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When you read this vile headline wording (actually, RFK "raised the profile of autism" like Hitler "raised the profile of Judaism')... Remember that Autism $peaks was founded by NBC executives. It's all connected.

Also, notice how they don't say "autistic people" or even "autistic children," but "of autism."

To allistics (non-autistics) or even autistics who have too much internalized ableism, you may not understand why this is an important detail. I'm autistic and a professional writer. I choose words very carefully for their impact on people. Autism is a noun, whereas autistic is an adjective...

Autism as a noun is possible to separate from autistic people linguistically. Adjectives can only be used to describe nouns. So autistic people confirms that being autistic is something within us, as people. Autism, especially in the kind of deliberately deceptive headline writing NBC loves...

Linguistically could be separated from us. "Raising the profile of autism" doesn't centre us as people. (Autistic can also be a noun. I'm an autistic. But autism can only ever be a noun.) I pick up on these linguistic subtleties very well. Some more observations of linguistic ableism...

"The autism community." Autistic people with lots of political activism experience know that in the ableist context we're in, this is another deliberately deceptive phrase. The single greatest problem us autistics face, by far, is non-autistics claiming to "speak" for us. "Voice for the voiceless"

"The autism community" in the context of this ableist world, implies non-autistic "autism experts" and non-autistic parents being placed front and centre. I assure you, the best representatives of autistic people #ActuallyAutistic people, and nonspeaking autistics can also communicate and...

represent themselves. Mainstream autism "treatment" actually often works hard to deliberately take communication away from nonspeaking autistics. For instance, very frequently, ABA (it's vile conversion "therapy" and the most mainstream autism "treatment") takes communication devices away...

from nonspeaking autistic children as punishment for "noncompliance." And of course, one of the most dangerous orgs to autistic people ever is called Autism Speaks, implying that we need them to speak for us. 🙃🙃🙃 I'm also incredibly disgusted by internalized ableism being common in autistic...

people. One of many examples, the tip of the iceberg... John Elder Robinson wrote one of the bestselling books about being autistic by an autistic person. Sounds great so far, eh? But the fucking internally ableist bootlicking brown noser was so sure...

that he could join the board of Autism Speaks, be their one token autistic board member, and reform Autism Speaks from within. As time went on, he eventually learned that all of his input was completely ignored. This is a lesson about power dynamics that must be extrapolated...

You absolutely cannot help marginalized people or otherwise make anything better by working inside the system, joining an evil organization. "Democracy" in every capitalist country is completely fake. A façade to trick you into thinking ordinary people can have nonviolent.. ivn.us/2015/05/07/v...

influence. To stop us from doing what is actually effective. Look up the Mao revolution, Cuban revolution, French revolution to learn how evil actually can be defeated. It's never ever from voting within the system designed by our evil overlords. This took me literal decades to learn, BTW...

From childhood until my late 30s, I really did believe that change could come from working within the system. For instance, I was 27 and an avid NDP volunteer when I was active in Occupy Toronto (Occupy Wall St.) in 2011. Not only did I volunteer for NDP campaigns (what a waste that was)...

but another goth chick fucking screamed at me when I advocated for working within the NDP. 🙃 It took me many, many years. It took me years and years of listening to marginalized people on social media, seeing EVERY. SINGLE. CANADIAN. POLITICIAN. throw us to the wolves in this...

CURRENTLY ONGOING Covid pandemic, watching the Ontario NDP say fuck you to autistic people who beg them to stop supporting the ABA lobby (big business torture of autistic kids), Alberta NDP say fuck you to Indigenous people for the oil industry...

BC NDP featuring Bonnie Henry, notable for her enthusiastically exposing children to Covid for nonconsensual scientific experimentation (I'm not making this up, there's official documentation)... South of the border, Obama lying about stopping Gitmo and bombing brown people...

Bernie Sanders being a fraud ("my friend Joe!" "Vote for Biden!' "Israel has a right to defend itself!') AOC being a fraud (no amount of pretending to be sad about Palestinians undoes voting to give Israel billions of dollars for more bombs)... Etc, etc, etc...

doing things we shouldn't detail on the public internet. On that note, it has been a conscious decision on my part to publicly acknowledge being autistic. Especially in a world where, after genociding Palestinians and trans people, we're next in line...

(I know very well that many autistic people are also trans, and there are definitely Palestinian trans autistics out there. My point is about the order of marginalized groups the fascists are exterminating.) I have some privileges...

I'm clearly white, and have an Anglo name. Especially when my respirator is off, I benefit from looksism. I'm a college professor. Sure, my school only pays me $4000 per year and I have zero tenure. But I email people with my academic email address for a reason. 🙃 Because you allistics...