Aspie 14 year old selfie stick bullying film

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http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/28/teenager-with-autism-films-heart-breaking-bullying-video-using-selfie-stick-5531156/

I guess this is good in some ways, but I think we need to move on from the "pity us" stage.

Doesn't appear the theme is 'pity us' to me, seems more like attempting to raise awareness.

Autism awareness is so passe. What we should be agitating for is respect.

Respect begins with awareness.

Awareness on it's own rarely becomes respect.

No but it must begin with awareness because it's too easy for people to turn a blind eye to those whose struggle they do not see or understand.

Stuff like this usually has to take the following path:

Struggle => Awareness of struggle => sympathy for the victim in their struggle => respect of the struggle itself => respect of those going through the struggle => (and rarely after all of that) helping the one in need.

There hasn't been a movement for help in history that didn't start with showing people the daily struggles of the individuals who suffer.

Need to change the conventional wisdom away from the problem causing the bullying is Autism.

I'd dispute that, and when it comes to autism, there is a complicating factor.

People could look at the struggle that autistic people go through, and conclude: What a terrible disease, we must get rid of it like nobody else has to suffer.

So they donate money to Autism Speaks, which invests in more research in the genetic causes of Autism, which leads to autistic babies being aborted, and autistic people going extinct. Applauded along the way by people who think they are compassionate and progressive.

Pity can kill.

Remember that most hate-crime laws include the protection against crimes based on ... disability. Combined with governmental-service, educational, housing and workplace laws, there is an abundance of protection against treating autistic people differently than others.

Take down a government agency, school, landowner or business, lawfully, and watch how fast public opinion changes. Every status-related demographic which now enjoys (almost) total protection has developed as a result of standing up to discrimination.

Emotional marketing does good, but only so much. Losing cash and respect as a result of bad laws and policies causes the losers to experience the legal terminology known as a "come to Jesus moment."

Cost the bad guys cash and respect; the rest will happen naturally.

Except that doesn't actually break the progression I put up. "help" is a very subjective term, what one person might consider help, another would consider an insult and attack, but the definition as defined by the individual doesn't mean the method at arriving at that point is different.

I try and post both negative and positive articles.

Posting only the negative only validates the idea that the world is hopelessly hostile to us and/or our autism is only curse. There are people here who desperatly need to see examples of successful autistics and supportive and understing NT's

Posting only the positive is something that backfires. For people are depressed and suicidal thier self esteem will only get worse. Their negative experiences will be invalidated as they conclude they must be even more broken than they thought because even other autistics are better then them.

Well that video certainly wears its heart on its sleeve.

The answer is of acceptance must lie in the language that we use

"Social" has to become a bi-word for unscientific, for illogical.

Those within the autistic spectrum have the greatest scientific opportunity.

To define what human beings actually are.