I am autistic. I suffer a great deal because of it.

But. I can hide my autism from other people. I can disguise myself as a neurotypical.

Non-white people have no such privilege, no such security. In this country, their daily lives are marked by a casual racism they must always account for, daily lives that whites take for granted in a culture wherein even people like myself, who are not overtly racist and do not believe that color of skin defines character, are allowed the privilege of not engaging with the deep-set, disgustingly acceptable racism that pervades life in this country at every level.

I hereby want to acknowledge that my lack of active resistance to the racism of white culture was a privilege that amounted to tacit acceptance. I am ashamed, I am humbled, and I am horrified at my failure to comprehend and empathize with those whose lives are inscribed by an injustice so pervasive that those not thus inscribed assume it is a default, rather than a ignominious aberration from what it means to be a decent human being.

I will not stand on the sidelines any longer. Black Lives Matter.

Comments that say “All Lives Matter” or otherwise will be deleted. I defy anyone to watch the George Floyd video and attempt to perpetuate such a fiction. If all lives mattered, he, and countless others treated that way in the absence of video footage, would still be alive.