In solidarity with the Palestinian people, I have withdrawn from my panel at SXSW.
SXSW platforms defense contractors like Raytheon, and has a strong Department of Defense presence. I cannot in good conscience speak to disability justice issues on a stage that promotes genocide.
I have chosen to withdraw from my panel at SXSW entitled “Nothing About Us Without Us: Patient-Driven Autism Research,” out of solidarity with the Palestinian people. In doing so, I am joining numerous other principled artists, including Squirrel Flower, Abe Batshon, Mamalarky, Merce Lemon, Eliza McLamb, Shalom, and others, all of whom have cancelled their official SXSW performances due to the conference’s close ties to weapons manufacturers and the United States Department of Defense.
SXSW features multiple panels headed by top executives of defense contractor Raytheon, and lists Raytheon subsidiaries Collins Aerospace and BAE Systems as conference exhibitors. All three entities supply missiles, bombs, and other munitions to the Israeli “Defense” Forces, which has used them to slay well over 30,000 people indigenous to the region.
In addition, SXSW has a robust Department of Defense presence, accepting sponsorship dollars from the DOD and partnering with the CIA, the NSA, the NRO, and other members of the national defense and security apparatus to deliver programming, hold networking events, and identify new recruits. Panels at SXSW boast that the national defense market is “good for business,” and encourages employers from within the technology sector to screen job applicants for ties to foreign entities. A panel on intelligence technologies celebrates the new ways in which companies from within the tech sector can partner with the United States government to surveil individuals’ behavior.
The United States Department of Defense has collaborated closely with the Israeli government and the IDF in its slaughter of the Palestinian people, providing intelligence data, financial support, weapons, and direct on-the-ground support from United States military members. By platforming defense contractors, spreading propaganda supportive of the defense and intelligence industries, and assisting the DoD in identifying new recruits, SXSW is complicit in its murderous, colonialist actions overseas.
This week saw the high-profile deaths of two disabled Palestinians: Yazan al-Kafarneh, a child with cerebral palsy who perished due to starvation and lack of medical care caused by Israeli blockades, and Najeeb Salem Sadeq, an intellectually disabled man who was shot in the neck by the IDF for failing to duck quickly enough when they took siege of the hospital where he was seeking shelter. There are approximately 115,000 persons with disabilities currently living in the Gaza strip, many of their disabilities caused by attacks from the IDF or Israeli acts of aggression against protestors, all of them at a heightened risk of illness and death during a time of famine and genocide.
I cannot in good conscience sit on a stage paid for by the United States Department of Defense and opine about the future of disability inclusion. I can’t claim to believe that “nothing about us [should be done] without us” as a white Autistic person from within the imperial core and then rub shoulders with weapons manufacturers while my Palestinian siblings are shot, gassed, bombed, and starved en masse. Accordingly, I have chosen to pull my participation from the SXSW conference, and asked that the panel organizers at Bened Life remove my bio, photo, and name from all event marketing (which it appears they have already done).
In my panel at SXSW, I hoped to speak of a future beyond Autism assessment, where disabled researchers lead the charge in authoring scholarly studies that center our perspectives and accept our self-identification, rather than treating Autism as a pathology that must be diagnosed from an external, neurotypical view.
I also wished to argue for a complete restructuring of the way in which academic research is created. So long as we continue to operate from a “publish or perish” model of academic success, the scholars who are able to work the most swiftly to produce the least politically challenging work will continue to succeed, at the expense of disabled scholars who conduct research that is more radical and operate at a slower pace.
And as long as academic publishing is a completely unpaid endeavor, the most marginalized within our communities will be unable to sustain professional research careers. If we believe in building an Autism literature that is created by Autistics and for Autistics, we must fund Autistic researchers and give them free reign to conduct whichever studies they deem to be a priority, and allow them room to struggle, to find disappointing null results at times, and to study and write at their own speed.
Thankfully, I can share these perspectives without the platform of SXSW. In fact, I already have. You can read more about my perspective on patient-driven Autism research in my most recent article on Autistic self-identification, linked below, and about my views on the future of academic publishing within the pages of my latest book, Unlearning Shame (in Chapter 3).
None of us need the "platform” offered by a pro-genocidal conference like SXSW. “Nothing about us without us” means that we as disabled people must create the resources that we need for our own communities, and share them widely for our collective benefit rather than personal gain. (Which is why I always encourage readers in need to pirate my books. Ideas cannot be owned. Take what you need.)
I am deeply indebted to the organizers at Austin for Palestine Collective for making me aware of SXSW’s ties to Raytheon and the Department of Defense, and to the artists who have stepped down from participating before me for setting such a firm example of what principled divestment looks like. If you would like to learn more about SXSW’s complicity in genocide, or speak out against it on your own, please visit Austin4Palestine.org and follow their tips for taking action.
Thank you Devon.
Thank you for the way you embody what it looks like to be in solidarity. You are a model for so many of us who are trying to show up in solidarity and aligned action.