The War on Autism is now a Crusade: Autism Speaks Doubles Down on Combative Language

 The idea of combative language is nothing new; I myself wrote a blog post three years ago decrying its use by most in the Autism Community (But not the Autistic Community. Big difference there.) In summary, I demonstrated that the use of those combative terms suggested that the people using thought that the autism was some external invader rather than a descriptor of what kind of person the autist actually is. But the war metaphor goes deeper than that.

When a person takes into account the major “combatant” in this war, Autism Speaks, and looks at their fund distribution, it really is apparent that they truly do seek to wage war on us. Most of their funds go to advertising. Propaganda at its finest.

They use divide et impera techniques by perpetrating the idea of functioning labels, trying to divide autists into two camps that they might fight each other rather than their true enemy. Using the innate desire for acceptance all humans have, they label the ones who can appear to not be autistic (regardless of what actual issues they face) as “high functioning” and place them on a pedestal, showing how these pillars of autism are almost human in their eyes. They may even employ a few in token positions to make it appear as if they want to help. They could never be a general or commander, though, that would be too much! They should just be happy to be a foot soldier fighting against their fellow autists, and that the gracious Autism Speaks even gave them a gun!

If anyone seeks to call them out on their war, however, they remove the pedestal from below us and use it as a cudgel instead, claiming that they're not really talking about that kind of autist, just the “low functioning” ones that “can't speak for themselves” (Though a great many autists incapable of vocalized speech do quite well using the written word.) However, this division is only made when an autist calls them out. Otherwise, their propaganda is quite happy to include us among the numbers of the growing autistic menace.

Their pieces are “calls to action,” reminding people of the burden we autistic people are to the world, and how much happier the place would be if only we were gone. “I am Autism” painted our neurotype as an enemy, in no uncertain terms declaring war on the way we are. Make no mistake, they want us gone. They just can't say it outright.

Even the fundraising walks themselves are oddly reminiscent of military marches; watching people walk along the streets, to both gain recruits and monetary funds for an organization that uses combative language against us scares me quite deeply.

Then there are the executive salaries. After all, you have to make sure your generals and commanders are well-fed, right? To them, funding the war effort is more important than helping autistic people, and it shows in their fund distributions. Only 4% of their funds go to actual autism services. This is a token effort, done only to create the facade of helping.

Then there is the research they fund, most if not all of which is funding ways for prenatal screening and early detection. They want to find us before we are born or at the very least when we're too young to be a viable threat to their rhetoric. Less soldiers that can join the opposition. And if they can brainwash a few of us to join their side, so much the better. And what better ways to brainwash than conversion therapies such as ABA and outright torture at the Judge Rotenberg Center, both of which the organization happily endorses.

But now, they have once again shown their battle fatigues in a recent “Heroes Among us” article from People Magazine featuring the founding members, Susanne and Bob Wright as the titular heroes. The cover title is “Crusading against Autism.” They're outright using combative language again. They've upgraded it from a simple war to a crusade, even! Now not only are they fighting us, they are showing that they believe their fight is righteous and holy and heroic! They have not backed down from combative language now, but have doubled down. Their actions and fund distribution are warlike. It's time to Boycott Autism Speaks.

I have drafted a petition to People Magazine asking them to publicly apologize for and retract the article. I hope you will sign it.

https://www.change.org/p/people-magazine-issue-a-public-apology-for-and-official-retraction-of-your-heroes-among-us-article-on-the-wrights-of-autism-speaks

Lindt Logic: How the Autistic Community United with Humor in the Face of Ignorance and Dismissal

On March 10, 2015 Lindt Chocolate posted a tweet from Autism Speaks (@autismspeaks) on their US Twitter account (@Lindt_Chocolate) that they would be hosting their 6^th annual Gold Bunny Celebrity auction in support of the organization. Autism Speaks has received criticism from primarily Autistic activists as well as some non-Autistic allies for its rhetoric regarding Autism and its allocation of its funds in the ten years of its existence.

(For more information on some of the reasons Autism Speaks is criticized, Boycott Autism Speaks has a list of reasons on their website: http://www.boycottautismspeaks.com/why-boycott-1.html )

For the most part, Autism Speaks has been silent towards its protesters, an irony when their motto proclaims that “It's time to listen.”

One method of protesting the organization is contacting corporations who sponsor it and informing them of the actions the organization has taken. Most sponsors have taken to ignoring the boycotts entirely, but Lindt decided to take an odd turn; they technically responded to some of the protesters, but showed that they clearly were not aware of the content of their messages.

@appleshoelace Thank you for your perspective. Please contact @autismspeaks with questions.
— Lindt Chocolate USA (@Lindt_Chocolate) March 10, 2015

@alaskkkaaa Thank you for your perspective. Please contact @autismspeaks with questions.
— Lindt Chocolate USA (@Lindt_Chocolate) March 10, 2015

Both messages are identical, aside from the Twitter handles of the persons involved: That Lindt Chocolate “(Thanks us) for (our) perspective” and that we should “contact Autism Speaks with questions.” This demonstrates a lack of attention to the protests in question, as the people who were contacting Lindt were not asking questions about Autism Speaks itself but were either asking why Lindt supports them or explaining that because Lindt supports them that they would no longer be purchasing their products. Contacting Autism Speaks would do nothing to resolve either of those points. I myself demonstrated the audacity of shifting the responsibility to the organization being sponsored in one of my responses:

So let me get this straight, @Lindt_Chocolate: You want @appleshoelace to ask @autismspeaks why -you- support -them-. Right.
— Cisco Buitron (@AskCisco) March 10, 2015

The fact that Lindt showed ignorance, willing or not, to the parties in question shows, to me at least, that they are not truly compassionate or attentive towards the autistic populace, and merely seek a mutually beneficial commercial relationship with Autism Speaks for a tax break and public relations purposes, as the organization still has a large public footprint as an organization related to autism.

This is a major problem with corporate sponsorship: Very rarely do corporations demonstrate any kind of ethical analysis when donating to charitable organizations. If the organization has a high profile and is tax-deductible, that is all that is needed for the corporation to donate to it, no matter where the money goes or the actual message the organization sends. And in the case of Autism Speaks, the organizations donating to it ignore the very voices of the people the organization claims to represent.

In reponse to Lindt's absurdity in their response to the autistic protests, I revived a tag called #LindtLogic and purposed it for humorful demonstrations of the meaning of Lindt's response.  After a while, another autistic commenter joined in.

I've got an idea, #ActuallyAutistic friends: #LindtLogic can be a HT where we demonstrate the logic Lindt just demonstrated today.
— Cisco Buitron (@AskCisco) March 10, 2015

Example: Someone asked me why I like cats so much. I told them to ask my cats. #LindtLogic
— Cisco Buitron (@AskCisco) March 10, 2015

@nappeapproves That's #LindtLogic for you. "This person is harming me." "Cool story bro, go talk to them."
— Cisco Buitron (@AskCisco) March 10, 2015

"You support a harmful organization." "Thank you for your perspective. Please contact the organization about it." #LindtLogic
— Cass (@nappeapproves) March 10, 2015

According to #LindtLogic, if I donate money to an organization, and someone tells me they are bad - I should tell my friend to contact them.
— Cass (@nappeapproves) March 10, 2015

Me: You give money to an organization that said I was cancer. Lindt: I'll just keep giving money then while you go talk to them. #LindtLogic
— Cass (@nappeapproves) March 10, 2015

@AskCisco Exactly. And meanwhile, I will just keep giving the organization money as usual. #LindtLogic
— Cass (@nappeapproves) March 10, 2015

"But that organization is really bad because-" "Then you should contact them, not me. I don't know or care where my money goes." #LindtLogic
— Cass (@nappeapproves) March 11, 2015

"Why are you paying for that person's gas? They're trying to run me over with their car!" "Talk to them about it." #LindtLogic
— Cisco Buitron (@AskCisco) March 11, 2015

The fact that the autistic community has rallied together in support of each other and against organizations that seek to speak for them rather than with them is an amazing phenomenon, and I hope to see it continue in the future.

When People Hurt With Carelessness

I have said many times in previous incarnations that I view autism primarily through the lens of a different aspect of humanity (for lack of better word, a culture) rather than a malady to be removed entirely. In that aspect, I view autistic rights as a facet of human rights. The goal of my advocacy is to promote autism as a valuable asset to the whole of humanity, and that if the collective gives accommodations to the autistic, the autistic will provide benefits to humanity in return.

It is for this reason that when I hear autism and its descriptors being thrown about as pejoratives I am offended; the idea that we are still the “other”, that we are to be shunned at best and eliminated at worst. This is why I was offended when Curtis posted his tweet regarding a fan looking autistic last year, and why I was offended by the lyrics of Jodeci Freestyle this year. However, I could not in good conscience hate the men themselves; they were ignorant of the hurt they were causing.

It is easy to demonize those who inflict harm, to automatically assume the slices from a sword are inflicted deliberately by a cruel oppressor, when the more likely scenario is that of a small child picking up the sword and swinging it carelessly. It is harder to step away from the child, calm down, and observe the situation objectively; harder still to then walk back to the child, grab the sword calmly and tell this person that they are harming people with it.

But that is what we in the human rights community must do if we are to move forward with our goals, and the autism community in particular. We advocates must be strong enough to take the slices without retaliating, explain that it hurts, why it hurts and calmly ask that they stop swinging. Very few people hurt deliberately; the majority hurt carelessly. And from my experience, J. Cole and Curtis Jackson hurt carelessly, not deliberately, and deserve the forgiveness asked by them.

Everybody Stims.

I hear a lot of talk in the autism community about self-stimulatory behavior, known colloquially and in shorthand as “Stims” or “Stimming.” For the most part, the self-advocates have convinced most people that stimming is good, it relieves stress/helps focus, and that autists should be allowed to stim. This is good, but I would like to go further than that and say that everyone stims.

Yes, that's right. I did, in fact, say everyone stims. Don't believe me? Think of a time to when someone was nervous or impatient. Did they rap their fingers? That's a stim. Did they tap their foot? Stim. Play with their hair? Yes, that's a stim too. Even things like whistling could be a stim. The point is, everyone does it to some extent; the only reason autistic stims seem so unusual is that our versions are different.

There is also of course the seemingly unusual sources and frequencies of the need to stim, but those are due to our hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli and changes. A lot of the non-autistic world is foreign to us, and therefore we have a higher level of anxiety when dealing with said world. I have a certain degree of confidence that were I to pluck a non-autist from their home country and put them in a foreign land, they would be stimming much more than they do at home.

“But Cisco, people look at my child strange when he stims!” Does the child notice? If the child does not notice, then perhaps a re-evaluation of exactly why this bothers you is in order. Likewise if the child notices but values the joy stimming brings over the strange looks they receive. Now, granted, extenuating circumstances do apply to this: If the kid is flailing their arms about in the knife section of a store or in a museum, there are practical concerns there. 

Still, if you must control a child's stimming for whatever reason, I would suggest evaluating the stims and channeling them into one or both of two paths: Either find a hobby or skill that utilizes this behavior and encourage them to pursue that, or find an “accepted” stim similar to what the child is actually doing and see if that relieves them in a similar manner.

Unity in the Autism Community

The entire controversy over Curtis Jackson's remarks seems to have brought an interesting facet to my understanding of the autism community: When faced with a common enemy and a common goal, they were able to set aside the differences they had with each other and unite to accomplish their intended goal. This posed the question to me: How, then, can we retain this unity and move forward to have common goals accomplished?

Having talked to a close friend of mine, we pondered the situation together and came up with a rule of thumb for a common goal: The common goal should not benefit one facet of the community, but the community as a whole. Extended, an ideal goal, for universal support, should have a way of benefiting all of humanity.

Therefore, this means that anything there is a massive divide over, no matter how important advocates of each party believe it is, should be shelved in favor of the common goal that benefits all. Ideally, if said partisan goal is a means to a universal end, there should be deliberation given towards how to approach that end universally as far as can be done before partisan debates are needed.

Clearly, the universal goal everyone involved with autism seeks is for the children to lead a better life. However, not all sides agree on how the better life is to be achieved. The neurodiversity advocates argue for autism to be seen as a differing mindset to be accommodated to by the community, and the biomedical advocates argue for autism to be seen as a disorder to be treated. However, I think, with a slight amount of compromise, there can be a common goal to be found.

I believe that common goal is to see autism as something to not be afraid of or feel hatred towards. It is something to be looked at and handled on the individual level. Some will choose to alter themselves or their children with drugs and other means, some will choose to keep their autism close to their heart and live with both its benefits and its drawbacks.

The compromise, however, is that the neurodiversity advocates must take a step back and allow the biomeds to do what they feel is needed to help their kids live a better life, and the biomeds must speak out when rhetoric of autism is fearmongering and combative. We cannot be using “war on autism” or call it a “emergency” or “national crisis” when the rates go up. We cannot see these children as an enemy to be fought, or the part of them that is autistic as something that needs to go away. If we're to fight for a better future for these kids, let's do it together, not as enemies. The world is tough enough on them as it is without people claiming to speak on their behalf fighting each other.

Celebrity, Autism, Oppression by the Oppressed and Public Opinion

Edit 7/8/2012: Curtis has finally posted an apology.  The wording is a little strange; after all, didn't he mean to offend the person he was replying to? "I realize my autism comments were insensitive, however it was not my intention to offend anyone and for this I apologize." (found at https://twitter.com/50cent/status/222033753386647554 ) 

Edit 7/5/2012: Curtis has deleted the tweets, but has still made no public acknowledgement of saying them or an apology for them.  More edits as the situation changes.

On the second of July, the rapper, producer and businessman Curtis Jackson, known to many as "50 Cent", posted two posts to his Twitter account that enraged the Autism community:

"yeah i just saw your picture fool you look autistic ‪#SMSaudio‬ RT @yung_raditz @50cent Release the album or get shot again" ( Previously found at https://twitter.com/50cent/status/219978810689470464)

and

"i dont want no special ed kids on my time line follow some body else ‪#SMSaudio" ( Previously found at https://twitter.com/50cent/status/219980077855809537) .

He followed up with an "apology" for the Special Ed. remark that seemed more like a jab at how the program worked than an actual retraction of his opinion:

"just kidding about da special ed kids man, i was in special ed day said i had anger issues lol" (Previously found at https://twitter.com/50cent/status/219983198527045633 ) .

As many people have already talked about the event itself, I would rather springboard this to a discussion on how celebrity status seems to affect public opinion. Why is it that a good many people take the advice of a celebrity in fields they have no knowledge about? From the posts, it is clear Curtis knows nothing of autism; there is no autistic "look", after all, and the idea of "looking autistic" being an insult is absurd when any of the world's greatest innovators were on the spectrum. Yet people will fight his opinion, myself included, because we know there are people who will hold it as gospel if unchallenged.

This provides a catch-22: a few bloggers have said that there are better things to do than fight one man's opinion, and they are right. It is, after all, the opinion of just one man. The issue, however, is that if we do not fight it, those that hold his opinion sacred will spread it. If we do fight it, the fight will spread the discussion to people who would otherwise not have heard it, and thus we spread it ourselves. Either way, an opinion that quite rightly should just die out spreads. I choose to speak out, however, because at least speaking out shows that this view is not universally held and has opposition. And that, hopefully, will discourage other people from actively expressing such views. I would wish people did not respect celebrity views just by virtue of their celebrity, but until people take positions based on actual merits, others must fight back in order to show those views are wrong.

One of the greatest ironies, however, is that the person this insult is coming from, Curtis Jackson, is a member of a race and culture that in his very lifetime experienced and experiences systematized discrimination. He knows what it is like to be insulted for an attribute he is born with (the color of his skin), yet chooses to propagate discrimination for another born trait (autism). If he does not know autism is a born trait, it makes him ignorant. If he does, it makes him a hypocrite, especially after promoting a book against bullying. Either way, I hope the community continues to push for an apology and retraction until it gets one.  Nobody deserves to be insulted for how they were born, be it sexuality, race or neurotype.

Epidemiology of Autism: One Autist's Thoughts of Possible Reasons Behind its Surge

In many of the news reports, popular culture and talk amongst families regarding autism, I have noticed a common theme: too many times people focus on the epidemiology, what causes it, how to “cure” it and other such things.  Now, as a hyperlexic and verbal autist I may have a biased opinion, but it is my contention what the epidemiology stage is not, quite frankly, where the autism community should be focusing its efforts at the moment.  Sure, it's an interesting puzzle; I should know, I'm an analytical autist, I love puzzles.  Still, I think the focus should be on neurodiversity and integration in general; how to deal with society.  Granted, I already spoke of this in my “War on Autism?” post, so I won't wax poetic about it now.  What I will talk about is my thoughts on perhaps why people like to try to find the cause or a cure.

Personally I think there are two reasons for this, the latter caused by the former: They think autism is a net negative on the person, and the parents of children with autism want some sort of justice; by having some cause, especially an environmental cause, there is a concrete injustice done, something they can fight.

First, let me assure parents that autism is not an inherent net negative: If there are any net negative effects it's due to how society treats us, not some defect in ourselves or otherwise.  The idea that we're somehow broken does us a disservice, even if you mean the best.  We're not broken, we're just different.  Yes, we have disadvantages in many areas compared to neurotypicals, but we also have advantages over them as well.  It's a tradeoff and an integral part of who we are as people.  If we can remold society so that autists and neurotypicals work together to produce a better life for both, that should be where our efforts are focused, not trying to find out what makes us who we are.  That can be an interesting puzzle to figure out together, once we are no longer ostracized.

Second, let's assume that the many epidemiological hypotheses are false: I'm not going to say for sure that any are false, but let's perform a thought experiment here.  We're going to assume, for the sake of argument, that genetics and genetics alone is the only cause of autism.  That doesn't mean you still can't fight for justice; that doesn't mean it's your fault that your child or your grandchild has autism.  We are not geneticists playing with DNA strands knowing what we'll do; we cannot fathom what the genetic cocktail will be when sperm meets egg to make a baby.  Your fight for justice now can be to make your child's life the best it can be, rather than trying to fight some possible cause.  Autism is a tough struggle, but I view it through the lens of a civil rights struggle.  It's something that develops in early childhood, if the child is not born with it outright.  It is a facet of one's identity, like nationality, race or creed.  It is something to be proud of.