Many people
know that April is Autism ‘Awareness’ Month (or Bewareness month as some
autistic people call it). The specific
day set aside by the United Nations for World Autism Awareness Day is April 2.
Most people who follow autistic bloggers and/or are friends with
autistic people know that most of us don’t like Autism Awareness Month. Side note- I don’t presume to talk for every
autistic person. My opinions are mine
and based on what I see in the communities.
Autism
‘Awareness’ Month is a time where organizations and groups, especially the big
one A$, fund raise. A big part of the way
that they fund raise is by scaring people; telling the public that we are an
epidemic; turning us into a list of symptoms; by saying how hard it is for our
families and caregivers to take care of us.
In 2011,
Paula Durbin Westby started Autism Acceptance Month (Click here for some background) as a response to
Autism ‘Awareness’ Month. It is a
day/month about us as opposed to non-autistic caregivers and parents. We can talk about our autism, both the good
and the bad parts, and celebrate it and each other. It is a way of respecting autistic people and
our contributions as humans.
If we do get included, it is only autistic people who see things exactly the
way the organization does (mainly because they don’t know that there is a whole
autistic community out there and they can just be themselves instead of having
to mask who they really are. That is how they were brought up and the message in the media). Also, if we are included, we are talked over and not listened to anyway. I don’t
see acceptance in that. Where is our
input? If it is about us, then our input
is the most important piece.
If
non-autistic people were listening to autistic people, then they would not just
take our words to use. They would not
need their ‘awareness’ campaigns to know we exist. They already know we exist, so do they really
need to remind each other every year? If
they were truly listening, there would be action. There would be change in how we are
treated. We would be listened to. We would be respected and treated as
human. We would be
accepted.
photo says accept |
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