Allow me my rage a moment. If you can't handle a disclaimer free post in which I tell you that my rage doesn't apply to you, if you need handholding and cuddles, go find a different post. This one is not for you.
I fucking hate autism parents, I fucking hate autism professionals, and I fucking hate every media outlet that provides them a platform for their dehumanizing tales of self-pity and woe.
I don't give a flying fuck how different your kid is from what you wanted. The kid you have didn't steal your dreambaby in the night to make you miserable. The kid you have is yours, a real person, not just a pile of deficits and fuel for your cries of poor me.
Your moaning and dehumanizing has consequences. Your pity parties legitimize murder, forfuckssake. Every time you people go tell a reporter that your child is a curse, you totes understand why people snap and murder their autistic family members, you are adding to a culture that devalues our lives and denies our humanity. You are contributing to a society where you are a martyr when you kill one of us.
In what universe is that acceptable?
And shame-no, I need a stronger word but I do not know one-shame on each and every reporter who pitches a pity and woe story, shame on every editor that salivates over it, and shame on every godsdamned news outlet that publishes it. You fuckers are partially culpable in every murder of an autistic since "autism" was a word people know. You fuckers are the reasons that our dead never see justice. You are fucking scum. You spread horror and despondency about our lives, and you make our murderers out to be the good guys. People are not supposed to sympathize with murderers! You are sacks of shit because you convince them to go against thousands of years of evolution and do so. You convince them that empathizing with our killers is the right thing to do. How do you fuckers even live with yourselves?
You are why I am so angry. If you people, people who have a responsibility to us and to accuracy, cannot even manage to not paint us as less-than, cannot manage to scrape together enough collective decency to say "that shit is not ok" when one of us is murdered, what the fuck can I expect from the rest of the world? If you are going to glorify our abusers and murderers, the only healthy response for me is wrath. I have to be angry, enraged, because you won't do it. My people are being slaughtered. Anger and hate is how people are supposed to respond to that.
I hate because my wrath and disgust is long overdue, and nowhere near as strong as you deserve.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThis is everything I've ever wanted to articulate. This post is golden.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for specifically NOT pulling your punches, not diluting your message with "oh, I'm not talking about you, dear reader, I'm talking about those hypothetical straw men over there" disclaimers.
There's going to be an AASCEND meeting this Saturday in SF to discuss politics and can't we all just get along. From my knowledge of the Board members, even the Autistic ones, I'm sure they'll go all Buddhist on us and insist that we are not nice people if we don't accept everyone's flaws.
Thank you for giving me the courage to stand up for my convictions. (I hope it works that way... a whole room of people staring at me can be pretty intimidating.)
http://www.aascend.org/
Coincidentally, that's the morning after the candlelight vigil in Sunnyvale for murdered autistic George Hodgins.
https://www.facebook.com/messages/540163916#!/events/199680943470301/
I wanted to say (Yes it's not directly in sesponse to the post), to tell you I'm really impressed of your courage, in the comments of this horrible comment thread of this even more horrible "discussion" on this canadian thing... I couldn't even put me to read the discussion and the comments, I only read the comments of the people I knew were on my side, because the only others comments I accidently saw filled me with Rage. So I read your comments and appreciated very much your presence there... This thing is just so wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe only appropriate response to murder is rage.
ReplyDeleteYes.
You are correct sir. Much appreciated commentary. I am also tired of hearing about all this pity for murderers and that includes the psychopath who murdered 17 people in Afghanistan, and all these "mothers" who get away with murder because of bullshit 'psychiatric' reasons....when you kill your kids because "THEY" have 'conditions' you get to get away with murder because of 'your condition?' What the fuck is that?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am not a sir.
ReplyDeleteSecond, this is not the place for psychobigotry. Parents who get away with killing us by and large are not mentally ill, and even if they were, "killing your child" is not a symptom of mental illness. Stigma stops here, folks.
'I fucking hate autism parents, I fucking hate autism professionals, and I fucking hate every media outlet that provides them a platform for their dehumanizing tales of self-pity and woe.
ReplyDeleteI don't give a flying fuck how different your kid is from what you wanted. The kid you have didn't steal your dreambaby in the night to make you miserable. The kid you have is yours, a real person, not just a pile of deficits and fuel for your cries of poor me."
Great lines.
All of this. So hard. Thank you for your rage.
ReplyDelete