Morénike Giwa Onaiwu — Autism Awareness Is A Key To Acceptance

 Go to Google, search for the term AUTISM. Go to the images section. What do you see?

A plethora of children who are mostly white. 

 Autism doesn't just affect a race or gender or ethnicity but it can affect anyone. Unfortunately, the medical community has studied and treated autism as a “white person’s” disease. 

The typical “face” of autism tends to be that of a little white boy, regardless of autism's actual prevalence in all racial, age, and gender groups. Here we have a global leader who has been a victim of this Autism's White Privilege Problem. 

Who is Morénike Giwa Onaiwu?

Morénike Giwa Onaiwu


Meet Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, educator, writer, public speaker, parent, and global advocate. She uses the pronouns She/They and has been transforming organizations since 1998. 

Currently, she is Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) Public Member at National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Morénike is a visiting scholar at Rice University and Principal Consultant and Public Speaker at Advocacy Without Borders. She is on the boards of Institute for Exceptional Care and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

She is a proactive, resourceful professional and disabled woman of color who is an autism and HIV advocate. Morénike is a woman of power who aims at educating people about Autism. Educating autism is much more than just race and gender. Autism is not affected by stereotypes. 

Morénike was born in the United States to immigrant parents. Her early symptoms were misinterpreted a lot. Those symptoms were misinterpreted as characteristics of "a black person trying to fit into the white environment" especially with more physical symptoms misinterpreted as the "stereotype of the violent or over emotional or sassy black person".

“Many characteristics that I possess that are clearly autistic were instead attributed to my race or gender.  I was misunderstood and also, at times, mistreated.”

Her personal experiences as a late-diagnosed Autistic adult woman, a person of color, an Autistic parent of Autistic and non-Autistic children, and a survivor of intimate partner violence has led to her revolutionary activism.

For Morénike, her wonderful children (biological and adopted and all of whom have various disabilities) are her greatest accomplishment.

employHER is so grateful to you for being an inspiration for all of us.

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