Edited by author 12-15-2003 05:13 PM
yet another reality check:

All people need ongoing support all our lives, that is why humans have evolved as an interdependent species. Some people, myself included, need support that is not as readily available as the standard-issue support that neurotypicals are provided as a matter of course. Some of that support -- not intervention -- extends to learning. After all, the world already supports neurotypical learning styles for the most part. None of this is relevant to the main issue of the article, however.

There is nothing rabid about Dawson's article. As Carolyn Gage states, "DON'T attribute your lack of sympathy to my attitude. This is a standard defense of bigots. Racists are always sure that there are right ways to be African American and wrong ways. Sexists believe that harassment and discrimination only happen to women with bad attitudes. Ableists are always convinced that there is something in the attitude or the behavior of the disabled person which is causing their own irritation or aversion towards us. Nothing unmasks your ableism more than this point of view toward me. I have to fight my way through a toxic, apathetic, and even sadistic world every day. I am assertive to militant about my needs, and I haven't got the energy to coddle ableist people. [...] I need an ally, not a rescuer. If you can't feel empathy for an embattled warrior, it's your ableism and not my attitude. Period." ("So You Know A Dyke With CFIDS", published both in the book _Restricted Access_ and on the web)

There is a lot of truth in that. The issue here is discrimination against autistic people, people treating us and speaking about us as if we are subhuman or a plague. The issue is not that some autistic people need assistance with certain things, and the issue is *certainly* not that people who need certain kinds of assistance are less deserving of rights. None of these issues change just because someone is justifiably angry at being treated and characterized in ways that nobody should be. The emotion of the message in no way diminishes its content, or the fact that it refers to real things.

Is it "burning bridges" to state that we get no respect, that we are described as a plague, demeaned, and given no rights? Michelle Dawson is stating the truth. The truth that we are valuable human beings who do not deserve to be treated like this holds, no matter what our abilities are, *and no matter what our emotions about it are*. Certainly anger is not the only response, but it is a valid one, and calling it "rabid" doesn't help matters. Too often, as Gage clearly knows, we are expected to be acquiescent and super-nice in situations that would have almost any neurotypical outraged.

Don't make this a "Look at the poor low-functioning people who *need* to be treated like crap" issue. None of us need that, no matter what we can or can't do. I'm one of "those people" who needs daily support and was once characterized as "low functioning", and *I* don't like being represented this way. I don't like my friends being represented this way, no matter what their abilities or lack thereof.

Don't make this a "You're just too angry, you've got the wrong attitude" issue, because a restriction of our emotional response to horrible things is a huge part of the horrible things in themselves -- that we are not allowed to respond like most neurotypicals would to having people like us considered a plague of parasites on the economy and our parents, and other such ideas. Certainly if you want to be super-polite, I'm sure that approach *could* get something done, but it's definitely not for everyone and we shouldn't be expected to be nice all the time.

This is a human rights issue. These are ideas that need to be spoken, not silenced under "...but you're not being *nice*" or "...you're too high functioning to understand." Both of those are ways of skirting the real problems here.