This post is reprinted with permission from The Caffeinated Aspie and appears in its original post and blog, which you can visit by clicking on those links.
Last week, we blogged about
“Autistic people should…”
as a response to Google’s autocomplete suggestions for “autistic people
should” and “autistic people can”. This was a flash blogging event,
and there are more entries chronicled
here.
Since then, a number of things have happened.
People took notice. This
is a good thing! Google is going to change their search terms. Even
large organizations like Autism Speaks noticed! That’s a good thing,
right? Oh wait.
Autism Speaks mentioned Google.
They didn’t mention anything about the Autistic people who made this
happen. Comments on their page by Autistic people have gone completely
unanswered. This, on the day when we as Autistics are taking time to
mourn our dead, unjustly killed by their caretakers. Deaths that were
caused by the terrible ideals that Autism Speaks perpetuates. I am
demanding an apology from Autism Speaks.
So today, I am going to tell you a little bit about this community of mine.
Autistic people are authors of our own stories.
Too many times, I find an article about an autistic person that makes
me think that their voice is going to be adequately represented, that
they’re going to be able to tell their own story. And while that is
sometimes true, most of the time it is not. I’ve gone into the #autism
tag on Tumblr on more than one occasion, seeking to connect with my
fellow autistic people, and finding nothing more than parents and
siblings and educators and so-called “experts” talking about someone
they know who “has autism”.
But Autistic people are speaking! Loudly! In many different forums.
I find that I can connect with a great deal of very diverse Autistic
individuals online, because it’s certainly easier for most of us to
communicate in text-based ways than verbally or in person. Autistic
people are capable of telling our own stories. While, yes, we may
appreciate being backed up by our family members, we don’t need them
trampling all over us in order to tell our story for us, as though we
cannot do it on our own.
Autistic people are competent. There’s a
saying that goes for all of the disability community, but is especially
relevant to autism, as there are many among us who are nonspeaking.
That phrase is “presume competence”. Assume that regardless of a
person’s level of communication, you must presume that they are able to
understand you, I’m constantly reminded whenever we talk about presuming
competence of
Carly Fleischmann,
and how her parents were told that she was incapable of understanding.
They were told incorrect information regarding their daughter’s
diagnosis, and as such, they assumed that she didn’t have the ability to
understand. That is, until she turned 11, was given access to a
computer keyboard and she began typing her thoughts. This is the case
with many nonspeaking individuals. I recall one of the last
documentaries I watched (that wasn’t autistic-led, which is hard to find
in the first place) was
Loving Lampposts. In it, one of the
nonspeaking Autistics said that people presume that he doesn’t have much
to say, that there’s little of worth that he will communicate. This is
the problem with in-person communication between neurotypical folks
(who are sometimes considered “experts” but really know very little) and
autistic folks. The NT folks see someone who cannot speak, who stims
quite a bit, and they think “weird”, “not having anything to
contribute”. However, if these NT folks came upon some of the
nonspeaking Autistics I know online, they would claim that there was no
way that they could be “low-functioning,” because in many NT folks’
mind, “low-functioning” equals “non-thinking” or “incapable”. Autistic
people are competent.
Autistic people are more than a functioning label.
This is related to point #2, of course. It’s a little bit ridiculous,
but many allistic and NT folks (allistic simply means “not autistic”,
whereas NT means “completely neurotypical with no neurodivergences) tend
to like to put these labels on those of us who are Autistic. ”High
functioning”, “low functioning” — all of these undefined terms that
really don’t mean anything.
Laura Tisoncik described the dichotomy best when she said
“The
difference between high-functioning and low-functioning is that
high-functioning means your deficits are ignored, and low- functioning
means your assets are ignored.” In other words, it’s a no-win
situation. I’ve had the functioning label thrown at me over and over
again. I’m “too high functioning” to deserve a voice in the debate over
a cure, so some say. But then again, “low functioning” folks don’t get
a voice either, because they aren’t able to have coherent thoughts, and
opinions and make decisions about their own lives. I am a person.
Autistic people are
people, first and foremost. We are not
functions. I addressed some of this (and a few other points) in this
post.
Autistic people are brilliant. This doesn’t
mean “high IQ”. That’s not what I mean when I say brilliant. Perhaps
it’s somewhat of a throwaway word, overused like “awesome” and
“amazing”. But Autistic people
are brilliant. We are a people
who are often treated as though we are not quite human, we are erased,
we are dehumanized, we are told we have no empathy, we are monsters, we
are not worthy of love or affection, and that in the end, our abusers
will be the ones to receive sympathy if we are abused or murdered. We
are told that we are not trustworthy because of our awkward body
language and lack of eye contact. But you know what? We are resilient.
We are survivors, and we fight every single day of our lives to do away
with the stigma against people like us. Not every one of us can be
“out” as autistic, because currently, that’s not safe to do. Despite
the fact that autism
is a disability covered under the ADA,
many of us have been discriminated against with regards to schooling and
work, and perhaps it is necessary to hide, to “act neurotypical”.
Autistic people are a community. We are a community of very different
people who share a common experience with the world — an overwhelming
yet beautiful place to live.
Autistic people are brilliant.
