Sometimes…
Sometimes I really don’t know what to think or say whenever someone says something like, “even an autistic child feels that way, just like you or I.” Great Ghu, talk about objectifying a whole group of people, most likely including their kid. It really pisses me off when they have some sort of professional creds.
“Wow, do they really feel things? Even like emotions?” (/explitive deleted)
Actually, I have some really strong ideas about what to say or do when this happens. Legions of NT authority figures, however, have schooled me that many of those responses are ‘not appropriate.’ Heh. Now that I’m (more or less) an adult and definitely a father, I understand…
I don’t necessarily accept, but I do understand. I’m not sure that I can ever make it clear to them that I deeply understand how an autistic child feels, but that I have absolutely no idea what they are referring to with this ‘just like you or I’ crap. NTs can be unfathomable sometimes.
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June 9th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
It’s exactly the same sort of bigotry that was found in books and news articles a century ago, where the authors often referred to “white people like us.”
I wrote a post yesterday suggesting that we (autistics and parents) boycott all professionals who use ignorant language when discussing autistic people.