Autistic Hedgehog

There’s actually a blog called Allism Speaks on tumblr which parodies Autism $peaks in such a way. A video of that nature could definitely be amusing, though it would, sadly, be overrun with allistics who don’t get the joke. 

I know this sort of thing can be difficult, but no matter what, it’s always best to be informed about the realities of any charity organization. Something that appears on the surface to be good may not be so when examined from another angle. No one should remain silent in cases like those. Especially when it’s so hard to get people to listen in the first place. Every voice is valuable when it comes to shutting down horrible organizations like Autism Speaks. 

If you want to intervene, you will face opposition and you may not succeed. But if you change even one mind, you’ve achieved something, which is very important to remember. Start by getting as well informed as you can about why Autism Speaks is so bad. This post is an excellent place to begin in that respect, and even lists alternate and preferable charities. Ask for permission to print out this information to pass around, or email links to the people involved in raising money at your school. 

A very important thing to remember: Autism Speaks feeds on the same fears that anti-vaxxers and alt-med gurus do. They target parents who were given no hope by the psychologists and psychiatrists involved in diagnosing their child, parents who have to fight with crappy systems that refuse to provide what their children actually need, and with an overall field that is still very uneducated and incompetent when it comes to understanding autism. 

This makes it much easier for them to paint autistics as a burden, as a problem that needs curing, when its society that needs curing. It’s society that makes things burdensome with its inflexibility, it’s lack of compassion, its strict adherence to “normalcy.” Find information and a charity, if you can, that works to combat those problems by changing society rather than changing us, is what I guess I’m getting at. 

Autism Speaks is big, loud, and well-funded and that gives it a huge advantage and allows it to manipulate situations to fit its needs. Even making small inroads against it is beyond valuable.