Liam O’Dell has a history of harassing Yasmin Benoit and other WOC online. She and other BIPOC Aces have expressed concerns about him for years. However, as a white, Disabled man, many white members of the community have sided with and platformed him despite these allegations.
In recent weeks, new stories have arisen of Liam harassing several Disabled, queer (sometimes also Ace), women. Many once sided with/platformed him in the name of accessibility and disability allyship, but in reality, Disabled members of the community also feel unsafe with him.
Disability and Autism twitter are talking about him and calling for accountability far more than Ace twitter currently is. To make matters worse, it's hard to get the whole story right now because Liam called the police on a woman who wrote a thread about the harm he caused her.
The cops intimidated her into taking the thread down and going private. Many do not feel safe to talk now and are either remaining quiet or discussing behind locked accounts. He's issued a statement, but those he’s harmed are blocked and have not been given an apology.
After having a private conversation with Liam last year about his racist behaviors, we invited him in good faith to join ACAR in the hopes that he would make an effort to learn and grow with the community. He accepted the invitation at the time but has not ever engaged.
A combination of this lack of participation along with the recent allegations have raised safety concerns and demonstrated that he has not yet put in the work needed for personal growth. As such, the ACAR moderators have made the decision to remove him from the server.
So where do we, as a community, go from here? Well, if you are one of the white Aces in question who did not believe Yasmin when she initially spoke out against him, she is now calling on you to own up to it.
But remember that we’ve seen A LOT of bad PR-style non-apologies in recent years. In order to own it, be specific about the harm that was caused and your role in it. Remember to center those you’ve harmed, because this isn’t about you or your feelings or saving face.
If you don't know much about the recent history of racism in the community or if you just don't know what you can do to help, you can join us on ACAR. We do book clubs, activism, and virtual town halls to communicate important community information like this to our members.
If you have either a personal relationship or a professional history with Liam, we can’t tell you exactly how to handle this. Many are calling him out, some are calling on their friends and followers to unfollow him, others have taken down interviews they’ve published with him.
If you know him personally, perhaps this is a moment to call him in. Hopefully you’ll have better luck than others who have tried. We do think and hope that he can grow, but he's been given multiple chances in this community and caused more harm than can fit in a single thread.