This op-ed was published in the Sunday, April 7 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s written by Selene dePackh, who is an artist and writer. She’s also autistic.
dePakh’s op-ed describes the reality that many of us are all too aware of, but sharing it with a broad audience. For whatever reason, the online comments have been mostly positive – giving the appearance that the usual online trolls have taken a holiday.
This is well worth a read, even if you think you’re already familiar with the hatred and hostility that exists toward autistic people and others with developmental disabilities. Below are the introductory paragraphs to “They want us to die: You wouldn’t believe how many people hate those of us with autism“:
The adult autistic community dreads the cerulean lights of April. Another crop of anti-autistic hate sites will appear, invigorated by the artificial sunshine of that cruel spotlight. The pastel blue of Autism Awareness Month will be everywhere, together with the jigsaw piece that demeans us to the core. We aren’t fragmented puzzles; we experience ourselves as complete humans; we’re capable of empathy, despite that terrible prejudice perpetuated by some diagnosticians. We do communicate, even if it takes a receptive, unbiased ear to hear us.
Only hours after the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary, the shooter was fingered as autistic; the hate machine hit high gear. The bigotry was fanned by media outlets driven to find simple answers for a shatteringly complex event. My circle of online activists began tracking down and reporting the worst of the pages that appear every time attention is focused on us. Many hide under innocuous-sounding names like “A Cure for Autism.” The first toadstool rising from the rain of hysteria following the Newtown tragedy hid under a “solution to protect our families” identity. The single post announced:
Once we hit 50 likes, we are going to go out and find an autistic kid and set it on fire.
There’s more – more about the damage “awareness” without acceptance does, the importance of who gets to speak, and yeah – more evidence of the hatred that permeates society.
I was not able to navigate the comment page on the newspaper website where Selene dePackh had her OpEd, which I read. Something about giving permission for my email contacts was repulsive and I’m too ill to “do” Facebook (CFS/ME – and I’ll keep saying the illness because it’s “dissed” and trivilaized).
I liked her article and hope she comes here and learns of it.
When there was speculation that the young man who did the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School might be autistic, I wrote and then did art, with the subtitle, “People who are different, beware, we are considered SUSPECT!”.