Aspies For Freedom

I've just read and the Web page linked to this string and more of the website it came from. Many of the views expressed on that website I can only relate to as a sheer idiocy, yet these people express the purpose of their Web site as:-

"Progressive Politics, Indian Issues, and Autism Advocacy" .
It seems it's a site populated by people who are ethnicly Indian (Asian variety) in the USA.

Well I don't live in the US but I am ethnically Indian and I'd like to tell you something about a very strong and persistent attitude in my ethnic group. It's true many people don't know about autism or Asperger's syndrome and Indians are no different to that. But most literate people are well aware of the condition known as epilepsy. In most conservative Indian family house holds if you are epileptic then you and your immediate family will be the only people who know about it. The family and cultural attitudes regard conditions like this with great embarrassment and shame. If it were known that an individual Indian has epilepsy, then his of her family would lose a great deal of 'respect' amongst their own ethnic group. They make intense efforts to preserve family reputation and 'save face' against anything that might embarrass them.

If you're epileptic it would be kept secret until after you have been married. By the way it is a common misconception when people believe Indians have arranged marriages, they do not. Indians are predominantly Hindu and do not arrange marriages in that culture. What they do is arrange introductions (6 to 15 odd) and the two individuals actually make a free choice within the set of introductions they are presented with. Actual arranged marriages is a practice which is performed by Islamic cultures and although there is a small Islamic minority in India, it amounts to less than five per cent of the population.

I have often complained about the practice of maintaining secrecy over conditions like epilepsy and I find it incredibly deceptive and wrong when people don't mention such conditions to potential spouses or the spouses family. But that's the way it goes in conservative Indian households. Shame and reputation often generate the practice of maintaining secrecy over conditions like epilepsy and these views form very powerful elements in Indian culture, to a similar way that the Victorians related to them. Knowing your place and family reputation are very important and powerful sentiments to such people.

It is based on pure prejudice and lack of knowledge about issues they are too ashamed to become educated about.

Knowing my own ethnic group I strongly believe that their attitudes to Asperger's syndrome and any form of autism will be at least as severe as it is for epilepsy.

Because of my own ethnic connection to this argument I think I'm going to spend some time in drafting a statement to that particular website which advertises its purpose and as, 'Progressive Politics, Indian Issues, and Autism Advocacy' . what a joke!

I am quite sure if there was the technology for an autism eugenicks programme then these people would be in strong support of it.

It makes my blood turn cold.

As I understood the article it is saying that there are a lot of madass theories about aspergers and autism made by people with no idea whatsoever, and that maybe these people should try taking a good look at what they are talking about before talking crap.  

If my reading of the article is correct and it means what I have just typed than it seems perfectly correct.  The article does not seem to say that getting aspies drunk is the answer but rather a bad answer

Having said this.  I love my wine, my whiskey, and when younger I loved my joint.  The reason being that effectively I no longer had to worry about social rules.  Everyone loves everyone when they are drunk.  I had a wakeup call when I discovered that most of my friends were aquaintances and all were drunks.  I decided to change.  I still like to drink from time to time and have to watch that I don't go beyond a reasonable consumption (it is easy not to notice how much you drink)

Marijuana is another matter.  It's main drawback is illegality.  I have known people who were psychologically addicted to Marijuana, which can also occur with chocolate, coffee, rage, sticky buns etc etc But most research associate a large range of beneficial effects to marijuana.  When working with people who were involved in drug programmes I found they all had a common complaint, the lies spread about marijuana were counterproductive.  Demonising a soft drug as if it were a hard drug did not stop drug addiction, it merely meant that when young people tried this easily accessible soft drug and discovered they did not turn into junkies as the campaigns threatened then they lost all faith in government information and parental information and therefore it became impossible to warn them of the very real dangers of hard drugs.  This demonisation of Marijuana is actually co-ordinated from Washington and extends world wide.

But Marijuana or any other medication is not a be all and end all. If you spend more time out of your mind then in it then where the hell are you, and who is living your life while you are away?

NT doesn't mean stupid.  Although nearly anyone (NT or AC) becomes rather stupid when drunk, from my observations, and alcohol seems to loosen everyone's social inhibitions a good deal (AC and NT) for better or for worse.  

I don't think so.  The name "Wampum" and some of the discussion that sounds like it's about federal law around American (aboriginal) Indians makes it look like it's not.

Hmmm....Seems I may have put my posting of "Substance Abuse" in the wrong section (General)   :roll:  . It may be of interest to others who have posted here.

Kezman 105

Oops, having a closer read of their sight makes me realise I was quite wrong in my assumption. Yeah it's nothing to do with Asian Indians and I think I've made a bit of a fool myself to go on the way I did about these guys.

I still think they're wrong in their attitude towards autistic people who but it would be wrong for me to blame any of the other things that I mentioned Asian Indians as doing, on them.

I'm afraid it's quite a sore subject for me. I tend to post here as if my life was frozen from over three years ago when I didn't really have any serious problems. Unfortunately these days I am experiencing an absolute nightmare and cannot feel free to talk about here.

Sure, if my nightmare only contained problems to do with the prejudices of autism then I would have no trouble discussing them with you guys but I'm afraid I have to keep it bottled up because it involves two other forms of 'prejudice' as well. One of the prejudices is so culture wide, that I'm afraid I have experienced insensitive, humiliating and provocative reactions from Aspies regarding this other culture wide prejudice.

But the third prejudice is more to do with certain victimising and derogatory attitudes from my own ethnic group (Asian Indian) and so I find myself struggling to keep sane because its unimaginably extreme dealing with the combination of three prejudices.

But for now I just need to say that I think it's pretty obvious that I shot from the hip at these people when I didn't actually read their website properly.

Airie, you have Asperger? Well, i always thought you were a little weird  :razz:

I actually do not mind sometimes being with a crowd when they are all drinking.  - if it is not too boring.  I do not drink and when they have all had a few drinks then I can act my crazy self and entertain everyone and no one seems to think I am so crazy.  If I do the same things when everyone is sober, then they think I am mad.

Well I think the author of the blog is weird. He's attacking Michael Savage for saying on the radio that he has certain things about himself, that may be symptomatic of Autism. He isn't mocking the disability, he's saying "Look for all anyone knows they could be considered "Autistic", we could be talking about curing a good lot of people here based on some frantic witch hunt", that was my interpretation not a direct quote from Michael Savage.

I would not claim that someone, who is going out on a limb and supporting the idea that Autism is a spectrum, and is not the same for everyone, is a school yard bully. If anyone can be considered as acting like a schoolyard bully, it's curbies.

The whole dramatization of how his brother went into an "Autistic shell" is the stuff the curbies thrive on. On the subject that it was suggested that people with Autism/Asperger's should drink to just get past the social inhibitions. It's putting a NT solution onto, a person who is Autistic. Frankly seeing how drinking tends to turn some NTs into acting Autistic (I mean like inebreated jerks, not literally Autistic..I'm just using the word for comparison), I don't see why they would consider something like that for the Autistic. Maybe it's like, a sort of if you combat something with something that's the same, they both cross each other out and produce something better? I'm guessing at this is what they might be thinking.

It's not Indain- asian, it's Indian-Native American.  Hence Wampum, wampum being a sort of trade currency (if I remember correctly) amongst certain tribes.

And:
Whoever said they are not advocating getting aspies drunk was dead right.  They are making fun of the people who would say such things.

You see?
Although he does seem to be a curebie.  Too bad.  Maybe we should write him to explain why it isn't autism itself that makes kids with autism suffer.