The Unclad Soul

Teaching us to fish My name is George André Morrison. I work at the Dallas Public Library and have been with the City of Dallas for 14 years. I am also a high-functioning autistic person. I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 1990. I am writing this open letter on my friend Tim Moody's blog to bring attention to an issue that is dear to my heart. I believe it is important to other people as well. The reason I have been a success in both school and work was that my parents made many sacrifices to help me and my normal sister. I am proud to have parents like them and am now taking care of them in their old age. Some people are not as fortunate. On March 6, 2012, a 22 year old autistic man, George Hodgins, was murdered in Sunnyvale, California. The perpetrator was his mother, who then killed herself. From what investigators can determine, the mother despaired that she could not get resources to help her son and believed he was better off dead. The reason ...

While sitting in the doctor’s office the other day I picked up a copy of “Parents” magazine. Not only does it have excellent articles with terrific parenting advice but I couldn’t help noticing the diversity of the people both children and adults in every single picture in the magazine. The ads, the photos accompanying each article, everywhere you turned a page, there was a different ethnic group represented: Blacks, Asian, Latino, and Anglo. I thought, yes, that is really what our society looks like. We are a huge melting pot of nationalities, races, cultures, ethnicities, likes and dislikes. What a beautiful, pluralistic, multicultural country we live in. Think of what we could accomplish if as an entire nation we totally welcomed, fully accepted, and genuinely embraced the diversity of the people that we are? Think of the variety of artists, writers, actors, musicians, poets, and other creative, thinking people we have in this country? They are a mix of races all of them;...