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@naomieve
Alright everyone, listen up. I know this is long, but we need to be talking about this, and with so much attention focused on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement right now, I’m surprised we’re not. This is Reginald “Neli” Latson, a young black autistic man from Virginia who was harassed, arrested, and convicted on the basis of his race and disability.
Neli’s ordeal began in 2010 when he was sitting outside of a library he visited frequently, waiting for it to open. Someone called the police on Neli, who was wearing a hoodie, and reported him as a suspicious individual who he or she believed was in possession of a gun. There was no evidence whatsoever for that claim. The police ended up locking down all of the schools in the area while they searched for Neli.
Neli was eventually located by a “school resources officer” and sheriff deputy. According to the police, Neli attacked the officer for no apparent reason. According to Neli and his family, Neli complied with a search (no gun was found) and then was threatened by the officer. Extremely scared, Neli tried to flee the scene, but the officer grabbed him from behind. A struggle then ensued, and the officer was able to use pepper spray on Neli before the young man fled the scene.
Neli was eventually found again and was arrested. Although there was still no gun to be found and it was revealed that the original complainant had not seen a gun, Neli was taken in for questioning. While Neli was held in jail for 11 days, his mother attempted to tell the police that her son was autistic. She reported the police as being unresponsive and uncaring, and was then blocked from visiting him. Neli’s mother also reported her son as being in “a catatonic state” during her single visit.
After the 11 days Neli spent in jail, he was transferred to a mental institution two and a half hours away from his home for 30 days because the police found the autistic man to be unresponsive to interrogation. The police stated that if things did not get resolved within that 30 day period, he would be put back in jail.
Since then, Neli has been put through a number of traumatic experiences, only to have news sources vilify him. Although he did so well in treatment that he was transferred to a group home, Neli eventually became agitated by the staff who were unfamiliar with his routines, so the police were called once again. Neli asked an officer to shoot him and attempted to grab his gun. Instead of treating this as a mental health crisis, Frederick County, where the incident took place, filed felony charges.
Eric Olsen, the prosecutor of Neli’s home county, seized this as an opportunity to revoke his probation, and Neli ended back up in jail, even though a judge did not recommend it. Neli became increasingly suicidal and clashed again with the officers there.
Neli has spent much of the last year in solitary confinement and is awaiting his trial in January. Eric Olsen is pushing to sentence him to ten years in jail. Ten years. Olsen has made extremely inappropriate comments about this case and has proven his lack of understanding, and his lack of sympathy, over and over again. He characterized Neli as being “racist against police” and has said he believes Neli being autistic “is an aspect of convenience … when his advocates want him to be retarded, he is”.
It is clear that Neli Latson has experienced an incredible amount of trauma because the officers who interacted with him did not know how to deal with an autistic individual. However, this situation could have been avoided entirely had Neli not been black and wearing a hoodie. Ableism and racism interact and are heavily woven into our criminal justice system, but we do not have to wait until January to do something about it. The best outcome would be for Olsen to drop the charges and for Neli to return home, since nothing would have happened had he not been wrongly identified as someone suspicious. Neli’s lawyers want him to be transferred- on probation- by order of a judge to a treatment facility in Florida and believe that is the most likely outcome if Olsen does not get his way.
I’m sure we can all band together and get this young man’s story heard. His voice needs to be heard loud and clear in the movement against police brutality. Neli’s situation is not unique- police around the country do not know how to deal with autistic folks, and many receive little to no training. Other cops, like the one’s in this story, simply do not care. That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that right now, Neli Latson is being locked in a segregation cell for 24 hours a day with minimal human interaction. Here is how you can help:
The Justice For Reginald Latson Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-Reginald-Latson/135944716422975
Eric Olsen’s Public Facebook Page (read about him, this guy has won awards): https://www.facebook.com/olsenforca
Eric Olsen’s Email: [email protected]
Participate in the #FreeNeli twitter campaign that’s being started this week. Here’s a list of suggested tweets from a great blog: http://autisticadvocacy.tumblr.com/post/103045720072/sample-tweets-to-help-freeneli
You can tweet at the Virginia Governor, Terry McAuliffe @VAGovernor. He has stated that he is an involuntary obstacle to Neli receiving justice, as his hands are “tied”.
You can also reach the Governor and leave a message by phone at 804-786-2211, or you can email him through this link: http://autisticadvocacy.tumblr.com/post/103045720072/sample-tweets-to-help-freeneli
More information on Reginald Latson’s case can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-why-is-reginald-latson-being-denied-the-help-he-needs/2014/11/28/a6c5e2c0-771f-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-reibel/teen-with-aspergers-arres_b_610530.html?ref=twitter
If you cannot do any of the things listed above, please help out by reblogging this and getting the story out. I’m an allistic individual and am trying to help out by spreading the word, so please make sure to also check out public posts written by people who are actually autistic to educate yourselves further about Neli’s cause and about the discrimination autistic folks face. We need need neeeeeed to be talking about this, but we also need to make sure that the voices of people who are actually autistic, especially autistic poc, are at the forefront of this conversation.
As a note, if you do spread the word about this issue, please be sure to use appropriate language. For example, every autistic individual I’ve interacted with prefers to be called an autistic person rather than a person with autism, as the latter implies autism is a disease, which it is not. Be mindful, please. (If anyone actually autistic feels that claim is not true or would like for me to change/add any language in this post, please let me know and I will gladly change it and apologize!)
tl;dr: a young black autistic boy from Virginia has gone through severe mental trauma for years because of his race, disability, police brutality, and a lack of awareness about how to interact with autistic folks. There are many ways listed in this post detailing how you can help. Please reblog to spread the word and add resources and updates as they show up.
THANK YOU!!!
I sometimes visualize the ongoing cycle of racism as a moving walkway at the airport. Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt. The person engaged in active racist behaviour has identified with the ideology of White supremacy and is moving with it. Passive racist behaviour is equivalent to standing still on the walk way. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyor belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are actively walking. Some of the bystanders may feel the motion of the conveyor belt, see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around, unwilling to go to the same destination as the White supremacists. But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt - unless they are actively antiracist - they will find themselves carried along with the others.
Beverly Daniel Tatum, an excerpt from “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (via pnasty) Brilliant. (via riotdog)
Comin for the booty
HERE COMES ANDY
Anon hate from the late 1800’s.
What I love most about this is that this person was SO INCENSED at the recipient that they couldn’t even wait the days/weeks it would take for the mail to go through. No, they had to say “FUCK YOU” as soon as fucking possible and, AND, let the recipient that they were not done with the fuck you, nay, this was merely the first volley in what would undoubtably be a dressing down of Biblical proportions.
i will gleefully reblog this every time i see it
It is 3:24am and I laughed out loud like a hyena when I read this post. I’d love to know the story behind this telegraph message.
Strong letter to follow…
What is significant about fan fiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans - women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly.
Sherlock and the Adventure of the Overzealous Fanbase by Laurie Penny (via linpatootie)
Yes, this. this this this. media production for all, not just the rich.
If Beyonce thinks that feminism is the ticket to commercial success, it means something. And that something is a good thing.
Balancing Jane: What Can We Expect of Our Media Icons?: Thoughts on Beyonce & Pantene
ICONIC CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE
Having worked in the tech industry since the late nineties, Mr Dash asserted that we should have a better understanding of the history of the web. An improved historical perspective, he said, would help us to determine past measures of success as well as lost opportunities.
I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS.
In regards to violence against women, it DOESN’T ‘take two to tango’.
Nothing should take away Nigella's right to be protected from assault
I'm a teenager, and I'm a girl, and those are factors that can stand in the way of maintaining control. I've had more people than I can count talk to my manager in meetings instead of me, like it doesn't matter what I think. This usually lasts all of 10 minutes, until I insert the kind of dry sentence that makes most adults splutter and blush and reach for their water, and after this they start taking me seriously.
Lorde: "I'm not a spreadsheet with hair"
Oh Lorde, I love you.
The simple reality is, equality and merit go hand in hand. If you believe as I do that merit is equally distributed between the sexes, then in any institution, a cabinet, a court, a corporate board, [that] does not comprise around 50 per cent women and 50 per cent men, women of merit have been excluded."
Julia Gillard
Glad to see the researchers are pretty ambivalent about how to deal with the fact that the Internet may both help and hinder teens on their paths away from self-harm. Wonder if anyone has researched just how effective the medical industry has been in similar situations. Tell me - is there anything with a 100% success rate? The researchers seem to tacitly acknowledge that just because it's not perfect, doesn't mean the Internet is a terrible place for these teens.
I think it's important to know things just for the point of knowing them, not because I'll need them to make money.
Why Latin is worth studying
A 15 year old reminds us of the value of learning for knowledge's sake.