Exclusive: First Autistic Presidential Appointee Speaks Out

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When Ari Ne’eman walked onstage at a college campus in Pennsylvania in June, he looked like a handsome young rabbi presiding over the bar mitzvah of a young Talmudic scholar.

In truth, Ne’eman was facilitating a different kind of coming-of-age ceremony. Beckoning a group of teenagers to walk through a gateway symbolizing their transition into adult life, he said, “I welcome you as members of the autistic community.” The setting was an annual gathering called Autreat, organized by an autistic self-help group called Autism Network International:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... n-qa/all/1

What a nice and interesting article. I have had my reservations about Ari but this article answers quite a few of them. I wish him success in his position.

Awesome

Horay for Ari!

Thanks for the post to the article. That was really good.

Good read, but some of the comments are just downright appalling.

This section from TVTropes comes to mind:

Christschool has an interesting view on ASAN, claiming ASAN is not doing enough against Judge Rotenberg Center:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoUgeHgXk4E[/youtube]
I think Christschool may have a point here. How can ASAN, and the neurodiversity community as a whole, be so quiet about Judge Rotenberg Center? Surely we should be making more noise about it?
What do you think?

Thanks for posting this article. I've always thought Ari was smart for learning from the broader disability rights movement and letting it inform the work he's doing. And, when you put some of his beliefs and statements in the context of the history of the disability rights movement as a whole, he really is not nearly as 'extreme' as some people seem to think.

I read about this on another forum. The response from some of the members was quite shocking, they basically want to cure us, etc and don't like the idea of autistic people having a "culture". Also, apparantly some people aren't happy that a dirty autistic person has such an important job...

This was on the mainstream media on CNN today! f**k YEAH I went on this forum just to see how youse ook it/if you saw it

Posting here as well to get discussion!
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... n-qa/all/1

didn't he post on here before?

I found this article on a TV Tropes thread and I saw the CNN segment. I thought it was really good, though the comments at the bottom are nasty.