conuly

Here it is, you can read through it at your leisure. In the comments there, I told Leora I had another thought to get to, and I intend to do just that. But first, I want to add something to that post that came to me at 3 in the morning that I'd left out. (I actually do a lot of my posting in my head at 3 in the morning. I'm eloquent and persuasive when I'm about to fall asleep. When the sun comes up and I eventually wake, the words aren't as clear and I lose something, but I assure you, I'm brilliant when I'm in bed with my eyes closed.)

In addition to the pragmatic reasons for not accepting the arbitrary division of high-and-low-functioning in order to say "Well, most of us aren't like that", which I listed and spelled out for everybody, there's also a clear ethical reason not to do so.

By making that argument that 1. These folks are bad because they say mean things about autistics in order to agitate for more money to spend on a dubious search for a "cure" and 2. They're wrong in their word choices because most autistics (which is where they get their 1 in 166 number from, from the whole spectrum, incidentally, but that's on their consciences, not mine) aren't as they portray, you're tacitly saying 3. IF all or most autistics were really "as bad" as they make out, it would be okay to say these things about them. It would be okay to blame them for breaking up marriages, it would be okay to rationalize their murder, it would be okay to call them soulless or trainwrecks, it would be okay to compare them unfavorably to children with AIDS or cancer, it would be okay to compare autism to child abductions.

But it's not okay! It doesn't matter if we're talking about Einstein or not! It doesn't matter what you think a kid's (there are no autistic grown-ups, and if there are, they're perpetually children, of course) functioning level is, it's not okay to talk like this.

And it's not okay to say it's wrong just because it's inaccurate with respect to whom it's insulting.

It's one thing to not bring up the hate speech at all because you need to open that door first. But to bring it up and then to make an argument that seems to say it would be justified if only people were more careful about defining their terms... you can't do that. It's abhorrent and reprehensible.

If we're going to take a stand against this language, if we're going to take a stand against these attitudes, then we have to take that stand together. You can't go dividing people up, saying "It's okay to say those things about THOSE people, so long as you don't say them about ME". You can't do it.

This is now a post on its own, so I have one more post left to do. I'll get to it in a bit, promise.