William Shatner in twitter war with ND advocates

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ASPartOfMe
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05 Apr 2017, 12:51 am

https://heatst.com/culture-wars/william-shatner-under-fire-for-spreading-autism-awareness/

Quote:

Earlier this week, the White House and autism organizations around the world celebrated the 10th annual World Autism Awareness Day. Actor William Shatner, best known for his role in Star Trek, changed his profile icon and tweeted his support into the related hashtag to draw awareness to the disability. Today, he was inundated with outrage from social justice warriors likened his support for autism awareness to hate speech. They further expressed their anger towards organizations like Autism Speaks, which sponsored the event.

Shatner fielded a host of complaints from critics who demanded he preach “autism acceptance” rather than awareness—some of whom made it a crusade to dedicate themselves against Autism Speaks. He was linked to an article on Forbes decrying awareness for the disability. The hysterical article based most, if not all, of its criticism towards the organization on its founder’s longtime personal friendship with President Trump.

Having read the article, Shatner rejected the arguments and addressed his critics, including the founder of an organization called the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, which released a statement condemning the White House for its autism awareness proclamation.

“Instead of being the social warrior fighting against a charity; find an organization you do align with and become their advocate,” he tweeted. “I supported an awareness day hashtag that appears to be scorned by a group that doesn’t want awareness.”

His critics demanded an apology from him for supporting the hashtag and started one of their own called #notmycaptain to condemn him for his supposed “ignorance.”
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“They apparently don’t want awareness so they attack (under the guise of educating) those that supported the awareness day,” wrote Shatner.

His twitter war with ASAN is ongoing as I type this

It's what happened the other day with the founder of ASAN; he decided to play victim & tweeted that I was yelling @
I've blocked him. He's playing victim. twitter.com/spcwrite

This is the guy who missed Leonard Nimoy's funeral.

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Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 05 Apr 2017, 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Shahunshah
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05 Apr 2017, 1:05 am

Seems dumb William Shatner was just expressing his opinion. What is the problem with that?

Jono
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05 Apr 2017, 4:15 am

Is this really productive? William Shatner at least believed he was supporting a good cause, now instead of having him informed of the ND perspective, we've gotten his back up towards it.

mr_bigmouth_502
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05 Apr 2017, 4:29 am

Shatner, dude, I thought you were better than this. Seriously though, for uninformed NTs, Auti$m $peak$ is a pretty seductive cause.

One thing I will say; I support a cure for autism, but only if taking it is entirely voluntary. I'd take the cure, but I know a lot of other people wouldn't.

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SharkSandwich211
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05 Apr 2017, 8:57 am

I'm confused... how does Autism Self Advocacy Network fit into all of this? Are they bashing Shatner because he is supporting an awareness hashtag???

ASPartOfMe
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05 Apr 2017, 9:53 am

SharkSandwich211 wrote:

I'm confused... how does Autism Self Advocacy Network fit into all of this? Are they bashing Shatner because he is supporting an awareness hashtag???

Because World Autism Awareness Day is associated with Autism Speaks and they very much dislike Autism Speaks. Actually, the United Nations passed a resolution back in 2006 proclaiming April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day but Autism Speaks hijacked it with its "Light It Up Blue" fundraising campaign.

Shatner as have many celebrities including the late Leonard Nimoy lent their celebrity to Autism Speaks fundraising efforts.

248RPA
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06 Apr 2017, 5:09 am

ASAN is run by autistics, but they don't seem to be much better than Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is NT extremism and ASAN is autistic extremism. Obviously, there are problems with extremism of any kind. I would even say that Autism Speaks is less extremist than ASAN in defending their ideology (though Autism speaks is more corrupt with their money).

Like others, I believe that the people who want a cure should get one.

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SharkSandwich211
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06 Apr 2017, 12:50 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:

SharkSandwich211 wrote:

I'm confused... how does Autism Self Advocacy Network fit into all of this? Are they bashing Shatner because he is supporting an awareness hashtag???

Thank you for taking the time and your insights. It helped.

SharkSandwich211
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06 Apr 2017, 12:55 pm

[quote="248RPA"]ASAN is run by autistics, but they don't seem to be much better than Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is NT extremism and ASAN is autistic extremism. Obviously, there are problems with extremism of any kind. I would even say that Autism Speaks is less extremist than ASAN in defending their ideology (though Autism speaks is more corrupt with their money).

Like others, I believe that the people who want a cure should get one.[/quote

Good to know on both fronts. Since my DX last year I have been looking for ways to help with advocacy in the area of adult transition and I would agree that there does not seem to be a lot of "middle" ground. (which is where things get done in my opinion) And from parent support groups and Aspie support groups alike, the community in general seems to be very polarized. Sad really...would be nice to have a unified voice.

smudge
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06 Apr 2017, 1:08 pm

Well, if they had a go at him then they gave us a bad name. I support Shatner for supporting what he thought was a good cause.

There was absolutely no need to be nasty to him, he didn't know. It was uncalled for. All they had to do was inform him in a friendly way. Why shame him into changing his mind? Those are bullying tactics.

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DevilInPgh
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06 Apr 2017, 3:19 pm

Ari blocked me from the ASAN feeds on Twitter and Facebook because I had the gall to mock ASAN for refusing to condemn the Obama administration's use of "Aspergian" as a slur against a foreign leader. And he gets into a Twitter war over THIS? He has everything he deserves coming to him, and more. That's why I can't stomach the hard leftists at ASAN.

ASPartOfMe
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06 Apr 2017, 3:19 pm

SharkSandwich211 wrote:

ASPartOfMe wrote:

SharkSandwich211 wrote:

I'm confused... how does Autism Self Advocacy Network fit into all of this? Are they bashing Shatner because he is supporting an awareness hashtag???

Thank you for taking the time and your insights. It helped.

You are welcome

AspieUtah
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06 Apr 2017, 6:18 pm

248RPA wrote:

I agree. While I support ASAN (something is better than nothing), I cringe when I read some of its statements. My biggest complaint about ASAN is that, while it promotes the idea of self-advocacy, it failed to respond to several e-mail messages from me about simple questions I had about how to create an ASAN chapter in my community. No, seriously. No replies even though I sent the messages directly to its founder and staff leaders. So, does ASAN accept the help of its supporters, or not?

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06 Apr 2017, 7:11 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:

SharkSandwich211 wrote:

I'm confused... how does Autism Self Advocacy Network fit into all of this? Are they bashing Shatner because he is supporting an awareness hashtag???

Lol so the solution is to be an a**hole and rage at anyone who acknowledges Autism Awareness Day because Autism speaks has involved itself with it(I mean its an autism organization even if its flawed so of course they are going to do stuff for autism awareness day). Why not use it as an opportunity to educate them about different perspectives, someones not going to listen to you and consider your views/criticizms of autism speaks if you start by accusing them of hate speech and wanting to eradicate autistics?

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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2017, 7:28 pm

248RPA wrote:

Well there isn't one, autism isn't like some germ or virus you can just 'get rid of' its tiny differences in neurology making our brains work differently than neurotypicals. So a cure as in actually getting rid of someones autism and making them neurotypical would involve brain surgery or drugs designed to force the brain to develop a certain way, basically it would be a very invasive procedure/treatment. Also all the time, money and resources they spend on trying to find a 'cure' takes away from time, money and resources that could be used to help people with autism and better understand them...like on a personal level not in an 'under the microscope' sort of way.

If they do figure out a brain surgery procedure or a drug to essentially rewire your entire neurology, then yes I suppose people who want it should do it. But my concern is young children having invasive procedures like that done on them without consent.

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naturalplastic
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07 Apr 2017, 1:45 am

I guess Shatner meant well by supporting a group that supposedly helps autistics, and didnt realize that he was stepping into a hornets' nest. NTs rarely think about autism at all. So its to be expected that a NT celeb would not be aware of the civil wars going in the autism community, and the civil wars between autism lobby groups.

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