Your Advice Requested: How to Celebrate Autistic Pride Day?
Here's how it's described in Wikipedia:
Autistic Pride Day is a celebration of the neurodiversity of people on the autism spectrum on June 18 each year. Autistic pride is pride in autism, about shifting views of autism from "disease" to "difference". Autistic pride emphasises the innate potential in all human phenotypic expressions and celebrates the diversity various neurological types express.So... for those readers out there who have participated in Autistic Pride Day - or who plan to take part this year - did Wikipedia get it right? And... are there plans in place for 2008? Anything you'd care to announce here and now?Autistic pride asserts that autistic people are not sick; rather, they have a unique set of characteristics that provide them many rewards and challenges, not unlike their non-autistic peers. Researchers and people with high-functioning autism have contributed to a shift in attitudes away from the notion that autism is a deviation from the norm that must be treated or cured, and towards the view that AS is a difference rather than a disability.
New Scientist magazine released an article entitled "Autistic and proud" on the first Autistic Pride Day that discussed the idea.
Autistic Pride day is an Aspies for Freedom initiative, an autism rights group that aims to educate the general public with initiatives to end ignorance of the issues involving the autistic community.
Thanks so much for your help!
Comments
Nothing good comes from AFF. I ignore them.
Do a google for “Spectrum Fairness” and “Phil Nelson” to see why autistics boycott AFF.
I try to be as fair as possible but it’s difficult to feel safe about AFF and their agenda which is just as dangerous as the agenda of other militant fringe groups.
I’ve known about them for years now and whenever AFF surfaces in news articles, news reports, etc., their spokespeople come across as very dodgy manipulators.
While it’s good to be proud of one’s differences, AFF is a number of hidden agendas beneath the ‘nice exterior’ agenda.
So celebrate the gifts that Autism brings to humanity but be wary of those who claim to be in charge of speaking for all those who are thusly gifted because AFF does NOT speak for Aspies just as Autism Speaks does not speak for Autistics.
Oooo!
Usually I give my user name when responding to blog posts…even ones where I speak against that most detestable of organizations, Autism Speaks, but I can’t do so this time. I have been hurt by AFF in the past and want to avoid further reprecussions.
Let’s just say that I don’t want to have any further tussles with a LaVey Satanist (Gareth) or his wife, who is 17 years his senior.
And by the way, Lisa Jo, I dare you try to post a link to a forum or website on any Wikipedia autism or Asperger page with AFF’s name on it. I am almost certain that it will be expunged immediately, though AFF’s link will remain. (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)
Wikipedia too happens to be a bullying organisation that openly admits having no guarantee of personal fairness for participants, who are lured in to contribute before getting told this is only considered a favour granted or taken away at will by Wikipedia’s leaders. In arguments over articles it usually takes the side that is more numerous, regardless of right and wrong. This means an outfit like AFF can organise to control favourable portrayal on Wikipedia and suppression of what any wronged person has to say.
AFF claims arrogantly to speak for aspies without any asking of what aspies want said. AFF’s lead couple alone say what they want to. A whole series of folks have gone to AFF looking for support and come away treated like dirt. Then for a while AFF even followed such folks harrassingly to other sites: it no longer has much credibility to do this because of the numbers who have experienced its true nature.
When it began and was harvesting members from other aspie sites, it claimed it was going to be democratic, then within a month, as soon as it had its own website on a computer taken unathorised from Gareth Nelson’s family’s home, it started purging and banning members at leadership whim and requiring total faith in the leaders. No onsite arguing with leader decisions is allowed. Amy decreed a discretionary right to ban all onsite discussion of any topic at any time without allowing members to answer personal comments posted onsite about them.
After founding AFF claiming they were going to criticise overkeen prescribing of drugs for us, they lobby pro-drug professors to give big-name backing to Autistic Pride Day. Absurdly, in 2005 AFF expelled a keen supporter in New York who had been organsing a public run for Autistic Pride Day, just for taking any personal credit for organising it! and expelled the founder of its own first local group in Australia, just for asking Amy a question about AFF’s history!
Thanks, all, for your comments and information. Obviously, Autistic Pride Day isn’t a “holiday” to be celebrated - at least as relationships stand within the autism community. I’ll let my editor know!
Best,
Lisa (autism guide)
Hi lisa jo rudy
Please disregard the above comments. I have had issues with AFF. But I and many others celebrate it. I am part of the autism hub blog list.Many of us celebrate it.
thanks
The asperger syndrome man
Lisa Jo,
Wikipedia got it right.
For those of you who don’t agree with AFF, you’re more than welcome to your opinion, and to be honest, I’d like to personally apologize to anyone who’s been hurt.
The fact is, though, we’re going through some *very* dangerous times for autistics; because of that, we *have* to be defensive, and even militant!
For example, Autism Speaks’ major ‘research project’ is to develop a pre-natal genetic test for autism. That doesn’t sound bad on the surface, until you put it in context: awhile back, pre-natal screening was developed for the Trisomy 21 variant of Down’s Syndrome. Since then, *over 90%* of fetuses that have tested positive have been aborted!
Would the results be any different if they could test for autism?
Autism Speaks talks about *eradicating* autism; to that end, they’ve been promoting the most negative aspects of autism as being typical of *every* autistic. It’s easy to see what they want: AS wants people to think *so* negatively about autism that they’d never kep an autistic child; thus, we die out through abortion and attrition!
And AFF - militant as we are - is trying to stop that!
We’re in a defensive mode; we probably *are* undeservedly harsh with some people, but at the same time, we’ve had to deal with a *lot* of autism-haters over the years, so we *do* get a little bit twitchy…
Proudly Aspie,
-Bob ‘Skippy’ Blechinger, Activist
Aspies For Freedom
Head banging, fecal smearing, and running into ponds and drowning.
These are to be celebrated?
Just asking.
I have autism and i’m pround of it. I make honors every single year in school. I act like i don’t have autism. most of my friends don’t know i even have it.
Well what sort of day are we supposed to make? Autism Shame, Pity, dehumanize and Devalue Day are already celebrated on the other 364 days of the year.
I believe it is high time that the medical and advocacy communities separate Aspies and true autistic kids like my 11-year-old son who still (albiet a lot less) smears feces, repeatedly chants the same song, and can’t answer simple question (who are you, where do you live). We all need to quit fighting among ourselves. Our kids are not getting any younger.