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Why Autism Speaks doesn't Speak for People With Autism

Today is World Autism Awareness Day, in fact the whole month of April is Autism Awareness Month. I'm sure most people have seen the Autism Speaks' Light it up Blue campaign and I've seen lots of blue light bulbs and other Autism Speaks posts all over Social Media this week. As someone who is High functioning Autistic/Asperger's Syndrome, I just have to speak out against the Autism Speaks organization.

Why? I've been asked by Autism Speaks supporters, why can't I just agree to disagree with Autism Speaks. I've heard people say that Autism Speaks helps families dealing with Autism, or the lame, Autism Speaks does lots of good stuff so why shine a light on the bad things Autism Speaks does. So, here are some of the reasons why we shouldn't support Autism Speaks.

1. Misinformation ~ Autism Speaks hurts the Autistic Community by spreading misinformation and lies about Autism. Autism Speaks is responsible for most of the bad press and confusion about Autism. 
2. Behavior Modification ~ Autism Speaks promotes behavior modification instead of promoting Autism Acceptance. They advocate training Autistic children to behave more like non-Autistic children, which sends the message that there is something wrong with being Autistic. 
3. We are not an Epidemic ~ Autism Speaks considers Autism to be a disease of epidemic proportion that requires eradication of people with Autism.
4. We are not broken ~ Autism Speaks promotes the concept that Autistic people are broken and need to be fixed. 
5. Fear ~ Autism Speaks uses fear tactics to raise money for their research agenda. They promote concepts that spread fear and panic like claiming vaccinations, gluten, chemtrails, etc...cause Autism even though all of those theories have been debunked and proven wrong. 
6. Disregard of Autistic Adults ~ Autism Speaks has no Autistic Adults on their board. They refuse to listen to the perspective of actual Autistic people.
7. Eugenics ~ Autism Speaks spends millions of dollars that were donated by people to help Autistic people, on Eugenics. Their Autism research consists of trying to identify the Autism genetic marker so pregnant women can be tested to find out if their fetus is Autistic before it is born. The purpose of this test would be to be used much like the test for Down Syndrome, so the parents of the Autistic fetus can abort fetuses with Autism.
8. Genocide ~ Autism Speaks' concept of a "cure" for Autism is to abort Autistic fetuses. This is an act of genocide against all Autistic people. Autism Speaks want to cure us into extinction.

Autism Speaks does not speak for Autistic people. We are not broken, so we don't need to be fixed. We are not a disease or epidemic, so we don't need to be cured. What we do need is acceptance and support. We need to get real Autism information and facts out to promote awareness. We need more programs and help available for Autistic Adults, because Autistic children eventually grow up and become Autistic Adults. We need people to accept us the way we are, quirks and differences and all, instead of trying to force us to be more like non-Autistic people.

Hopefully this will help people see why Autistic people don't support Autism Speaks and why supporting Autism Speaks hurts people living with Autism.

The Shame Of Poverty

Like being low income or poor isn't hard enough, people struggling financially also have to deal with a Society that blames the poor for being poor. Every day the Media, Conservative Politicians and Conservatives spew a non-stop litany of derogatory comments about poor people.

The poor are called lazy, parasites, welfare Queens and told to get a job, stop asking for handouts, pull up their bootstraps, whatever that means when you can't even afford boots. Right now, today in the United States there are over 50 Million households on food stamps. More than 80% of those households have at least one adult working at a minimum wage or low wage job. A large chunk of those 50 Million on food stamps are Military families.

Over 60% of homeless people in the United States right now have jobs, yet there are 6 empty houses/apartments for every one homeless person in America.

Those statistic of course don't even include the Millions of Americans who are struggling financially but are too ashamed to ask for help or apply for aid. Food Shelves across the Nation have reported an over 200% increase in people requesting aid.

I personally have never been rich, I was raised in a working poor family and was among the working poor most of my adult life. I have a good education, a handful of degrees and a ton of job experience, yet all it took was a string of bad luck when the recession hit to take me from being a working poor person who owned a home, a couple of cars, etc...to someone trying to survive on less than $9,000 a year from Social Security. I lost my job in the beginning of 2008, and discovered quickly that age discrimination is alive and well in the US. Oh, they don't come right out and say that you are too old, no they use euphemisms like 'over-qualified' but we all know it means too old.

A divorce and health problems along with not being able to find work, and not for lack of trying, left me homeless and sucked into a cycle of poverty that is very hard to just pull you bootstraps up to get out of. A lot of the people living in poverty in the United States are Seniors and disabled people, people who worked hard their whole lives only to end up struggling in what was supposed to be their golden years thanks to a Social Security system that didn't keep up to inflation and today's cost of living.

The United States government's formula for calculating poverty has not changed in decades. In the early 1980's poverty level for a family of 4 was just over $24,000 a year...the poverty level for a family of 4 today, in 2014 is still just over $24,000 a year. Yet, the price of everything else, rent, utilities, food, gas, etc... has gone up more than 200%.

I could quote statistic and facts all day long though and it still wouldn't convince the jerks who try to shame the poor, that it isn't poor people's fault that they are poor. They will still claim that people are living high on the hog off welfare and food stamps, even though the actual fact is that welfare fraud is at less than 1%

There will still be morons telling the poor to get a GED, even though more than 40% of people in poverty have college degrees. They will still tell poor people to get a job, even though most people in poverty are working at least one job and many are working 2 or more jobs. They will still tell working poor people that they just aren't working hard enough, even though most low wage jobs are much more labor intensive than higher paying jobs.

The suicide rate of people between the ages of 40-65 has quadrupled since 2008 because so many older workers are finding themselves among the long term unemployed. These are people who spent 30 years working in factories or on assembly lines and lost their jobs and pensions thanks to corporate loopholes, deregulation and union busting that led to thousands of companies moving their factories to third world Countries. These workers have had to cash out their 401k's and retirement funds to survive long term unemployment. They've lost their homes to foreclosure and are now paying higher rents than their mortgage was. They choose suicide because they don't want to be a burden on their adult children, because they feel ashamed for being poor even though it is in no way their fault that they are struggling.

Everybody has a story and you don't know what the homeless guy on the corner has struggled with. You don't know what the single Mom has survived. You don't know what the elderly lady digging through the dumpster has gone through. They do have one thing in common though, they don't need someone shaming them just because they are struggling financially.