Autism Awareness Ribbon

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People, especially Canadians are getting into having ribbon Magnets on their car, like the pink ones for breast cancer, national colored ones for supporting our troops, ect.

My cousin is high functioning autisic, and his mother is into autism awarness campagnes. She was selling these Autism Awareness Ribbon Magnets:


She asked my mom if she wanted to buy one, my mom said 'sure! disease awareness is important'. My aunt then turned to me to buy one, but after what my mom just said, a fit of anger came over me, and I said "no, cancer is a disease, untreated it makes you sick and you can die"

My mother kept insisting autism as a illness and I countered by asking if she thought I was a disease because of my AS. She did not have much of a answer.

I didn't buy the magnet.

What do all of you think of these Autism awareness magnets? Before my mother's insult I wanted to buy one because to me 'awareness' means education, if people knew more about us, they would understand us more. Some people seem to think it means cure us.

They do it in the USA everywhere literally.

My mom has two actually.

I was going to suggest a colour, lilac, or an Escher style black, white and grey design, but discover to my horror that the ribbon is a revolting clashing eye-hurting jigsaw puzzle reminding me instantly of the Autism Speaks logo.

So, no, not interested in that one.

But one made by autists, to demand rights, yes, great.

I would buy and wear one of these to raise awareness.

Unfortunately they don't sell these puzzle ribbons where I live.

I love the colours and I love the puzzle design.

I know some autistic people don't like it. They insist that 'We are not a puzzle'.

I always understood the puzzle image as 'Autism is puzzling'.

And I think that is true, or else people would know all about autism, understand all of us and we all would have no problem because people wouldn't often be puzzled by whatever each of us does.

I have one and I also have a sticker on my cars rear window that says

"In case of emergency, occupant with Autism. May run away, not respond, resist help"

I need to get another one of those. If something happens and we get in a car wreck or something and I'm unconscious, I want people to know that if they open the door my daughter may run right into traffic, and not "wait right there."
On a positive note...I also have had a brake light out for about 7 months and had a cop right behind me on 4 separate occasions (one of them even turned around to get behind me then changed his mind and drove off.) and they NEVER even give me a warning.
They just don't want to deal with whatever situation MAY occur for a brake light a friend(whos a cop) of an accquaintance said. It would have to be of much more importance for them to pull me over. The situation with an autistic person can go badly so quickly its just not worth it.
All the people at work want one now.

Some people have responded with, "I am a person, not a puzzle!"

Yeah it's hard not to think of Autism Speaks when they use puzzle pieces like that on the ribbon. How about just a solid color, or white on black?

I like the ribbon and have one. Each of my children also hav a puzzle piece for their Crocs shoes. These items have prompted many opportunities for me to talk about autism spectrum disorders and help educate people (as opposed to letting organizations like Autism Speaks do the educating for us). I like the idea of the rainbow for the autism ribbon, representing how we're all so different. To me it's a good way to visually illustrate that autism is not a cookie cutter thing.

I do not see autism as a disease in need of a cure. Instead, I see people with autism as neurodiverse individuals who deserve acceptance. The puzzle pieces could be made into stripes, perhaps. I don't know. Ultimately I think it is a matter of the message, not the delivery of the message, which matters.

I have a puzzle ribbon lapel pin that I put on my autism awareness lanyard.

I have no issues with the puzzle myself.

PLEASE no one buy the puzzle ribbons! Those are from Autism Speaks.

Who cares who came up with the idea? It's not like we have Autism Speaks puzzle pieces on our cars or lapels. We have an autism awareness ribbon and it affords us the opportunity to spread actual awareness instead of the crap that some organizations are spreading. And even well-meaning people who just don't understand autism.

I did see an Autism Speaks car magnet the other day - and it said Autism Speaks on it. Looked nothing at all like the puzzle ribbon shown in this thread, which is the exact one I have.

Mine didn't come from them.

I got mine from AutismLink, which is a non-profit group which gives all proceeds to families who can't afford therapy for their kids.

Besides, the puzzle ribbon mentioned in this thread was the idea of the ASA, which, in the past, has had autistic people on their board.

there's some different ones linked from the autistic b***h from hell's site

I think these are some merchandise (linked from said autistic b***h from hell)
http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/

http://www.cafepress.com/sq8

http://www.taaproject.com/

Works for me.

I saw and autism ribbon on somebody's bumper that said, "Think Autism! Think Cure!" I've almost ripped it off the car, and thrown it away.