...now it just feels like baiting. [Julian]

[amorpha]

...and now it's back up with new managements and some incredibly empty-seeming talk about needing to create a sense of community. (If you were really interested in valuing our voices as much as yours, you would probably have noticed that empty-sounding feel-good talk is not a good way to score points with autistics. Not just because most of us don't like to have much to do with empty social politenesses, but because marginalized groups in general, once they become aware of their place in power interactions, will learn sooner or later to identify and see through the many forms of BS and word-trickery used to oppress them. Even when they can't safely speak out about it.)

The fact remains that if they had taken the autistic voices amongst them more seriously, and/or regarded misogyny and transphobia as genuine problems worth being concerned about, he would have been called on his crap long ago. If they had been monitoring their blogs for the "quality" they claimed to look for, not to mention the "ethics and reality," they would have caught him, and some others as well.

I'm also left with a nagging curiosity about whether his and others' hateful statements were glossed over because someone was thinking "oh, well, They can't help it; They can't help how They express themselves." Expecting less of autistic bloggers than of non-autistic bloggers, in other words, when it comes to not being prejudiced jerks-- as if there weren't a difference between being direct and being a jerk.

Which is, in the end, also what underlies a lot of the hate that gets thrown at people outing themselves as autistic in majority space-- the idea that "you're just going to use it as an excuse to be rude." Particularly at people who mention it by way of trying to explain that there is no way for them to efficiently communicate apart from being very direct.

But in any case, it led directly to their allowing autistic bloggers to say things that would likely have caused at least minor outcries, had they been done by parent or "science" bloggers (the quotations there because their definitions of "science" seem quite narrow and widgety, and sometimes to have little to do with science at all).

Then again, parent bloggers on a blog hub supposedly dedicated to "ethics" can get away with talking about doing things to their children that trigger me into an incoherent rage, all in the name of "treatment" and "intervention." Ignoring the number of autistic bloggers who have raised the issue, again and again, of how ethical these "treatments" actually are. Still, I don't think the parent bloggers would have gotten away with using their blogs to spout jackassery and prejudice and hate directed at women and trans people, or against gay people and non-Christians.

Anyway. None of us know any of the people involved here, but "Let's all thank this wonderful person for giving so much to our community" is guaranteed to make us twitch. "Our" community-- who is "ours" here? I'm quite certain that I am not part of it. This is not my community. This is a community that has persistently ignored voices like mine, ignored what we said allies ought to do and prioritize (and when told they were ignoring it, would sometimes go into tantrums of "Well, I don't know what to do! You have to educate me about how to be a better ally!"), which has repeatedly tried to justify doing things to their children that many of us have talked about being harmed by. Because apparently as long as you're not with the anti-vaccine people, a wide range of manipulation, dehumanization and unnecessary "therapies" is all right.

I don't know, I've been getting a bit cynical about the use and purpose of most attempts to gather "diverse perspectives" on autism and autistics' experiences, from much of what I've seen. I think a certain amount of it is ideology-stuff getting in the way. I've seen plenty of instances where someone who had a favourite widget of "science" or "diversity" went on to be perfectly okay with linking or posting things that were everything from really out-there to utterly offensive, as long as they were using the right language set. There's a difference between having a group of posters with a reasonable, normal variety of views, beliefs and experiences, and things like allowing people a platform for the posting of biodeterminist racist bullshit which is glossed over with scientific-sounding language and weasel words about "diversity."

And regarding claims that "we can't monitor every post"... it somehow finally triggered in our head tonight that what those reminded us of, again, was bullies. Being told by teachers and school administrators "we can't follow you and protect you everywhere; you have to learn to deal with these situations yourself" when we managed to swallow our fear and tried to beg them to intervene. Which translated, apparently, into watching us get bullied and assaulted, in small-scale situations where they could easily have called the bullies off, and doing nothing. But even if it's not going on right under your nose, there's no excuse. In fact, if it's not out in the open, you have even less of an excuse, because the bullies who learn to hide their actions or make them covert can be the most malicious of all.

There's also something about it, or the way it gets said, or something, that puts me distinctly in mind of "well, you have to educate me about these matters! How will I ever learn what to do with People Like You if you don't educate me?"

I don't have answers. I've just been-- we all have been-- growing more and more cynical over the past year about attempts to "unite the autistic community," because so many seem to translate into either non-autistics' voices being privileged over autistics' voices, or autistic-only communities in which some people are openly allowed to spew prejudice and bully others on account of all the things we mentioned in our last post.

Comments

[astrophe]

Replied here.

[polemista]

"Expecting less of autistic bloggers..."

Yes, THIS!!!
This is so much what annoyed me about the Hub.
It's well meant but ill-advised in its "but they're autistic, therefore we must let them speak or we oppress them" as if autistics couldn't be oppressive themselves.

Great post this.

[urocyon]

Some excellent points, just from what I've observed from a distance.

Then again, parent bloggers on a blog hub supposedly dedicated to "ethics" can get away with talking about doing things to their children that trigger me into an incoherent rage, all in the name of "treatment" and "intervention."

Oh my, yes. This is one of the things which made me want to keep my distance. (I wrote a little more about that here.) There have been just about too many displays of disrespect to count, even from a distance.

as long as they were using the right language set. There's a difference between having a group of posters with a reasonable, normal variety of views, beliefs and experiences, and things like allowing people a platform for the posting of biodeterminist racist bullshit which is glossed over with scientific-sounding language and weasel words about "diversity."

Exactly. :-| I had managed not to see the blog you linked to there. Oh my. Just reading through the lovely Creoles, Aboriginal Identity and Autism just about made my head explode. (Or maybe that's just being some kind of throwback to a more primitive kind of human making me so cranky. Gee, that blogger is onto me!) And I thought some of the parent blogs were full of nastiness covered up in the "right" language. Apparently, if you make a show of talking about "diversity", you can say any kind of hateful crap you like.

From polemista:
It's well meant but ill-advised in its "but they're autistic, therefore we must let them speak or we oppress them" as if autistics couldn't be oppressive themselves.

Yep. I hadn't quite put the words on that dynamic, but that's a really good description of some of the condescending BS! Gah.