Do you hear the people sing? Do you hear the people chant? Do you hear OUR voices?

As I listen to the songs from Les Miserables, I think about the hell we are living now. The people who are fighting for their Civil Rights, we as Autistic people, we as the Disabled community, and no matter what we will continue to fight. I have been reading certain blog posts which stimulate my thinking and interested in teaching others about the Civil Rights movement.

From Alyssa’s post on YesThattoo:

Part of being autonomous and in charge of your own life is that you are allowed to make illogical choices, and you are allowed to make mistakes, and you are allowed to make decisions that other people don’t agree with. That means that even if “no” really is just a defense mechanism for not liking change, if you respect that an Autistic person is a full person who can make decisions (if you don’t respect this, you should not be interacting with Autistic people anyways because that is a huge problem,) you still have to accept the answer of “No.”

From Lydia Brown’s latest post on Autistic Hoya which really struck me most because it made me think of what we as human beings, all of us, need to always remember. We need to remember that all of us are here to help each other live our lives better.  To be able to live it being positive and productive without feeling upset over petty things:

Social justice people are often also the ones who do the tone-policing. I’ve noticed that a lot.
This doesn’t mean I hate everyone in the world who cares about social justice. There are a lot of people who posit themselves as fighting for social justice who do admirable work in challenging and deconstructing oppressive systems. It means I have serious problems with a lot of organizations and people that are centered around this idea of social justice.

 

From Aspiekid’s blog post in January:

In May of 2013, the DSM5 will be released, and Asperger Syndrome will be removed. For 19 years, people received diagnoses of Asperger Syndrome, told that we were somehow distinguishable from the real autistics of the world because we were “high functioning”, a label that many aspies never identified with. As if someone else’s interpretation of our behavior ever mattered in the first place. We are what we are, individuals, difficult to categorize, not easy to define.

A lot of things have been said about autism and autistics recently, many of which are not true. And we know how quick people are to believe something if they hear it from the right source. A mere suggestion, and that’s all it takes.

Showing just a few blog posts I have recently read and a lot more of them I have read, gets me thinking about one great song by Michael Jackson “Man in the Mirror”:

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change

And if you think about it from Michael Jackson’s lyrics “It don’t matter if you are black or white” like it don’t matter if you are Autistic or Neurotypical, we get to live our life the way we want to live it!

Every one has rights! Hear our voices, listen to our words, and never tell us we can’t do.

Here I am ready for success and ready to prove to the world the capabilities I have!

Fortune’s glory
gets the best of us
gets the most of us
explores the beauty of
our lives,
that we should love the life
we live,
learn from the lessons
given to us,
and never take it for granted.
Sometimes in life every
moment returns to us
and we need to fulfill
our greatest destiny
with strength, love,
and security.

“Cause no one can take away your right, to fight and never surrender” Corey Hart’s song Never Surrender

Can’t wait for Autreat 2013…

OUT, J

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One thought on “Do you hear the people sing? Do you hear the people chant? Do you hear OUR voices?

  1. Alyssa

    I think of Autistic activism and the Disability Rights and Neurodiversity movements when I hear songs from Les Mis too. It’s good to know that others feel the same.

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