puzzle piece ribbon

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I was just curious what you guys think of the puzzle piece autism awareness ribbon - I really love it - it fits for me because my diagnosis has made so much fall into place for me, but I've found some web sites where people REALLY hate it . . . so I was just curious what you all think . . .

I don't read too much into it. It's more creative then a simple color ribbon I guess. I've seen autism buttons that you can buy that read "I'm a person not a puzzle", so I can see how people might not like it.

Here is the ribbon, in case anyone wants to know what it looks like:

The autism puzzle-piece ribbon is so so, but I am awful at putting puzzles together. Many other autistic people have an easier time with such visuospatial tasks than I do.

I think there should be a few pieces missing because they haven't solved the puzzle yet.

I rather like them just fine. I saw one on a car a few days ago while my family was driving home from a swim meet.

I think it works. Autism as a puzzle makes sense.

I don't particularly like the ribbon, myself. I think that one of the other AS forumsites was proposing an Orange Bracelet? I like the idea on that much better.

I love the puzzle piece ribbon. I have several of them. I have a ribbon and a bumper sticker on my car, I have ribbon keychains, I have an autism bracelet with ribbons, I even found earrings. Part of the reason I like them is that they look very different from most of the ribbons you see. Which I think may actually spark some awareness. I've had quite a number of people I know ask me about them, which lead to a discussion where they actually seemed to listen. People who know me and my son, and were surprised or even shocked to hear we had autism. So for us, maybe it's breaking down some of those stereotypes.

Donna

I wear the I am not a puzzle, I am a person button, but that's it in terms of puzzle pieces. I have tried to come up with creative ways of destroying the few puzzle-ribbon pins I do own.

The origins of the puzzle ribbon just seem to be very dehumanizing to me, viewing specific kinds of people (and not others) as puzzles that need to be solved/cured (which was the intent of most of the original places I saw the ribbon). Many of the autism logos that puzzle-pieces initially appeared in (and still often do) were often very tragic/pity-inducing too. Just not my favorite symbol for autism at all, implies we need to be "solved" by someone.

Personally, I wouldn't put any autism related memorabilia on my car or on my person either, at least while driving. I'd be concerned that if I was in an accident, that they'd see the ribbon or whater else, see my likely failure to be able to put on an NT act under that much stress, make a cnnection, and try to make it look like my fault by claiming that I'm mentally/medically unfit to be driving. I'd also be concerned that it might possibly make me look like a promising target for an insurance fraud ring.

I kinda like the Autism Ribbon. However, I don't feel very akin to it because it feels like it represents Autistic Disorder more than the entire spectrum. Especially kids with Autistic Disorder.

I am also not good with puzzles.

I don't really like "awareness ribbons" because the implicit meaning is that autism is a horrible disease that needs to be cured, and that we should remember those poor innocent NT children who have been taken away from us and replaced by autistic monsters....

On the other hand, I don't really have anything against the puzzle piece, even though it does tend to make people think of the children rather than considering us all as a group. I have one of those little blue silicone bracelets with the puzzle pieces printed on it and I wear it everywhere (including work) because I think raising awareness is important.

I think it was AFF that started the orange bracelet idea. Unlike the puzzle piece, wearing orange doesn't mean anything to 99.9% of the people who see it, and since people are already wearing every colour of the rainbow nobody will ever bother to ask what it represents. Even if we all agreed that wearing orange would be a good way to meet other Aspies, that idea falls flat when you see how many people wear it simply because they like the colour orange. It's not like I'm going to see someone wearing an orange bracelet and decide to just walk over and tell them I have AS....

I sometimes wonder about the ideas that come from AFF -- they proposed using a rainbow flag to represent Autism Pride and scheduled an Autistic Pride Day one week before Gay Pride Day. The idea of wearing something unusual in order to send a "here I am" signal to your peers evokes memories of the old "hanky code" that gay people used in the 80's. Obviously I have nothing against gay pride symbols (and bring home my share of crap from the pride parade every year), but think it should be reserved for use by gay people.