One of the founders of aagw.net, Mark B., was talking with Jon G. in friendly conversation after Mark B. had led another open-ended discussion that month about stopping procrastination.
Jon G. was tired as usual, and irritated about having his weekend delayed by 5 hours, from carrying the display case full of books to display after working the last day of a 5 day week at his part-time job with a 2 hour time window to get from his workplace to the aagw.net meeting space in a restaurant that allows groups to meet there to raise their food sale revenue.
One way Jon G. feels more connected to people and eases his irritation is to try to accelerate the 'pace of (positive social) change'
Demands for faster paces of change, to do more good for more people more quickly, to pass the laws and implement the regulations usually highlight the division such as whether to have free college or free public college tuition or whether to allow all individuals the choice to buy health insurance from Medicare or require all individuals to buy health insurance from Medicare with taxes replacing health insurance premiums. Even the 2010 Dodd-Frank act that created the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) that has been gutted since the November 2017 change in director to Mick Mulvaney, in particular, was the subject of 'pace of change' arguments about how strongly to re-regulate banks. Disputes of whether the Glass-Steagall act, repealed in 1999, should have been included continue to divide Democrats and suppress their base voter turnout. Any new proposal that is marketed as 'nonpartisan' or 'neither left nor right' becomes attractive as people seek a 'new normal' amidst chaos on many issues while trying to 'keep a roof over individual heads' by 'paying bills' from 'any job' one can 'get hired for' and keep including multiple jobbettes or the 'sharing economy.'
to do more good for more people more quickly.
People with the disability of autism (who call themselves autistics in a rejection of person-first language because of a belief autism cannot be separated from the person as an additional resistance to medical models of disability) have started identifying as LGBTQ first and autistic second, and conflate neurodiversity with diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and public expression of gender identity, to achieve faster individual inclusion at less monetary and time cost to the individual, in the absence of a regulatory and administrative state, to do more good for more people more quickly. The pace of positive social change still remains less equal for autistics who can’t ‘pick a state or local, in the absence of federal protected class recognition, civil rights law-defined protected class’ because they don’t identify with as many marginalized ‘identity politics’ communities that are simply crowd-sourced civil rights law protected classes.
Tragically most people dismiss Jon's attempts to do that as shaming Jon for being 'obsessed with politics' or 'talking about politics.' That dismissal is other peoples' misperception and bad assumptions regarding Jon G's interpersonal communication style.
Each attendee buying food is effectively a dues payment to attend meetings that allows aagw.net not to require payment- a rarity in the support group 'community.' The cost of meeting space is paid directly to the owner of the meeting space rather than to the group.
Here is the dialogue, as remembered by Jon G. in September 2018, from the June 23, 2018 conversation with Mark B. gone horribly wrong, including Mark B abusing his power as aagw.net president to 'put Jon G. in 'his place' as a subordinate rather than as an equal, in a nonprofit group that depends totally on the goodwill of leaders for their time and material contributions whether they be officers or trustees.
Jon's self-defense from trustee removal follows based on personal memory of experience others acknowledge as quite good. That others still will defer to Mark's greater amount of time and money for agenda printing, topic picking, discussion leading, tax status filing and incorporating and remove me no matter how or what I say as well as Mark rigging the Aug 11, 2018 vote with his resignation threat if he doesn't get his desired outcome.
[Postscript: By Sept 29, 2018 aagw.net board meeting where old bylaws were replaced with simpler bylaws (in keeping with simpler 1023EZ form requesting 501c3 tax deductible fundraising status than originally intended 1023 long form status) Jon offered to buy paper and ink cartridges to President Mark and Chairman Chuck. Jon’s offer was rejected. Jon's rejected apology, by action not words (think restitution), is also added in the screen shot below of the first page of the 08112018 AAGW meeting agenda.]
Back to the interrupted conversation that 'started it all' :
Jon didn't misunderstand what Mark said. Mark interrupted Jon while he was describing how Max Blumenthal, narrator of the film "Killing Gaza" that Jon had seen a few weeks before, having his political disagreements with Israel government policy twisted into prejudice by being called an anti-semite.
Mark said "But he is...." interrupting Jon's train of thought.
Only thing Jon did wrong is yell “bullshit” thinking the next word out of Mark's mouth was going to be "anti-semite" not the possibility the word may have been Jewish.
The ignorance Mark may have been displaying of how even Jews are falsely called anti-semites by conflating zionism with Judaism and defining anti-Semitism to include anti-zionism was, in combination with being interrupted mid sentence,
for which Mark refuses to accept any responsibility for eliciting Jon’s reaction
yelling "bullshit" loudly enough for Mark to assume a danger to continued meeting space paid for by the food purchases of each person attending
to being interrupted by Mark.
Interrupting someone is not a good thing to do, particularly to an autistic, when talking about a subject of their interest.
In addition to offering to buy paper and printer ink cartridges by the Sept 29, 2018 meeting Jon G. has made restitution for his unfortunate outburst
by adding two more individually-vetted Autism-diagnosing doctors to one of Mark's replies (to the private-no links will be posted- aagw.net yahoo group list serve) with 4 un-vetted doctors to help even members who weren't at the June 23, 2018 meeting. Despite being subjected to an abuse of power by the aagw.net President Mark B., and justifiably feeling vulnerable to an elevated risk of a similar abuse of power in the post Sept 29, 2018 aagw.net by-laws giving the President unilateral authority to remove officers,
where not even a self-defense or a vote is necessary, that can be rigged again by a resignation threat ('my way or the highway' leadership style) based on 'greater' time and material contributions others cannot replace,
Jon G. will continue to give Mark B. the benefit of the doubt by suggesting these two links describing where Max Blumenthal was inaccurately called anti-semitic by conflating the political disagreement with his reporting with anti-zionism.
Whether a corporation is a non-profit or for-profit corporate founders can be too rigid, inflexible and protective of their mission for 'their baby' (the non-profit corporation they founded) from anyone who didn't start the corporation.
The only reason Jon G. has carried the display suitcase of books and managed the circulation records including the petty cash bag of deposits (to give back to borrowers when books are returned) is because of a similar unilateral exercise of power (list serve moderation based on not 'getting' humor regarding how often people post over a period of time) by Mark B. (J. Willardston Smith) in July 2011.
Another post replying to the same list serve thread more seriously without a specific connection to how to do the most good for the most autistics most quickly is here in this image.
That unilateral exercise of power led to the previous (and second in AAGW corporate history) librarian (Dances with Cars aka Jerry) leaving the group.
The initial librarian dropped out because her workload in library science graduate school prevented coming to one meeting per month (then on Sunday afternoons) not Saturday nights unless the 2 hour total of individual AAGW attendee food purchases already regularly force Teaism's owner to deny 'free' 4th Saturday of a month meeting space (in March, November and December) that is actually a 'community friendly' marketing gesture. Jon G. is not the first person to have 'raised their voice' that triggered Mark B. fears and August 2018 abuse of power by turning a personal dispute into an organizational structure change (board of trustee expulsion with vote-rigging by resignation threat and later reduction in size of the board of trustees). Officers devote their time but do not receive a vote at meetings of the AAGW board of officers and trustees. AAGW is now an incorporated 501c(3) non-profit, despite as an IRS 1023EZ form applicant that has an unfortunate history of discouraging foundations from approving grants. Perhaps more democratic (small 'd') AAGW governance procedures of an equal vote at quarterly meetings for trustees and officers may entice foundations that are concerned with transparency and open governance back to consideration of funding grant proposals to supplement small individual donations if they are received in addition to the President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees paying for domain name registration and web site hosting services provided by a woman and autistic-operated business. The trustees and officers devote similar amounts of time and individual money for operating the library, planning and leading a dinner and two other trips per year to trustees.
Update Jan 13, 2019 following Jan 12, 2019 board meeting
The August 11, 2018 meeting minutes were approved by a vote of only the three trustees, Randy F., Charles C. and of course Mark B. A procedural, or parliamentary, trick allowing Mark B. to "CYA" (cover your ass) from an appearance of unethical conduct and corruption, was to omit Mark's threat to resign from the minutes if Jon wasn't removed (Mark didn't get what he wanted). Jon protested the omission of the vote-rigging threat fiercely but was silenced with another threat of expulsion based mostly on the style of Jon's communication rather than the substance. Because the vote-rigging threat by Mark to resign if he didn't get his outcome wasn't actually said in the meeting (only made in the agenda before the meeting) the minutes didn't need to include the vote-rigging threat. Here are the incomplete minutes
[update Dec 14, 2019 link may lead to a password protected site], or interested citizen, is interested in addressing impropriety and/or corruption in nonprofit corporate governance. The AAGW corporate records online at the Virginia State Corporation Commission web site may have been password-protected. Here is another link that shows the core AAGW corporate leadership without a username and password account with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. The other two trustees live on Dean Mar Drive and Keating Street.
Mark B. and Chuck C. refused to discuss Jon's complaint further and avoided interaction with Jon except for public settings of Teaism restaurant general and board meetings. This was an attempt to let enough time pass by that would 'grind down' Jon's justified reaction of being treated unfairly and force Jon to either accept the mistreatment or quit. Jon does not accept arbitrary and capricious abuses of power and Chuck C. joined Mark B.'s practice of simply walking away when they became tired of what they misperceived as Jon's 'belligerence' or 'venting.' Avoiding interacting with Jon except in public settings helped in suppressing escalation after walking away and ignoring Jon who wished to avoid more 'drama' or 'scenes' in public that can easily be misconstrued as a threat requiring police involvement. Mark B. exercised his unilateral authority, after likely consultation with Chuck C. after a July 17, 2019 handover of the empty library bag for repairs, to remove Jon from the yahoo group and ban Jon from any meetings or activities. A threat to complain to Google, the owner of the blogspot platform, for sharing the AAGW leadership problems with a wider audience, because of sharing emails and board meeting minutes, was made. In Mark B. haste to expel and ban Jon before another required board meeting (one every 3 months that must be held by Sept 30, 2019) he forgot to arrange a handover of the library collection by the July 27, 2019 general meeting. The members who continue to bother to show up in person for 'dinner and a support group meeting' continue to be deprived of the library collection. Most of the books were originally donated by Chuck C. who walked out on Jon when picking up the empty bag for repair. No attempt has been made to arrange a return of the library books.
Maybe instead of complaining to Google about disclosing confidential information (to suppress negative search results in name searches) Mark B. could designate someone else to ask Jon to return to AAGW library books. The substance of Jon's communication was more important than the 'raised voice' style that only indicated intensity of demands after 'inside voice' tone failed to achieve mutually beneficial results. Autistic Self Advocacy Network ASAN is generally against ABA (applied behavior analysis) as a way to help autistics 'fit in' with neurotypical society because it forces autistics to communicate in a manner contrary to individual neurodiversity. One contributor to "Loud Hands" a book compiled by and published by ASAN even demanded assault prosecution for ABA therapists who stop autistics from making repeated hand movements known to autistics as 'stimming.'
ASAN generally demands that individual communication styles should be respected even if the autistic is able to use speech instead of assisted and augmentative communication technology AAC. The general demand for acceptance of neurodiverse communication styles is made here in the Loud Hands anthology.
Mark B. and Chuck C. as 'autistic leaders' failed to respect Jon's diverse style of communication as ASAN demands. Your humble blogger, Rustedaspie, recommends that ASAN should refuse to work with AAGW leaders, who failed miserably to 'practice what they preach' regarding democratic leadership practices and respecting communication style diversity in dispute resolution, in planning any future National Summits of Autistic Led Organizations following up on one held on Nov 20-21, 2016 following an ASAN fundraising dinner.
To paraphrase the post below
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0bSpWdBk8L/
don't be afraid to speak truth to power even if it costs a 14 year relationship and 8 years of substantive volunteer library management.
