There are no words that can adequately express the cruelty, nastiness, and immorality demonstrated by the despicable lump of flesh and bone that calls itself Lydia O’Connor:

“Trump Signs Order To Restore Inclusive and Diverse Monuments, Remove ‘Anti-America’ Ideology.”

Or perhaps:

“Trump Signs Order To Restore Monuments Signifying That People Who Are Different Actually Have a Right To Exist, Remove ‘Anti-America’ Ideology.”

There, Lydia. I fixed it for you. 

Needless to say, I did not read the entire article, because my mind and nervous system don’t have the resilience needed to handle such a traumatizing experience. Thanks to merely glimpsing the headline, my body is shaking with rage, my stomach is sick, and my chest feels like it’s being crushed in a vice.

This headline, and the accompanying article, are enormously harmful to me as an autistic person who has grown up being excluded, bullied, and different from the norm. The monuments that O’Connor sickeningly characterizes as “racist” are the monuments to people like me. They are monuments to people who are different. They are monuments to the entire concept of being different from the majority, resisting authority, rebelling against social norms, not fitting in, thinking for oneself. They are the monuments that enable a person like me to actually be accepted and included in society. They are the monuments that signify that I have a right to exist. 

But yeah, this is clearly racist.

Obviously, allowing people who are different from the norm to exist, is racist. 

It’s racist to honor a diverse range of viewpoints, stories, and perspectives, rather than only honoring those that conform to the dominant ideology.

It’s racist to accept and include people who are different.

Not.

This headline and article are completely unacceptable. And this is an understatement. In fact, anything negative that could possibly be said about this headline, article, and author would be an understatement, because no language has words adequate for the task of accurately describing such complete moral bankruptcy.

Racist monuments. 

Yup. Because for me to actually have a life worth living is “racist.”

Because allowing me to exist as an autistic person is “racist.”

No.

Wrong, Lydia.

Allowing people who are different form the norm to exist, is not racist.

This is obvious. It should not even need to be stated. It is, in fact, bizarre that it needs to be stated. It is bizarre that over the past five years, I have had to state this again and again, because despite how obvious it objectively is, it is clearly not obvious to a large percentage of the population. Even after five years of living through this hell, it is still both shocking and sickening beyond belief that an ideology has taken over this country which believes that allowing a person like me to exist, allowing a person like me to be accepted and included in society, is racist. 

I have a right to exist. My existing is not racist. Period. Full stop. End of story.

Thanks, Lydia, for completely destroying my morning. Just another attack on my very existence, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of such attacks that I’ve been subjected to for nearly five years now. I am so incredibly sick and tired of people thinking this way, speaking this way, writing this way. I am sick and tired of having to justify my existence again and again, of having to defend my very existence against claims that it is “racist.”

Lydia O’Connor is the epitome of a bigot and a bully with no mind, no soul, no capacity for independent thought, no empathy, and no tolerance for any perspectives other than her own. She and the Huffington Post have inflicted severe harm on me by writing and publishing this article and should be sued for the harm that they have caused. 

I have a right to exist. Statues like these have a right to exist. We are not racist. Period. Full stop. End of story.