Jenny Brockie announced on this week's Insight programme (on the Australian TV station SBS) that the subject of discussion for next week will be autism (was it "understanding autism"?). Will it be a fair and balanced discussion? Will there be any representation at all from adult autistics or anyone of the philosophy of the autistics rights movement? If so, would autistics be able to get their points heard in competition with assertive and articulate NTs in this noisy, chaotic and informal audience discussion programme?
The show screens on Tuesday nights at 7.30pm. Here is a link to the Insight show's web site:
http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/index.php
Lili, thanks for the heads up on this program. Unfortunately I missed it! Did you see it? If so, was it any good? There are repeats on Friday and Monday during the day, but my son is home with me (homeschool), so I don't want to watch if it's negative. I worry so much about him overhearing negative info.
Edit: Looks like the website has the wrong date listed for the Understanding Autism show--it says Aug.1, but in the archives it shows Close to Home as having been shown the first. So I guess it must be next week, as Lili said.
Interesting. I'll check it out.
My family watches this program. I wonder if they'll see something that makes them come out of their denial about my AS.
Am I the only person who saw the show?
I find the website for the Insight show takes forever to download on my computer. Here's a link to the story:http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/topic.php?id=104
It was a stomach-turningly disgusting moment when Jenny Brockie gave Daniela Dawes, who murdered her autistic son, a warm welcoming smile. I used to have a huge amount of respect for the host of "Insight". I wouldn't give her the time of day now.
I'm disgusted that the murderer mother was one of the special guests on the show. I thought Dawes had the accent and demeanor of one of the more tough and hard members of the Australian working class. She reminded me of the toughie-girls who I had the misfortune to go to school with at a government high school, the ones who left in year 10 or earlier. I wouldn't trust her type any further than I could throw them.
Adult autistics were represented on the show, but none of them were people who I feel that I have much in common with. Donna Williams was a special guest. With the weird and wonderful assortment of mental illesses that she has, is she a typical and appropriate representative of adult high-functioning autistics in general? I don't think so.
There were two segments of pre-recorded documentary featuring adult autistics. One showed members of a social group for autistic adults in SA that was run by woman who I think was an NT social worker or something similar, who was gripeing about the lack of similar services blah blah blah, as social workers always do. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be seen dead at any social group or support group run by an NT or a social worker. One of the members of the group said something to the effect that if not for this group she wouldn't go out anywhere. I don't feel that she has a great deal in common with the many other aspies who have spouses, families and/or careers.
The other bit of documentary about an adult aspie featured a poor fellow in his 20s who hangs around comic-book shops and wears super hero costume gear in public. Though he was in fact in his 20s he referred to himself as a teenager. I got the impression that he had a tenuous grip on reality, which is in fact not a clinically-recognized feature of autism or AS.
Of course, as is obligatory in any media coverage of autism, there was a tearful American NT Mom who explained what a huge tragedy it was to have autistic children etc etc. Even though it was a show on Australian TV, there has to be a tearful American NT Mom setting the tone for every single media story about autism. It is an unwritten rule.
Ex-politician Tim Fischer, who has an autistic son, was on the show. Some aspies think he may have autistic traits himself.
The only person on the show who had anything very intelligent to say was the clinician who was the special guest (Dr John Wray?) who challenged the claims of the alternative medicine quacks and parents, and pointed out that the siblings of autistic kids are often "brilliant". It would have been too much to expect that a clinician would also admit that autistics themselves can be brilliant too.
Agree with most of that, although attacking someone for being working class is rather off balance and smacks of snobbery to my view.
On inviting a woman who murdered her child - well I've no time for the law-and-order view that demonises people who commit crimes anyway, and would have no problem if, for instance, a reformed or suspected gangster was invited on to a TV prog. I certainly think that people who have committed crimes should be subjected to tough questioning, and certainly agree that the sympathetic coverage given to this particular type of criminal, *which is denied to other criminals* is wrong. But I'd go the other way and ask why is it not recognised that criminals in general are people who have suffered themselves in the past? Most paedophiles for instance were abused as children. There was even the case of a man who was jailed for murdering several children - appalling crimes, that goes without saying. Turns out that he had been in the Falklands War, where as an orderly he spent most of his time sweeping up the bits of his dead dismembered comrades - an experience guaranteed to do appalling damage to anyone's psyche.
Donna Williams doesn't need to be representative; she is by far the most humane and eloquent writer on autism I've ever found. She may not be like many of us, but we should all be so lucky to be represented by her.
Fructose, your particular brand of logic must be different to mine. If Ms Williams isn't very representative in the sense of being pretty much the same as, or of the same philosophy as, the group to be represented, then I don't see how all the charm and eloquence solves that problem. The very idea of a charming and eloquent autistic is nonsense anyway. I'd rather be represented by a more abraisive or less cute person who at least raises issues that are important to me, even if they have to do it by typing text onto a screen live on TV. Anyway, who said only writers are eligible to represent minority groups?
Rocobley's point about regarding crims as people too has merit, but I object to crims gaining anything at all, celebrity, book royalties, appearance fees, from their crimes or their infamy. "Chopper" Reid (Australian murderer) is a blatant example of that kind of thing. Ms Dawes has at least won some celebrity and sympathy from her crime, and who knows what else in the future? If I ever see her going an any speaking tour I'll be there heckling.
The show will be repeated again on Monday afternoon.
Oh Lili, like you I remember the toughie girls of high school with fear and loathing! The green or blue frosted eyeshadow, the nicotine-stained teeth and fingers, the bleached hair with three inches of black roots, the fact that you couldn't go past their remedial reading classes in safety!
If it's snobbery to despise these interchangeable Kylies and Shenells who beat us up every day for the simple crime that we were smarter than them, then I'm a world-class snob.
However time has avenged me and other nerds who were tormented by these amoebas who swim in the shallow end of the human gene pool. My sister who still lives in the area we all grew up in keeps me informed, and the worst of those girls are: a) living in a caravan park, on welfare, with ten children all with different fathers; b) worked for the past three decades in the local canning fruit canning factory before being retrenched; c) dead of a drug overdose.
Time wounds all heels.
Alison
Lili, you have synaesthesia, autism and other problems. Donna Williams has her array of oddities. We all do. No one can represent more than a handful of us. I'm happy with Donna. If she's charming and cute, as you say, as well as humane and eloquent, then all the better. She's fiercely intelligent, that probably helps.
Angry people are ignored because they don't accept themselves. You can pidgeonhole them 'issues' and move on to the next speaker.
Fructose wrote
Lili, you have synaesthesia, autism and other problems.
I've read a great number of accounts of synaesthesia written by synaesthetes and highly qualified synaesthesia researchers, and it is the general consensus that for the majority of synaesthetes, syn is not a problem, disorder, hindrance, illness or disability, and there are many who find it can work as a memory aid or enhance creativity. For me it's just fun. It is not in the DSM and I don't believe it is possible to be diagnosed with syn.
No one can represent more than a handful of us.
But Ms Williams and Wendy Lawson do tend to be the only representatives of autistics at conferences and media events in Australia, and that's a very narrow representation.
Alison wrote
If it's snobbery to despise these interchangeable Kylies and Shenells who beat us up every day for the simple crime that we were smarter than them, then I'm a world-class snob.
Those Kerrys and Renaes and Sharons were *** shockers too! Do you think working class mothers deliberately choose names for their daughters that sound particularly terrible when pronounced with a strong Australian accent?
I don't think it would be a fault of Donna Williams'. She's doing her part and trying to represent us as much as possible. There aren't many others out there doing that, but is that her doing? Or the media? Or us just not getting out there and doing the conferences and writing the books and, as individuals, getting our voices heard?
We can certainly complain. But it's not really us who's out there doing the talks and seminars and writing all the books is it? And except for some, including Amy and Gareth and some others, most of our advocating is relegated to the internet. --Not saying we shouldn't advocate on the net, but it's not the only form of media and so only those on the net who frequent autistic sites are likely to hear of this advocacy.
It's hard to get a large group together to advocate at events and such because so many live all across the world and don't have the funds to fly to one place and another to protest or show their pride or speak out. Or they have families and children of their own who need them and they can't pack up and go go go every couple weeks or more.
It's a very problematic barrier that very few are able to get around. It seems Donna Williams is one of those few. And I'm grateful she's able to. And I hope with time, there'll be more of us out there speaking so that we can get a larger representative population in the public eye.
I think it's just laziness on the part of the journos and the media. I wouldn't be surprised if the more high-profile autistics are represented by writers' or speakers' agents.