Note For Anyone Writing About Me

Guide to Writing About Me

I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.

I don't like Autism Speaks. I'm Disabled, not differently abled, and I am an Autistic activist. Self-advocate is true, but incomplete.

Citing My Posts

MLA: Zisk, Alyssa Hillary. "Post Title." Yes, That Too. Day Month Year of post. Web. Day Month Year of retrieval.

APA: Zisk, A. H. (Year Month Day of post.) Post Title. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/post-specific-URL.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Night of Too Many Stars

No, I'm not watching it. (Or I didn't watch it? Apparently it will have ended by the time this posts.)
I know what it is.
It's a night when lots of stars will go on stage. They will raise money for an autism group that isn't actually Autism $peaks, but does work closely with them. This group doesn't listen to autistic people either.
They might get another couple autistic kids on stage with them, but these autistic children will all be cute little kids.
They will talk about curing these kids of the way their brain is wired.
They will talk about wishing autism did not exist. That's highly problematic. I talked about it in what will be tomorrows post. Suffice it to say that wishing for autism not to exist is wishing for a whole bunch of people not to exist and ignoring the desires of quite a few autistic people.
Basically, this covers it:































(Image is the Brace Yourselves meme. Says “Brace yourselves, the inspirational porn and curebies are coming.”)
So, have some explanations of why that is accurate:
"Inspiration porn" is kind of insulting to actual porn, which, while the industry surrounding it is messed up, I don't have a moral issue with it as long as the people pictured within have consented to being so pictured and no monogamy issues are coming up because of it. Inspiration porn, however, is a problem.
Basically, it's when someone without a disability uses a picture of a person with a disability doing something that's usually pretty normal and captions it with something about how inspirational it is that this person with a disability can live their life (not really the point of living our lives, and makes us feel obligated to be inspiring all the time) or talking about how the only disability in life is a bad attitude (blatantly false and very shaming to people who actually have disabilities, especially invisible/hidden/unnoticed ones.) The problem is not with going "oh, hey, this person with a disability is doing something cool." The problem is with the ways that the perspective on disability that it supports is problematic. Very problematic.
"Curebies" are a (derogative) term for the people who love their autistic (insert relation here) oh so much just the way they are and think they are perfect, but talk loudly in the same post about how they want to cure autism and how they wish autism didn't exist. Cureby also tend to invoke functioning arguments when autistic people state that they do not wish to be cured, generally also ignoring statements that contradict the idea that these autistic people are the stereotypical high functioning blogger. And, of course, these are the people who support Autism $peaks. That person who Neurodivergent K had her wonderful (sarcasm, by the way) experience with while protesting at an Autism $peaks walk was almost certainly a cureby. Curebies and autistic people who do not personally wish to be cured tend not to get along.
And with the Night of Too Many Stars having just played and apparently airing again several times from now until Wednesday, there will probably be many, many posts that are one or both of those two things in the autism tag on Tumblr, where I found this. There have already been a lot because Katy Perry sang with an autistic 11 year old girl before the main event and will apparently be doing so again. Since plenty of actually autistic people call out people who post problematic stuff in the autism tag (one of the few tags where people can "tag their hate" and somehow think they won't get called out for it,) there is now a Brace Yourself meme for it. I did not create it. Tee-m-kris did.

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