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Autism: equality's last frontier

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KenG
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13 Jan 2009, 8:12 am

"For Gary McKinnon, Asperger's has had a profound effect on his ability to fit in to society. When will we accept this disability?"
Nadine Stavonina de Montagnac, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 January 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ism-health


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CanyonWind
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13 Jan 2009, 8:57 am

Damn good article.

Quote:
Without support and understanding, it causes them to be picked out as "different"; rejected, bullied, written off and left behind. Which of course affects their self-esteem and life outcome.


One thing they could do right away is to quit calling us "ass burgers."

Used in a sentence: "I deserve to be treated with respect. I'm an ass burger."

or

"You kids stop ridiculing the ass burger."

I don't know who first described Lou Gehrig's disease, but I'm sure it wasn't Lou Gehrig. He was a baseball player.

And the people responsible are the ones who are supposedly on our side. Brings to mind the classic line from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:"

"Morons, I got morons on my team."


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CockneyRebel
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13 Jan 2009, 9:08 am

How about a job, for every person on the spectrum, who wants a job. The job can be anything that the person wants it to be, from being out in the open air, picking up litter, to electrical engineering.


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demeus
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13 Jan 2009, 9:28 am

The issue with employment though is that a company should not be forced to hire someone that they do not need or would not be useful in their workplace. The question becomes "How do we prove to the company that they need us?"

On our side of the equation, we do not have to follow the regular job application/interview setup if we find that it is not working (and probably does not work in any situation where there is not a huge need of employees). One can simply go in as an independent contractor (you still have to be able to market yourself a little) where you work for one project and if the client likes you, they can bring you on for more projects and eventually hire you. This is how I go my current job. In fact, 6 years ago, my boss did not think he would need my services at all, now he does not know how they survived without me.

Yes, there is discrimination in the workplace (and I will not discount that), however, I think we help it along too by trying to follow a path that does not work for us rather than trying to see if there is another path which may get us what we want.