{"id":2,"date":"2015-04-05T19:58:02","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T23:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2024-12-08T15:26:48","modified_gmt":"2024-12-08T20:26:48","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/expectedly.org\/blog\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello! Salut ! \u00a1Hola! Hallo! \u041f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442! I\u2019m Finn Gardiner. <\/p>\n\n\n

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I\u2019m a disability rights advocate with interests in inclusive education, intersectional justice, healthcare equity (including mental health), comparative social policy, and inclusive technology, among other things. I have a Master of Public Policy degree from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a bachelor\u2019s degree in sociology from Tufts University. I\u2019m currently the director of policy and advocacy at the Autistic People of Color Fund, where I combine disability advocacy, policy analysis and research, and written and visual communications through policy briefs, mutual-aid projects, original reports and white papers, and contributions to research. In addition to my work at the APOC Fund, I also serve as a member of the Board of Directors at the Human Services Research Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to research and policy advocacy benefiting people with disabilities and seniors. Before I came to BU and the APOC Fund, I was the communications specialist at the the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy, housed at Brandeis University, and before that, I was a policy fellow at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a longtime public speaker who has appeared at a variety of venues, including the Obama White House\u2019s 2016 LGBTQ Disability Day panel<\/a>, the National Council on Disability\u2019s panel on inclusive technology for people with disabilities, Neurodiversity Rising\u2019s conference on inclusive employment, the United Nations\u2019 2016 Disability and Ageing Symposium, the United Nations\u2019 2019 World Autism Day conference, and the 2015 and 2017 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities national conferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog is an assemblage: I write about politics, disability\/chronic illness, gender, culture, language, healthcare, and more. It\u2019s called \u201cMultifarious Threads\u201d for a reason. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About my politics and background: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a queer Black leftist, though I\u2019m not<\/a><\/strong> a Marxist, since traditional Marxist analysis doesn\u2019t include disabled people, I\u2019m not a hard materialist or physicalist, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a single ideal outcome. I detest tankie and campist politics and want nothing to do with people who think North Korea is a cool place to be, China is full of shiny happy people and not persecuting religious and ethnic minorities, or that Russia can do no wrong. At the same time, I have no patience for people who think the US, Britain, the EU, or NATO can do nothing wrong, which is clearly bullshit: the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to mind, among others. We need to have nuanced discussions about foreign policy and the left\u2019s response to global conflicts, though those are rare to find these days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Random facts about me: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n