All posts by John Marble

Autism, Employment

Innovative Approach on Autism May Prove a Key to Solving Silicon Valley’s Diversity Problem

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Over three days in mid-April, leading thinkers from across the technology sector met at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, California. The mood was urgent. The pace frantic. Conversations were ecstatic. At the end of the three-day process, technology executives emerged from their under-the-radar gathering carrying with them the models and metrics that may just prove to be a deciding factor in solving for Silicon Valley’s diversity problem. Silicon Valley’s challenges in building diverse workforces are well-documented. In 2016, Deloitte reported that only 2% of the tech workforce is black, 3% Latino, and 24% female. Difficulties in recruiting and supporting talent from underrepresented backgrounds have been met with attitudes of blissful ignorance by corporate leaders to all-out panic among public relations executives. This is an image of Code 2040 CEO Laura Weidman POwers. She is a young woman with long black hair and … <a href=Continue Reading ››
Popular Culture

Chiron, James Baldwin, and Autistic Experience

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Two days after an Academy Awards where Moonlight won ‘Best Picture’, a line of over 1,000 people wrapped three city blocks awaiting to see its showing at the palatial Castro Theatre in San Francisco. As the first winner to feature a queer storyline as well as an entirely black cast, that enthusiastic turnout was understandable - especially among populations that saw themselves reflected for the first time in a Best Picture winner. Great art, and Moonlight is certainly great art, has the ability to not only offer a cultural critique but to pull out from the viewer an intimate connection to the work presented before them. Great art can draw that connection even if the viewer’s own life and story only passively relate to the subject they are engaging with (plenty of people have seemed to passionately connect with the themes of the hit Broadway musical ‘Hamilton’ despite never having lived … Continue Reading ››
Current Events

President Trump, There is no Autism Epidemic

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I understand if it is hard to keep up with the news coming out of this White House. I don’t envy newsroom editors nor the White House Communications Office. With so much breaking news, you may have missed the episode this week where the President expressed his alarm with the growing rate of autism diagnoses. The President should be alarmed by what we have learned from the growing rate of autism diagnoses. As a former White House Presidential Appointee with a background of knowledge on both autism and how epidemics grow, I can tell you that he absolutely should be. But, it’s not for the reason that he thinks. On Tuesday, the President held a Parent-Teacher Conference Listening Session at the White House attended by Vice President Pence, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Senior White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway, and teachers and school administrators from across the country. One particular exchange … Continue Reading ››
News

DNC Holds Forum on Disability Issues for Chair Candidates

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On Sunday evening, the National Association of Democratic Disability Caucuses held a virtual candidate forum with candidates for Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Marked by its hosts as a historic step in building a more inclusive party, the forum offered candidates the opportunity to directly engage disabled DNC members ahead of the DNC’s meeting in Atlanta on February 25. There, members of the Democratic National Committee from across the country will gather to elect the body’s next chair. “We have to understand as a community that platitudes and promises are not going to cut it,” chair candidate and former Rock the Vote president Jehmu Greene stated in her closing remarks. Greene was noting the need, in her opinion, for the next DNC Chair to focus less on politics and more on organizing. Reflecting Greene’s opinion and the … Continue Reading ››