The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
Darren: raising acceptance rather than awareness
Here is something Darren wrote recently on facebook. I don’t use facebook, but the kids send me their posts in an email when they think I’d be interested. Darren says:
As many of you know, April is Autism Awareness Month. What a lot of people don’t know, is that Autism Awareness month is actually harmful to people with Autism, but we can change that. Here’s why and how.
You see, a lot of Autism awareness symbol and campaigns (including the blue puzzle piece and paint it/light it up blue), were started by a group called Autism Speaks. The majority of adults with Autism consider Autism Speaks to be a hate group. https://awnnetwork.org/is-autism-speaks-a-hate-group/
Autism Speaks raises funds by creating ads that portray Autism as this horrible, helpless thing, and portrays having an autistic child as the worst thing that can happen to a parent. In fact, in one Autism Speaks video, a parent states that she wants to murder her autistic child, in front of the child! The rest of their funding goes towards research into eugenics, and to finding a “cure.” Practically nothing goes towards actual support for individuals with autism. There is not a single individual with Autism on Autism Speaks’ board of directors. There was one, once, but he resigned in protest. https://jerobison.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-resign-my-roles-at-autism-speaks.html
The message the Autistic community is receiving from Autism Speaks, and from the community that supports them, is, in essence, “What the hell’s wrong with you? I wish you had never been born!” It’s no wonder that studies have shown that individuals with autism are 10 times more likely to die from suicide than the general population.
So what can you do? If you see the rainbow infinity neurodiversity symbol or #redinstead, these are individuals fighting not for Autism awareness, but for Autism Acceptance. Join us.
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