Friday, April 10, 2015

Autism Acceptance Challenge 7: Support Autistic Bloggers

Autism Acceptance Challenge 7: Read More Blogs. Win your own Squawkers McCaw.
Who are your favorite autistic bloggers? Do you have a favorite post, old or new, that celebrates autism acceptance or calls out anti-autistic rhetoric or actions? Leave a link in the comments and let me know why you chose it. This challenge is about autistic bloggers only. If you would like to recommend a non-autistic blog for its posts on autism acceptance and support of autistics, please do that in the comments on Challenge 4: TrueAllies.

Okay, I'll go first.

These are two of my favorites:

Julia at Just Stimming doesn't post much these days (we have this in common), but when she does the writing is so achingly good and true and original.  Two excerpts:


"And it’s a big problem, because the way they talk…..they think the problem was that they treated their child like they were intellectually disabled, and they weren't. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that they thought their child was intellectually disabled, and so they didn't treat them like a person."


"Echolalia is metalanguage.

Echolalia is an unexpected treasure hunt. You can be watching a bootleg musical you never thought would be any good, but turns out to be beautiful, and suddenly they’re going up the scale singing hot hot hot hot, and you’re back with Kimba, and he’s saying hot hot hot hot–only he’s got this elaborate metaphor about fire and anger going on right now, and here it means I think you’re mad at me, so I’m mad at you, don’t touch me.

And then you’re back at your laptop, wondering when he started watching musicals and rethinking half the things you thought you knew."

Kassiane writes at Radical Neurodivergence Speaking. She says the things other people won’t say in the ways other people won’t say them. She speaks the truth, she is neurodivergent with flaming arrows. She gets death threats and other terrible stuff for her efforts. Everyone who reads this needs to go thank her right now for her commitment to speaking the harshest truths while some of us get to keep our politeness privilege and be seen as the good, or at least less awful autistics. 

Some must-read posts from Radical Neurodivergence Speaking:


There are so many other bloggers I could mention, but it’s your turn now.  If you are not familiar with many autistic bloggers, check the blogroll in the sidebar here for more suggestions. Go to their blogs and see who’s in their blogrolls. Read stuff. And then get back here and tell me about it. 

5 comments:

  1. http://neurowonderful.tumblr.com/post/102907206441/a-long-sad-story-about-the-attitudes-that-autism

    The above link is to a blog post by Amythest over at her Neuro Wonderful blog. It falls under posts about calling out negative actions, and as such it is a bit of a sad story. Just a warning. I posted it because I had read several posts and articles about the way other people (namely those involved with Autism Speaks) treat autistic people, but this one really hammered it home and opened my eyes to just how blind some people can be, and how important it is to spread the message of acceptance so that so many others don't have to live with the treatment the young man from this article receives. It was a very emotional read and I'm sharing because it was a real eye opener for me.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Let me repeat: He called his eighteen-year-old son to him like a dog, and then using the voice humans reserve for exciting a puppy, looked his son in the eye and spoke to him like he was incapable of understanding."

      Thanks for sharing this with other readers. A sad story indeed, but one that needed to be told.

      Delete
  2. https://unstrangemind.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/h-is-for-healthcare-access/

    "Once again, autism awareness is not sufficient — it can make people feel good about “doing something to help” but it doesn’t actually help. When it comes to our health care needs, Autistic people need better education of healthcare providers, accommodations in the health care setting, and above all we need autism acceptance because we will never get our health needs met until we are fully recognized as deserving of respect and dignity and are widely understood as being valuable — not for what we can do, but for who we are: your brothers and sisters, fellow human beings. Until society is willing to own us as “one of us” instead of a frightening and dehumanized “them,” we will continue to struggle and fight for the basic level of health care so many other people take for granted."

    I selected this article and quote because I strongly identify with struggling to receive adequate healthcare. Some of my other favorite bloggers are Neuro Wonderful, Alis Rowe, and Amy Sequenzia.

    - Jennifer V.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good choice, Jennifer V. I was just reading this earlier today. I am also a fan of
      Amy Sequenzia.

      Delete
  3. I admire many autistic bloggers, but there's something special for me about Judy Endow and her down-to-earth attitude. This post is about self-determination and the problems about focusing on deficits :

    http://www.judyendow.com/advocacy/dont-define-me-by-my-deficits/

    "My advice for younger autistics and for those who love and support them would be to look at who you ARE as a human being. Ultimately, this will become more important than your autism. Most of the time people around autistic children focus in on what they cannot do so as to make those areas of life better. In doing so autistic children grow up knowing who they are not. This is not a good basis for living a meaningful adult life because as adults, our work, our friends and our pastimes are based on who we are, what we can do and what makes us happy.

    Therefore, I think it is of utmost importance our children learn this along the way. It took me most of my life to learn this. I hope by writing about it people supporting today’s autistic children will be sure to teach them who they ARE in this big wide world because one day that will become more important than their diagnosis of autism."

    http://www.judyendow.com/advocacy/dont-define-me-by-my-deficits/

    ReplyDelete

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