The Face of the Race

Originally posted January 2006

This is a response to various people who have criticized my website, complaining that I am too manipulative, radical, extreme, and vulgar, and that my writings give society a bad impression of neurodiversity activists and/or the autistic population in general.

I'll answer these points in detail, but first I want to say that (despite all my bitching) I have a tremendous amount of respect for the wonderfully decent people of the international autistic community. If any other minority group had been targeted for worldwide extermination, you can be sure that their conversations about ethics would have nothing to do with language but, rather, would focus on what acts of terrorism were morally justifiable. Instead of building googlebombs, they would be building real bombs. Instead of manipulating words, they would be manipulating rocket launchers and sniper rifles. But we're such an honest, nonviolent, truth-loving bunch, many of us "have a cow" if we see a few words of misleading rhetoric.

I love this community.

With that said... am I manipulative? You bet. Whenever it will help our cause. Although I have no experience in politics or marketing and am nowhere near as skilled with rhetorical tricks as the professional pity-merchants who manage the curebies' fundraising campaigns for eugenics research, I look at it this way: Somebody has to yap loudly enough to draw attention to what's going on before it's too late. This is not a genteel debate in the quiet halls of academia; it is a war for the survival of our race. The eugenicists have us in their crosshairs, and their fingers are already tightening on the trigger.

As for being radical, extreme, and behaving in a way that creates an undesirable image, that accusation has been made (in one form or another) against the more outspoken members of civil rights movements throughout history. Suffragists and other feminists were despised and abused for what was viewed as a foolish, even blasphemous, refusal to accept the natural order of things. Gandhi was denounced by many of his opponents as an unrealistic idealist who resorted to extreme attention-getting tactics. Because of his sermons on poverty and social justice, Martin Luther King Jr. was suspected of having communist sympathies and was hounded mercilessly by government agents for several years. Even Albert Einstein was thought to be a dangerous radical because of his strong support for racial justice and other unpopular liberal causes. In short, if resolutely demanding human rights makes me a radical, I count myself in good company.

And those who want to complain about obscenity should consider this: autistic people are still being tortured and murdered in institutions. (Warning, don't follow this link unless you have a strong stomach.) That's what a real obscenity looks like, and there are far too few people who are willing to say anything about it.

Once again, we are not giving speeches in a high school debate class or nibbling crumpets at a tea party, we are on the front lines of a war. Real people are dying now, and millions of autistic babies will end up in the abortionists' garbage cans within a few short years if our efforts fail. That is not just rhetoric; it is a cold, hard, brutal fact. So if you think that I ought to feel guilty about having manipulated anyone's emotions, offended anyone's political sensibilities, interfered with the free flow of information on the Internet, or shocked anyone with crude language, this is all I have to say to you:

Get over it.