Hi Courtney,

I’m Kyara, the Communications Consultant at AWN. We are grateful to welcome you to a new year.

There is no doubt that 2025 will be a difficult year and the start of a difficult period for the movement for disability justice and all our social justice movements. We are in a distressing time when our very identities are under attack. In this moment, AWN is here as a supportive community to you, and you can be reassured we will remain strong and committed to our values and our work. The upcoming commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 20th is a day to reflect on this political moment and the value we, as neurodivergent people, bring to the fight for social justice. 

On September 1, 1967, Dr. King gave a speech about how he retained a sense of hope in times that seemed dark and difficult and looked to the idea of “creative maladjustment” as a source of strength. As he shared in a speech in front of the American Psychological Association, there is nothing to be praised about being “well-adjusted” to a maladjusted world. 

As Dr. King argued, we must have the willpower to never adjust to racial discrimination, economic disparities, violence, and attempts to take away our freedom. To do so, we can find strength in forms of “creative maladjustment” to this unjust world, language echoes the language of today’s neurodiversity and disability justice movements.