Campaigns

[Image description: Shain Neumeier and (Lydia Brown) at Occupy the JRC protest at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) White Oak campus in Silver Spring, Maryland, on 9 January 2013. Shain's holding a poster that says "Stop the Shocks" with icons of lightning bolts. I'm holding two -- one says, "people not experiments," and the other says, "Shocked for... hugging staff, swearing, nagging, getting out of seat, taking off coat, screaming, tensing up, closing eyes, raising hand. BAN the GED." Photo by Taylor C. Hall.]

Image description and thumbnail image retrieved from here

As is the case with any social movement, there have been many different campaigns started in the Neurodiversity Movement to influence social change, big and small. Here you will find some of the campaigns that have taken place over the years.

#StopTheShock is the ongoing campaign to ban the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) devices. These are used on people with disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. The JRC has been open for several decades. It used to be the Behavioral Research Institute in California. Later, it moved to Massachusetts. They use various methods of torture and have since they opened, but the GED is their most extreme. Autistic people lead this movement. This is because many of the JRC's residents are autistic. Most of their residents are people of color. #StopTheShock is a disability justice and a racial justice campaign because of that.

Lydia X. Z. Brown is one of the leading activists in the #StopTheShock campaign. They created a thorough archive of everything surrounding the JRC and #StopTheShock. You can find it here.