It had been a long time since I’d visited the archives at
autistics.org. If you have been around for a while, you may remember when
autistics.org was still being updated regularly. You may remember when it was
one of a very few places to find writing by and about autistic people. There were
not a lot of autistic bloggers in the early 2000’s. There was no ASAN. There
were a couple of online communities where there was way too much talk of
functioning labels and separatism for me to stomach. autistics.org was one of
the first places I could go to read the stories of like minded people.
In revisiting the site in preparation for this post, I
expected to find some outdated language and perhaps problematic ideas. Given
the number of posts on my own blog that I would not have written today (or
would have written very differently) this seemed a reasonable expectation. There are a few broken links, but fewer than I'd expected. The page about autistics.org's presence on Second Life is still intact. What surprised me a little was the number of articles that are still so very
relevant.
From The Conference Presentation I Won’t Make (But Want To) by Laura A. Tisoncik: “The experience of being
one of three autistics at a large conference dedicated to autism is somewhat
like that of being one of three mothers at a large conference dedicated to
Motherhood.” Have we made any progress in this arena? Enough?
Mel Baggs’ How to Become an Autism Expert instructs would-be authorities to study their
vocabulary words, including “divisive,” “infighting,” and “unity.” Didn't I
just have this argument last week? Are we still fighting the same warped
definitions of “community” all these years later?
Joel Smith reminds us that we do not need to discount the
experiences of others in order to have pride in ourselves and our community in Autistic Pride Day: Do We Celebrate it Right?
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| From autistics.org |
autistics.org is just one of the places to start exploring the
history of the autistic rights movement. Here are some others:
Please post other links to Autistic history in the comments.
CHALLENGE: Read some of these articles. Don't limit yourself to the ones I listed here.
If you've read them
before, choose a couple to read again. Respond by answering one or more of
these questions:
1.
What has changed for autistic people since these
pieces were written?
2.
What still needs to change?
3.
Why does our history matter? Or does it?
This post made me reread a (really long) assignment I wrote 2 years ago for my masters in autism about autistic writers. I've shared it on my blog temporarily. In it I discuss the impact that autistic people writing about their lives has had. I referred back to all those places like Wrong Planet and autistics.org as well as anthologies of old and new pieces like The Loud Hands Project. In the time since the pieces I read 13 years ago when Ryan was diagnosed, it is easier for more people to share their views with free and relatively easy to use online publishing platforms. Even now though, the views of parents and professionals are given precedence over those of people who are actually autistic. Oh and twitter is another change- it's been great to see the way folk have taken over hash tags and created new ones to combine their voices.
ReplyDeleteAs to why this history matters- it's a story of human rights that is ongoing. The history of all such campaigns for rights is important. The work you and other people have put into making it known that autism rights are human rights will benefit all autistic people like my son who will I hope grow up in a world more understanding and accepting of his neurological diversity.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment and for posting your assignment. I am looking forward to reading it!
ReplyDelete