Aspies For Freedom

Excellent.

Great article!  Thanks for posting it.

Joe, I think that when the history of the autism rights movement is written, your protest at the NAAR march is going to be like Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus.  It really seems to have gotten the media's attention.  

It is almost embarassing to reply since i think you ar4e somewhat serious. I thank you for your kind comments.
I looked at  the Autism rights movement in the wikipedia.

can you put a mini history there?
like

1993  jim sinclair dont mourn for us

2004  protest

lol

I've noticed something very interesting, we all made positive comments about the article that started this thread, I posted it to another forum and said that I thought it was good, and asked for their opinions.
What was the response? No-one has liked it :shock: Very surprising to have such polarised opinions.

Yes, I meant it seriously.  When I first became aware of my AS last year, just about everything I saw on the Internet was so appallingly negative that I felt like a Jew passing for a Gentile in Nazi Germany.  If I hadn't found Aspergia, I probably would have resigned myself to the necessity of staying "in the closet" for the rest of my life.

When I was looking for autistic pride and civil rights links a few months ago, there was almost nothing out there, a handful of websites, a few lonely voices howling in the wilderness.  There were very few entries under "neurodiversity" in Google.

I looked again today, and Google was showing almost 5,000 entries under "neurodiversity."  Apparently much of the discussion is a result of the NY Times article, and your protest seems to have been a significant part of the impetus for that article, so I honestly do think you deserve some mention in history.

Don't laugh, it sounds like a good idea to me!  In order to put the history in context on a broader timeline, it should also include the dates relevant to social prejudice against autistics over the past century (influential psychological treatises published, institutionalization and separate schools becoming commonplace, ABA developed, autism classified as a psychological disorder, etc.)

Of course, there have been a number of other articles, groups, and websites in addition to Jim Sinclair's article that have had significant impact and should be mentioned.  Autism Network International (1992).  Autistics.org (1999).  Aspergia (2002).  AFF, naturally.  Michelle Dawson's advocacy.  Martijn Dekker's paper on emerging autistic culture (anybody know when he wrote it?  1998 or thereabouts, I think).

I'm sure I must be leaving out quite a lot -- anyone else want to suggest useful historical information?

It would be great to write about how our culture has evolved, I mentioned it on the minority thread, we could write such an essay and put it on the autism wiki and wikipedia.

Just one year after I mentioned in this thread that Google had about 5,000 entries on neurodiversity, the number has risen to 60,000.   :smile:

:happyjump:  :happyjump:  :happyjump:  :happyjump:

YAY!

Great article!!

But only 95 or so of them are from Australian sites. I really do live in the arse-end of the world, a backwater full of mediocre fish in a small pond, run by corrupt people and their mates, where the is no competition between media outlets and the one daily newspaper is a mouthpiece of the upper classes and business interests, where the popular understanding of autism hasn't progressed much beyond "Rain Man" and stupid housewives try to alter the way their children's brains operate with wacky diets and quack "cures" from America.

I don't doubt that it might be true that NT cities are very backward places, but I wonder if these cities have as much inequality of social power and separation between the classes as the Australian city where I live? In our city members of the genuine upper class only live within a small number of suburbs, and they have a completely different accent than everyone else in the city. It is more like an English accent than an Australian one. I remember the last time that I had an operation, and I was fascinated by the anaesthetist's accent, the kind that can only be found within a handful of Australian postcodes.

In Australia there are deep divisions between classes, beliefs, ethnic groups, generations and neurotypes, in my opinion. Don't expect me to be waving any friggin' flags on the 26th of January!

Yes, there is a phrase that describes that Australian attitude; "I'm alright Jack, bugger you!"

Can you explain what is causing this increase, Bonnie? Is it your cunning scheme working as planned?

I've got to say, I really love the term "neurodiversity", despite the identity of the person who is thought to have invented the word. It is a smart idea expressed in a simple, clear way.

Bonnie, your post is a reminder to me that some of the most effective agents in our cause are neurotypical people. Perhaps there is some hope that others of their kind will be able to understand our point of view.

I guess there are much more dangerous and poverty-stricken countries in the world than Australia, but there are still plenty of horrors to be found here if you look beyond the shopping malls and fast-food strips. Other countries have atrocities because people get organised and make trouble, but here the horrors are the fruits of neglect and incompetance (such as three-year old kids with VD in outback communities). Every day I deal with people being paid reasonable money to do a half-arsed job, and I think nothing too bad could happen here because it just couldn't be organised.