Articles!

[conuly]

One on one of Kanner's first diagnoses.

One on how Sharron Angle, whoever she is, apparently thinks that autism doesn't exist. Don't vote for her.

And... an interview with Ari Ne'eman!

There aren't very many comments to the last one, so I went ahead and read them. They're pretty varied... of course, there's the obligatory "Well, he's obviously incredibly high-functioning so he should shut up because what does he know???" which... just always pisses me off, actually, but what's new to be said there?

But here's one which is so wrong that I felt I had to crosspost it and pick it apart for your reading pleasure:

If you were interviewing a Black person about Black civil liberties would you write a line like this?

“Why are some N ggers up in arms about this?”

Personally I think “Aspie” if far more derogatory than the N-word (which has its origin in a simply descriptive label about skin colour).

“Aspie” on the other hand is the diminutive of a pathological condition and not a label I want to be stickered with.

1. No, I imagine that if he were that clueless he'd write the word out in full.

2. Personally, I think that you don't have the standing to speak for everybody on the spectrum. Some people dislike the word "aspie", yes, but others do not, or even embrace it. It's not widely recognized as a slur, is it?

3. Aaaaand... I love how he manages at the same time to brush aside accusations that maybe saying "the n-word" is rude. "Well, it just starts off talking about skin color!"

4. Diminutive of a pathological condition. I love it! Here's this whole talk about neurodiversity, and all he gets out of it is that Asperger's is a "pathological condition". I'm thinking that may be a little bit more offensive than what term you use, but we're just building up to my ultimate question....

5. Did he just ultimately compare being black to having a pathological condition? Or, worse, he said that "aspie" is worse than "nigger" because, after all... etymology!

Sometimes, I just can't believe what I read.

Comments

[steorra]

Following links from the Ari Ne'eman interview, I came across this article about Oliver Sacks by the same author, which I think is fascinating.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Open LJ. This post is first on my friends page. I read the first link. I notice my morning is gone. Oops.

Interesting article though. I'm glad things seem to have worked out for him. A lot of ways we try to treat various problems seem quite bad. I'm glad he wasn't exposed to too much of that.

[codeman38.livejournal.com]

And the etymology thing is totally fallacious anyway. Because "Aspie" is derived from "Asperger". ::facepalm::

[leora.livejournal.com]

I think this is boiling down to the person saying that if you don't use people first language, you're bad. The idea is that you're defining the people by the condition. Which is a real problem when you're discussing the group of people with that condition.

For example, I'm legally blind. If you were to refer to me as "that blind girl", I'd be a bit obnoxious, because my vision issues are just a small part of who I am. But if you were discussing the issues that blind people face, it would be completely sensible to say something like "Transportation can be difficult for blind people, because they can't drive." This is fine, rather than saying something like, "Transit can be difficult for people who happen to be blind, because they can't drive", because the blindness is the point of the discussion, you are discussing the class of people who can't drive.

Now, there's the issue of whether it is more polite to say "people with Asperger's" or "aspies", when there isn't as much of a commonly used term for blind people that is equivalent to the term "aspies" (I've seen people with some vision, but who are legally blind refer to themselves as "blinks", but I haven't seen it commonly enough used that I think most people would know what it meant, so it doesn't work). But it sounds like the objection had to do to referring to the people by the condition, and I think that is actually appropriate when you are discussing the condition, rather than individual people who have the condition. (Generally, I like when people refer to me by name if they actually want to refer to me in specific, and I think the same thing applies for people with Asperger's.)

I wouldn't use the term "aspie" with someone who said they disliked it, but I do not think of the term as generally offensive. It's descriptive. It's only offensive if you think being aspie is the only relevant thing about someone.

[ascian.livejournal.com]

That Angle gal is one twisted bitch. The autism stuff is messed up enough, but note that she told pregnant rape victims that they should "turn their lemons into lemonade" by having their rapists' babies. (Though, if the quote is sic, she actually said to "make lemons out of lemonade")

I think she's just a decoy meant to make Palin look comparatively sane in time for her 2012 bid. :P

[leora.livejournal.com]

I would have serious difficulty being willing to bear a child conceived through rape. I just don't like the idea of slightly encouraging the spread of any genetic component that tends toward rape. I do think rape is more influenced by environment and cultural factors than genetic factors, and I know evolution is slow and one baby here or there has little effect, but it strikes me as helping to encourage rape.

I don't blame anyone who decides differently. I would not tell someone who was raped and chose to keep the baby they did something wrong, because I really feel it ~must~ be an individual decision and there are too many factors to weigh, and whichever will make the victim feel best is fine, so long as if a baby is born there is the intent for the baby to be cared for decently (having the baby and taking the anger or pain out on the baby is not okay, of course, the baby, if there is one, is not responsible nor is a potentially slightly increased risk of raping someone at all the same as being a rapist). But I personally do not think I could accept that. It'd feel like rewarding the rapist and showing that rape works.

[ascian.livejournal.com]

Bingo. Like abortion in general it's not about which is the right choice; it's about the mother having one.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I wish I had time to read all the articles and stuff you post!

I'm not surprised to hear more batshittery out of Sharon Angle, though-- this is the woman who's so anti-choice she doesn't believe in exceptions for victims of rape and incest.