blake-shooting-kenosha.html.

  Black Lives Matter: Michael Tesler, “Support for Black Lives Matter Surged During Protests, But Is Waning Among White Americans,” FiveThirtyEight, August 19, 2020, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/support-for-black-lives-matter-surged-during-protests-but-is-waning-among-white-americans/.

  5 percent of them had been arrested: Julianna Rava et al., “The Prevalence and Correlates of Involvement in the Criminal Justice System Among Youth on the Autism Spectrum,” Journal of Autism Developmental 47, no. 2 (February 2017): 340–46, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27844248/.

  Chicago suburb of Calumet City: Danelene Powell-Watts (as Special Administrator) Appeal from the Estate of Stephon Edward Watts, Deceased v. City of Calumet City, a Municipal Corporation; William Coffey; and Robert Hynek, https://courts.illinois.gov/r23_orders/AppellateCourt/2016/1stDistrict/1151973_R23.pdf.

  ruled in favor of the police: Elvia Malagon, “Court Rules in Favor of Cal City Cops in Fatal Shooting of Autistic Teen,”
Times of Northwest Indiana, July 7, 2016, https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/court-rules-in-favor-of-cal-city-cops-in-fatal-shooting-of-autistic-teen/article_b6ccccb4-ec61-5f43-ab58-bd65750328d1.html.

  dashcam footage showed: Don Babwin, “Video Shows Chicago Cop Shooting Unarmed Black Autistic Teen,” Daily Herald, October 17, 2018, https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20181017/news/310179954.

  Ricardo Hayes: Todd Feurer, “Aldermen Back $2.25 Million Payment to Unarmed Autistic Man Shot by Police; Two Other Lawsuit Settlements,” CBS, May 18, 2020, https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/05/18/aldermen-back-2-25-million-payment-to-unarmed-autistic-man-shot-by-police-two-other-lawsuit-settlements/.

  not being respectful: Steve Silberman, “The Police Need to Understand Autism,” New York Times, September 19, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/police-autism-understanding.html.

  often perceived to be older than they are: Phillip Atiba Goff et al., “The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106, no. 4 (2014): 526–45, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-a0035663.pdf.

  “when our children have episodes”: Eric Garcia, “What It Feels Like to Be an Autistic Person of Color in the Eyes of the Police,” Daily Beast, July 25, 2016, https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-autistic-person-of-color-in-the-eyes-of-the-police.

  the three white officers were initially cleared: Allison Sherry, “Feds Have a High Bar for Charging Aurora Police in Elijah McClain’s Death—but a Case in Westminster Shows It Can Happen,” CPR News, July 30, 2020, https://www.cpr.org/2020/07/30/federal-investigation-prosecuting-aurora-police-elijah-mcclain-death-westminster-curtis-lee-arganbright/.

  from getting iced tea for his brother: Sonia Gutierrez, “‘Let’s Honor His Spirit’: Friend of Elijah McClain Said Allowing Officer in Photo to Resign Isn’t Justice,” KTVB7, July 2, 2020, https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/officers-resignation-worries-elijah-mcclains-friends/73-7798c217-8456-44b4-9a46-1c691fe2fc67.

  “waving his arms around”: Ellie Hall, “Elijah McClain Died in Police Custody in August. Millions of People Are Now Demanding Justice,” BuzzFeed News, June 24, 2020, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/elijah-mcclain-aurora-death-police-investigation-demand.

  “I’m an introvert”: Knez Walker et al., “What Happened to Elijah McClain? Protests Help Bring New Attention to His Death,” ABC News, June 30, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/happened-elijah-mcclain-protests-bring-attention-death/story?id=71523476.

  put him in a carotid hold: “Aurora Police Announce No Charges in Death of Elijah McClain Following Arrest,” CBS Denver, November 22, 2019, https://denver.cbslocal.com/2019/11/22/aurora-police-elijah-mcclain-body-camera-autopsy/.

  being “different” makes them a target: Jackie Spinner, “Elijah McClain’s Final Words Haunt Me as the Parent of a Child Who Is ‘Different,’” Washington Post, June 29, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/29/elijah-mcclains-last-words-haunt-me-could-that-happen-my-son/.

  use virtual reality to train police: Michael Balsamo, “Virtual Reality Helps Police in Dealing with Autistic People,” Associated Press, May 24, 2019, https://apnews.com/article/5e4c1aba96b54d7c9c791d3d83d1bfea.

  Pennsylvania and New Jersey have passed similar bills: Hannah Furfaro, “Why Police Need Training to Interact with People on the Spectrum,” Spectrum News, June 6, 2018, https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/police-need-training-interact-people-spectrum/.

  23 percent of respondents to a survey: Edward Kelly and Connie Hassett-Walker, “The Training of New Jersey Emergency Service First Responders in Autism Awareness,” Police Practice and Research 17, no. 6 (January 4, 2016), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5363970/.

  mandate training for new police officers: Tara Malone, “Autism Training Helps Police Tailor Response,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2008, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-07-21-0807210022-story.html.

  defunding police departments: Shayla Love, “Police Are the First to Respond to Mental Health Crises. They Shouldn’t Be,” Vice, June 23, 2020, https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azkeb/police-are-the-first-to-respond-to-mental-health-crises-they-shouldnt-be.

  “I realize [the police officer]”: Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, interview with the author, 2018.

  “listen to three or four minutes and it kind of just puts me at ease”: A. J. Link, interview with the author, 2019.

  “I feel like an anthropologist on Mars”: Oliver Sacks, “An Anthropologist on Mars,” New Yorker, December 27, 1993, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/12/27/anthropologist-mars.

  adults with Hispanic ancestry: Mark Hugo Lopez, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, and Gustavo López, “Hispanic Identity Fades Across Generations as Immigrant Connections Fall Away,” Pew Research Center, December 20, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/12/20/hispanic-identity-fades-across-generations-as-immigrant-connections-fall-away/.

  9. “Till the Next Episode”

  “take [him] for every penny you still don’t have”: Tim Mak, “Listen: How Michael Cohen Protects Trump by Making Legal Threats,” NPR, May 31, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/05/31/615843930/listen-how-michael-cohen-protects-trump-by-making-legal-threats.

  a columnist at National Journal: Ron Fournier, “How Two Presidents Helped Me Deal with Love, Guilt, and Fatherhood,” National Journal, November 29, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/how-two-presidents-helped-me-deal-with-love-guilt-and-fatherhood/461733/.

  “The Geek Syndrome”: Steve Silberman, “The Geek Syndrome,” Wired, December 12, 2001, https://www.wired.com/2001/12/aspergers/.

  graph shaped like a hockey stick: Dominic Basulto, “We Need a Better Explanation for the Surge in Autism,” Washington Post, April 10, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/04/10/we-need-a-better-explanation-for-the-surge-in-autism/.

  homosexuality was even listed in the DSM: Jack Drescher, “Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality,” Behavioral Sciences 5, no. 4 (December 4, 2015), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/.

  lives with his husband, Keith Karraker: Jenny Turner, “The Man Who Wants Us to Embrace Autism,” Guardian, August 29, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/29/autism-spectrum-steve-silberman-neurotribes-legacy-autism-people-think-differently.

  “If you think that homosexuality or autism is rare”: Steve Silberman, interview with the author, 2020.

  placed all autistic people under the larger diagnosis: Turner, “The Man Who Wants Us to Embrace Autism.”

  experiences of autistic people of color: Lydia X. Z. Brown, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, and E. Ashkenazy, eds, All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism (Lincoln, NE: DragonBee Press, 2017).

  “autism isn’t an illness”: Barry Prizant with Tom Fields-Meyer, Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 4.

  surveyed 315 articles from the Washington Post: Noa Lewin and Nameera Akhtar, “Neurodiversity and Deficit Perspectives in the Washington Post’s Coverage of Autism,” Disability and Society (May 2020), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09687599.2020.1751073.

  write a piece on autism, sex, and consent: Garcia, “Autistic Men Don’t Always Understand Consent.”

  to amplify autistic: Lydia X. Z. Brown, “Autistic Young People Deserve Serious Respect and Attention—Not Dismissal as the Pawns of Others,” Washington Post, December 14, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/14/autistic-young-people-deserve-serious-respect-attention-not-dismissal-pawns-others/.

  otherwise disabled voices: Rebecca Cokley, “Calling Trump Unwell Doesn’t Hurt Trump. It Hurts Disabled People,” Washington Post, June 16, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/16/mock-trump-hurts-disabled/.

  Hillary Clinton became the first presidential candidate: Eric Garcia, “Autism Advocates Cautiously Optimistic on Clinton Proposal,” Roll Call, Janu
ary 6, 2016, https://www.rollcall.com/2016/01/06/autism-advocates-cautiously-optimistic-on-clinton-proposal/.

  common rhetoric about “combating”: Hillary Clinton, “Remarks at the Autism Event with Sally Pederson in Sioux City, Iowa,” American Presidency Project, November, 24, 2007, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-autism-event-with-sally-pederson-sioux-city-iowa.

  “money into finding causes and cures of diseases”: Hillary Clinton, “Clinton Campaign Event,” C-SPAN, January 7, 2008, https://www.c-span.org/video/?203432-1/clinton-campaign-event.

  But her policy approach shifted drastically by 2016: Hillary Clinton, “Autism,” Hillaryclinton.com, 2016, https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/autism/.

  her campaign plan read like a wish list: Eric Garcia, “Autism Advocates Cautiously Optimistic.”

  “There is a huge physical and cognitive cost”: Julia Bascom, interview with the author, 2020.

  gained an incredible amount of political capital: Sady Doyle, “If You Celebrated the Health Care Vote Last Week, You Should Probably Thank a Disability Activist,” Elle, August, 1, 2017, https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a47075/disability-activist-health-care/.

  please save our health care: Julia Bascom, correspondence with the author, 2020.

  Bascom said she consulted with candidates: Julia Bascom, interview with the author, 2020.

  “political, financial, and nonprofit infrastructure”: Ari Ne’eman, interview with the author, 2019.

  “primaries are about articulating a vision”: Julia Bascom, interview with the author, 2020.

  many Democrats thought Biden: Ronald Brownstein, “The Democratic Debate Over Winning Back Trump’s Base,” Atlantic, May 2, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/joe-bidens-bid-white-working-class-vote/588613/.

  she spoke with Biden’s team during the primary: Julia Bascom, interview with the author, 2020.