Against the Erasure of LaVonnya Gardner
Image of LaVonnya Gardner's AAC board with the written and PEC symbol sentence "I use AAC everyday and I Love it" written on the display panel above the PEC images and wordsin orange, pink, red, green, and light blue squares. Credit LaVonnya Gardner, Twitter. Black, deafblind autistic activist LaVonnya Gardner died suddenly in late August of last year. She was someone I was proud to call a friend. Her death was particularly heartbreaking to me and mine. To understand what LaVonnya simply existing meant to me and my son Mustafa, you have to realize a few important details. LaVonnya understood what being blind meant, so we had that common ground because I was once blind for a time and it was assumed I would wear a prosthetic left eye and be blind permanently. LaVonnya understood what it meant to a Black disabled parent to an autistic child in the DMV (the District, Maryland, and Virginia) because she was the mother of an autistic daughter. LaVonnya understood what it mea...