End of Week Stupid Roundup

Sometimes the stupid runs so deep that instead of blogging about it, I just want to scrape up its stinking carcass with a shovel and chuck it into the woods to rot in peace. For instance, it ought to be obvious to everyone—except the most prejudiced jerks—that the fact that mass murderers are antisocial creeps does not mean they are autistic. However, looking at the comments on a recent post on Sarah's blog goes to show that there's no shortage of prejudiced jerks.

And where might one expect to find an article that advocates killing off people with disabilities to save money for health care for everyone else? If you guessed a neo-Nazi newsletter or a Klan website, that would be a logical enough guess, but wrong. Actually, to the great disgust of many, it appeared in the New York Times Magazine. You know, when governments run short on money for highway maintenance, you don't see mainstream publications printing articles that suggest killing off rural folks to save the wear on the roads... and when the fire department needs a new truck, nobody proposes whacking a few smokers to reduce the number of fires...

Did you think we'd seen the last of billboards describing autistic children as kidnap victims when the Ransom Notes ads were taken down in 2007? Well, as Joe just blogged, there's plenty more of the putrefying stupid where that came from. This time, the culprit is the York, PA chapter of the Autism Society of America. E-mail address is pa-york@autismsocietyofamerica.org and the chapter president is Amy Wallace. Time to let her know what we think of that tired old stolen child changeling garbage.

Edit, August 16: ASA York has agreed to take down the billboards—many thanks to ASAN and to everyone who wrote about the billboards!

Rethinking Autism in Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair has a short article about a new website, Rethinking Autism, which can briefly be described as a satirical pro-neurodiversity site featuring sexy videos that mock celebrity endorsements related to autism. These clever videos are a perfectly targeted and totally hilarious send-up of a certain former Playboy bunny's autism profiteering, and they had me rolling on the floor laughing. I've reposted one of them below. Jenny, you've met your match this time.

More Positive Autism Awareness: No Myths PSA

The Florida-based Dan Marino Foundation and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network sponsored the No Myths public service announcement (PSA), which was filmed by Kent Creative in the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. Inside this full-scale replica of the ancient Greek temple, myths about autism are laid to rest by an autistic cast consisting of Ari Ne'eman, Dena Gassner, Ben Liske, and Jacob Pratt.





A captioned version of No Myths is available at http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=udtvrbt0rlao

More information can be found at http://www.nomyths.org/ about the film and its production. That site states, "The purpose of the PSA is to tell society that, with the right supports, people with autism can do anything anybody else can do, even if it isn't in the same way." Many thanks to all involved in the making of this excellent PSA, which does a very effective job of dispelling autism myths and stereotypes!

BBDO New York, How About Some Real Respect

Special Olympics sponsored rallies and other events today to promote its Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, which asks people to respect individuals with cognitive disabilities and to refrain from using the cruel and dehumanizing word "retard."

The advertising agency BBDO New York contributed posters supporting this campaign, in which the R-word is explicitly compared to ethnic and other slurs. (Edit: these posters are pretty strong stuff—thanks to cripchick for suggesting that I add a trigger warning for this link.)

Unfortunately, the agency's history demonstrates that its concern for avoiding offensive descriptions of people with disabilities may be less than genuine. As many of us will recall, BBDO New York was responsible for the Ransom Notes advertisements in December 2007, which compared autistic children and others with disabilities to tragic kidnap victims whose lives were being destroyed. Those ads were so full of offensive disability stereotypes that they were withdrawn in response to public outrage less than three weeks after their release. BBDO New York was also responsible for the Autism Speaks television ads that compared the odds of having an autistic child to dying in a car crash, being hit by lightning, and other such imagery carefully crafted to give the impression that an autistic child was about the same as a dead one.

Although BBDO New York would no doubt like to convince us that it has had a genuine change of heart, I'm more inclined to believe—especially after reading this New York Times article published yesterday—that its Special Olympics ads are merely part of a cynical strategy to "pay attention to the disabled" so as to appear more responsible during the economic downturn. The agency's CEO, Andrew Robertson, has been a board member of Autism Speaks for the past two years. I'm not aware of any efforts he has made to end the routine use of cruel and dehumanizing language by Autism Speaks in describing autistic people. How about ending the hypocrisy too, Mr. Robertson?

Autistic Monster Ad Yanked

After two and a half weeks of bluster and increasingly frantic and contradictory excuses for its disgusting "Dan's Story" advertisement depicting an autistic boy as a monster, Action for Children has finally (well, sort of) pulled its head out of its hindquarters and faced up to the reality that an ad campaign defaming autistic people wasn't a plus for its public image. The television ad has been withdrawn in response to the firestorm of protest from the British and international autistic community.

As Mike Stanton observes, however, Action for Children still won't admit the obvious fact that this ignorant ad campaign was a colossal blunder. The charity is now trying to save face by pretending that yesterday was the ad's scheduled ending date, despite previous statements that it would run longer.

By way of comparison, the protest against NYU's Ransom Notes ads in December 2007 was met with similar denials and excuses before the ads were taken down two weeks into their run. But at least NYU issued a statement acknowledging that the ads were being withdrawn in response to the concerns of the community. Action for Children hasn't even bothered with the pretense of caring what our community thinks.

Many thanks to all the bloggers and activists who relentlessly pressed to end this ad campaign, including Socrates, Sharon, Mike Stanton, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Dora Raymaker, Bev, and many others. Great work, everyone!


Edit, February 10: A British marketing magazine has published an article on the controversy. Let's hope that ad agencies will learn the right lessons from this debacle and will know better than to create stereotyped and insulting portrayals of autism in the future.

Dan the Torpedoes, Full Monster Ahead

The British charity Action for Children is stubbornly continuing to run its Dan the Autistic Monster advertisements, despite widespread outrage in the autistic community and unequivocal condemnation from autism researchers and professionals including Simon Baron-Cohen, Tony Attwood, and Mitzi Waltz. Evidently, Action for Children has made a calculated decision to ignore the public fury about the ad, hoping that it will all be forgotten shortly. It's up to us to make sure that doesn't happen.

Dora Raymaker has written a post on Change.org with links and information about action alerts to complain to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority and to other authorities (with directions for how to make the action alert work from non-US addresses) regarding the ad. If you haven't already responded to this, please do so. Also, you can find contact information for the charity's major corporate supporters here, and a group on Facebook is protesting the ad. For those who blog, please write some more posts about the controversy and let your readers know how they can show their disgust with this hateful and exploitative ad.

Edit, February 5: Yesterday the ITV network cut from the ad's line "I used to lash out" to someone being punched in the face in an unrelated ad, during a football (soccer) game. You can find a video of it here (thanks to Socrates for the link). As if the ad hadn't already done quite enough to stereotype autistic people as violent monsters...

Destroying the Intolerance Monster

A charity in the UK called Action for Children has created a truly appalling short film called Dan's Story, which is being shown on TV as an advertisement. It depicts a boy as having been eaten by a wicked autism monster and suggests that the monster must be destroyed. Several bloggers already have written about this horrid imagery, including Mike Stanton, Socrates, Bev, Sharon, and Shiva.

Socrates posted contact information on his blog for Gary Day, Head of Supporter Care at Action for Children: gary.day@actionforchildren.org.uk

Unfortunately, it appears that Mr. Day does not understand (or perhaps does not care) how grossly offensive this advertising campaign is to the autistic community. His mass-mailed response to our complaints, which is posted in Socrates' comments, asserts that the ad is acceptable because "Dan tells his own story in his own words," and goes on to say that anyone who does not like it can complain to the UK's advertising standards authority.

The dismissive tone of his message strongly reminds me of the mass response sent out by Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the NYU Child Study Center a few days after the Ransom Notes protest began. Dr. Koplewicz also claimed that he was just trying to raise awareness and help children. Less than two weeks later, after thousands of blog entries and protest e-mails, a joint letter prepared by ASAN and signed by thirteen other disability organizations, and media coverage, Dr. Koplewicz conceded defeat and withdrew the advertisements.

During the campaign against the Ransom Notes ads, contact information was posted for prominent NYU Child Study Center donors, and protest letters were copied to these donors so that they would understand the harm that was being done with their money and would put pressure on NYU to withdraw the ads. The same thing needs to be done here. I am not familiar enough with British job titles to know exactly what a "Head of Supporter Care" might be (and would appreciate it if my British readers would enlighten me in the comments). If supporters are the same as donors, and if Mr. Day's job consists of keeping them happy so that they will give more money, then the next logical step would be to post e-mail addresses for the charity's main supporters and make them as unhappy with the charity's actions as possible (if you have such info, please post it here). A joint letter signed by several UK disability rights groups, similar to what was done with Ransom Notes, would also help, with media coverage if possible.

As for the argument that the ad came from Dan's own words, I recommend reading a post on Ballastexistenz entitled Why Students Praise the Judge Rotenberg Center, which describes in detail how children with disabilities can be conditioned (brainwashed) to think of themselves as unworthy of having any say in their own lives and to make only positive statements about their caretakers, no matter what is done to them.

We can destroy the intolerance monster. The campaign against Ransom Notes shows exactly how to do it. Let's get busy.


Edit, January 26: ASAN has set up an Action Alert on Change.org, which provides a basic template for letters protesting these advertisements and automatically sends them.

An extensive list of contact information for corporate supporters, etc., can be found on Socrates' blog.

Go Torture the Other Guy

In a comment on my last post, Ed mentioned how some people talk about "trading up" in friends, which seems to be a variation on the old social-climbing theme of raising one's perceived social rank by associating with others of higher standing.

Such behavior has been around, of course, since our prehistoric ancestors competed to be the hunting buddy of the alpha caveman; but the phrase "trading up" has a particularly crass ring to it, as if human beings were nothing more than commodities to be acquired. Are your economy-car friends cramping your style? Just trade up for trendy sports-car friends and you'll have no more problems.

And just in case anyone doesn't understand what kinds of problems happen to those who are not part of the in-group, there's a credit card commercial that helpfully illustrates it for us. Maybe you've seen this one—a young man goes up to an airport counter to buy a ticket and says he's traveling on business. He looks and sounds a bit unsure of himself, and his credit card has a cute picture of kittens on it. The airline employee behind the counter promptly glances toward a group of security officers, who converge on the unfortunate young man and take him away. Another traveler then confidently presents the advertiser's business credit card and gets his ticket at once.

The message conveyed by that ad is all too clear: If there's anything about you that might make others think you don't belong to the dominant class, you're quite likely to get harassed and perhaps even tortured. And how should a responsible citizen deal with this state of affairs? That's easy—just make sure to buy the right products and services so that it's some other guy who gets tortured, of course.

Ugh. Just… ugh. This is the world we live in today, folks.

There's one bright spot, though: we have just three and a half months left before George Bush's moving van pulls up in front of the White House.

Outcomes

I wasn't surprised when the NYU Child Study Center's online forum on Tuesday turned out to be a heavily moderated propaganda fest that blocked almost all comments from self-advocates and made only the slightest pretense of responding to the concerns of the thousands of people who objected to the Ransom Notes advertisements. Still, there was one exchange that provided some useful insight into the mindset underlying the ads:


Kristina Chew, Ph.D.: It would be good, perhaps, to teach children about conditions like bulimia, depression, autism, in ways that state simply what they are, without overly emphasizing that it is "terrible" to have them. That's not to say that a person with (for instance) depression does not suffer or have difficulties. It's important to emphasize hope and help, rather than fear.

Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz: I agree with you. However, if we don't educate the public about outcomes of untreated psychiatric disorders, they tend to minimize the disorders; "she is just sad, snap out of it, he is a quirky kid, why give him accommodations, she is just a dizzy blonde, not a child with ADD."


This statement by Koplewicz is very similar to the excuse trotted out by Autism Speaks in trying to justify its admitted manipulation of the images shown in the Autism Every Day film to get the maximum negative effect. According to this argument, it's vital to raise awareness by drawing attention to bad outcomes so that parents will be motivated to get prompt treatment for young children and avoid these bad outcomes. People shouldn't be so thin-skinned, they declare, as to complain about a little collateral damage in this noble war to save children from preventable suffering.

Quite apart from the profound moral deficit shown by those who see nothing wrong with intentionally creating stigma and stereotypes to promote an agenda, they don't even have any factual data to support their claim that they are preventing bad outcomes. Where are the long-term studies following large numbers of children as they grow into adulthood and identifying specific factors that contribute to various outcomes? Nonexistent, that's where. In the case of Asperger syndrome, a diagnostic category that came into use less than 15 years ago, there hasn't been enough time to do a meaningful long-term study of outcomes even if someone had bothered to try. Which they haven't.

No professional can truthfully say that a particular medication, therapy, or what-have-you will prevent a negative long-term outcome. The most they can honestly claim is that some people in similar situations have felt that the medication, etc., was helpful. (And we don't even have a culturally unbiased consensus definition of what a successful outcome might be—that's a whole 'nother can of worms.)

There are a few things we do know, though, with regard to outcomes. We know that widespread negative images can damage a child's self-concept. We know that there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. We know that when children are placed in segregated school environments and not expected to learn, it's quite likely they won't learn. We know that separate but equal is inherently unequal. We know that when employers think of certain groups of people as a detriment to society, there will inevitably be serious problems with employment discrimination. And we know that human rights must be vigilantly guarded, even in the twenty-first century, as they can all too easily disappear.

The Power of the People

Shortly after I wrote another post on the Ransom Notes ads this afternoon, I learned that the NYU Child Study Center is withdrawing the ads in response to our protests. This victory clearly demonstrates the power of united action by concerned people standing up for decent values, as well as the strength of the disability community. Many thanks to Ari Ne'eman for his hard work and dedication, and also to everyone who took part in the campaign to demand the removal of the ads.

Here is Ari's statement:

__________________________________________



Date: Dec 19, 2007 3:34 PM
Subject: Victory! The End of the Ransom Notes Campaign


Hello everyone,

I am pleased to inform you that this afternoon the NYU Child Study Center announced that they will be ending the "Ransom Notes" ad campaign in response to widespread public pressure from the disability community. You can read that announcement here. The thousands of people with disabilities, family members, professionals and others who have written, called, e-mailed and signed our petition have been heard. Today is a historic day for the disability community. Furthermore, having spoken directly with Dr. Harold Koplewicz, Director of the NYU Child Study Center, I have obtained a commitment to pursue real dialogue in the creation of any further ad campaign depicting individuals with disabilities. We applaud the NYU Child Study Center for hearing the voice of the disability community and withdrawing the "Ransom Notes" ad campaign.

Twenty-two disability rights organizations came together to ensure the withdrawal of this advertising campaign. Our response to this campaign stretched continents, with e-mails, letters and phone calls coming from as far away as Israel, Britain and Australia. The disability community acted with a unity and decisiveness that has rarely been heard before and we are seeing the results of our strength today. Our success sends an inescapable message: if you wish to depict people with disabilities, you must consult us and seek our approval. Anything less will guarantee that we will make our voices heard. We are willing to help anyone and any group that seeks to raise awareness of disability issues, but those efforts must be done with us, not against us. This is a victory for inclusion, for respect and for the strength and unity of people with disabilities across the world. It is that message that has carried the day in our successful response to this campaign. Furthermore, we intend to build on this progress, not only by continuing a dialogue with the NYU Child Study Center and using this momentum to ensure self-advocate representation at other institutions as well, but also by building on the broad and powerful alliance that secured the withdrawal of these ads in the first place. We are strongest when we stand together, as a community, as a culture and as a people. Thank you to all of you who have made this victory possible. Remember: "Nothing About Us, Without Us!"

Regards,
Ari Ne'eman
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, President
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org
info@autisticadvocacy.org

Ransom Notes and Autism Speaks: Partners in Crime

The Ransom Notes advertising campaign has Autism Speaks' dirty little fingerprints all over it. It's a direct follow-up from those Ad Council PSA commercials for Autism Speaks, also produced pro bono by the ad agency BBDO. If you live in the United States, you've probably seen those awful commercials that compare the odds of your child being autistic to being hit by lightning, killed in a car crash, or otherwise ending up dead. Autism Speaks seems to have quite a fixation with autistic children ending up dead, to judge from Alison Tepper Singer's infamous line in the Autism Every Day video about wanting to drive off a bridge with her autistic daughter, which was soon followed by a magazine interview with two Autism Speaks board members who hoped their autistic son would drown in their backyard pond.

Not long after he donated those television commercials, CEO Andrew Robertson of BBDO was named to the board of Autism Speaks:


autismspeaks.org/press/board_additions.php


I wouldn't be at all surprised if he shares the view of his fellow board members (and of prenatal testing researcher Joseph Buxbaum, funded by Autism Speaks) that the only good autistic child is a dead autistic child.

Amazingly, Suzanne Wright of Autism Speaks, whose avowed goal is a world where autism is a word for the history books, has tried to argue that those sick public fantasies of child murder are helping to take off the stigma. Remind you of anybody? Oh yeah, Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the NYU Child Study Center, who also claims that he just wants to start a dialogue and reduce stigma.

One thing is clear: The repulsive attitudes expressed by Autism Speaks, BBDO, and Dr. Koplewicz do not represent the majority view. They do not speak for us. Rather, they speak for a tiny number of bitter, twisted New York elitists who feel angry and cheated about having children with disabilities in their otherwise glamorous families, and who are throwing a colossal temper tantrum and spewing their vicious prejudice all over the media.

They are a hate group, pure and simple. They share a hideous eugenic agenda with disgraced white supremacist James Watson, who has been praised on Autism Speaks' website. They are enemies not only of the autistic minority population but of decent people everywhere. And it's past time for decent people to stand up in outrage and put a stop to their hate-mongering.

If you haven't yet sent letters of protest to NYU, signed the petition against the Ransom Notes ads, and blogged about it, please do it now. We need to keep the pressure on, without letting up even for a moment, to make it unmistakably clear that we will not stand for this despicable targeting of vulnerable children.

EDIT: The ads are now GONE! See the statement from Ari Ne'eman entitled "Victory!" posted above.

Pity. It's 100% curable.

This outstanding tagline belongs to an advertising campaign for Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, a nonprofit hospital and clinics in Minnesota serving children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. You can learn more about Gillette and its ad campaign by visiting http://www.curepity.org/ (a great domain name, too!) which prominently features an image of a confident and joyful child in a wheelchair. Steven Koop, M.D., who is Gillette's medical director, states on the main page: "Every child has hopes and dreams, and the children who come to Gillette are no different. They simply have more barriers and challenges before them."

I'm posting this example of excellent advertising as a response to a comment on Autism Vox by Marie S., who asked what a positive campaign seeking to raise awareness of services for children with disabilities might look like. Marie was responding to Kristina Chew's discussion of a New York Times article discussing the Ransom Notes controversy. The article discusses the widespread outrage and public condemnation of the stereotypes and stigma perpetuated by the Ransom Notes ads, and it mentions the work of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network in coordinating a response. Kristina Chew is quoted in the article on the importance of finding a more positive way to frame autism and other conditions.

The reporter also interviewed Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the NYU Child Study Center, who stated that he was surprised by the opposition to the Ransom Notes ad campaign. He seemed to be particularly taken aback by the extent of the criticism from autistic self-advocates and parents of autistic children. The article describes his reaction as follows:


Dr. Koplewicz said he had not considered jettisoning the campaign, but there was some discussion about dropping its two most controversial components: the autism and Asperger’s ads.

He decided to retain the ads after conferring with colleagues whose attitude, he said, "was that some people would be upset but that we should stick with it and ride out the storm."


Nice try, Dr. Koplewicz, but the storm is only going to get stronger. We're not going to shut up, we're not going to go away, and we wouldn't be satisfied even if you did drop the autism and Asperger's ads. Playing the divide and conquer game won't get you anywhere this time. We fully intend to keep on raising hell until every last one of those disgusting Ransom Notes is taken down, NYU makes a sincere apology, and disability rights groups are invited to play a meaningful role in designing a replacement ad campaign that promotes understanding and respect.

NYU Ransom Notes Ads: Public Outrage

We have your ignorant and ill-conceived advertising campaign, which is a detriment to itself and society. We are making sure that when people search the Internet for information about it, they will find nothing but a deluge of furious condemnation on blogs and forums. We're also posting links everywhere to an online petition protesting the ads. If you fail to provide appropriate remediation and a prompt public apology, we will make sure you no longer have the respect of any decent people and will be driven into a life of complete isolation. Do nothing and see what happens.

— Public Outrage


Or, worded a bit more diplomatically in a joint letter from the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and thirteen other disability rights organizations:

__________________________________________


The following letter was mailed and hand-delivered to the NYU Child Study Center on December 11th, 2007. It is co-signed by fourteen premier disability rights organizations, including ASAN, ADAPT, TASH, ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights, the Autism National Committee and many more. In it, we urge the Center to withdraw its offensive "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign, which stigmatizes people with disabilities and misinforms the public. As some of you have already heard from our previous communications on this topic, the advertising campaign is expected to garner 700 million impressions over the next four months, requiring us to act quickly to stop grave damage to the public perception of people with disabilities.

As several others have indicated an interest in joining our statement in response to the "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign, we are encouraging organizations to issue letters endorsing the joint statement and send them to the supporters of the "Ransom Notes" campaign, urging them to withdraw the offensive advertising. Contact information for all of the supporters of the "Ransom Notes" campaign is available here on ASAN's website. We will also be making available in the next day or so a petition for individuals to sign to express their support for the disability community's efforts. We urge individuals and groups to indicate their support now for the joint statement of fourteen disability rights organizations on this topic directly by contacting the NYU Child Study Center by e-mail at Harold.Koplewicz@nyumc.org or by phone at 212-263-6205.

Thank you so much to everyone who has already written and called to protest the "Ransom Notes" campaign over the course of the past few days and for those who will do so for as long as it takes to show that the disability community will not stand for advertising that questions the humanity of people with disabilities. We will be keeping you informed as we continue to mobilize the disability community against these hurtful and unfortunate statements. Your support is what keeps the disability community strong.

Regards,
Ari Ne'eman
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, President
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/
info@autisticadvocacy.org
732.763.5530

_____________________________________________

Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D.
The NYU Child Study Center
577 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Dr. Robert Grossman, M.D.
NYU School of Medicine
IRM 229
560 First Avenue
New York NY 10016

John Osborn
President and CEO of BBDO New York
BBDO New York
1285 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019

Richard Schaps, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Van Wagner Communications, LLC.
800 Third Ave 28th Floor
New York, NY 10022

To the NYU Child Study Center and the supporters of the "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign:

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to you regarding your new ad campaign for the NYU Child Study Center: "Ransom Notes." Our organizations represent people with a wide range of disabilities, including those portrayed in your campaign, as well as family members, professionals and others whose lives are affected by disabilities. As people who live and work with disability, we cannot help but be concerned by the way your campaign depicts individuals with disabilities. By choosing to portray people on the autism spectrum as well as those living with OCD, ADHD and other disabilities as kidnapped or possessed children, you have inadvertently reinforced many of the worst stereotypes that have prevented children and adults with disabilities from gaining inclusion, equality and full access to the services and supports they require.

While the "Ransom Notes" campaign was no doubt a well-intentioned effort to increase awareness and thus support for the disabilities it describes, the means through which it attempts this have the opposite effect. When a child with ADHD is described as "a detriment to himself and those around him," it hurts the efforts of individuals, parents and families to ensure inclusion and equal access throughout society for people with disabilities. When individuals with diagnoses of autism and Asperger's Syndrome are told that their capacities for social interaction and independent living are completely destroyed, it hurts their efforts for respect, inclusion, and necessary supports by spreading misleading and inaccurate information about these neurologies. While it is true that there are many difficulties associated with the disabilities you describe, individuals with those diagnostic categories do succeed – not necessarily by becoming indistinguishable from their non-disabled peers – but by finding ways to maximize their unique abilities and potential on their own terms.

The "Ransom Notes" campaign places a stigma on both parents and children, thus discouraging them from pursuing a diagnosis that might be helpful in gaining access to the appropriate services, supports, and educational tools. The autism spectrum should be recognized for what it is: a lifelong neurological condition – not a kidnapper that steals children in the dead of the night. The devaluation of the lives of people with disabilities has led to public policies and funding decisions that have forced thousands of people with disabilities into nursing homes and other institutions. The unintended consequences of ad campaigns like yours give legitimacy to the taking away of the civil and human rights of people with disabilities.

It is true that diagnoses of ADHD, autism, Asperger's Syndrome, and OCD often accompany great hardships for families. It is true that depression and bulimia are terrible disorders that require treatment. Yet, the way you choose to convey those messages is inappropriate and counterproductive. Individuals with disabilities are not replacements for normal children that are stolen away by the disability in question. They are whole people, deserving of the same rights, respect, and dignity afforded their peers. Too often, the idea that children with disabilities are less than human lies at the heart of horrific crimes committed against them. The recent tragic instances of violence against children and adults on the autism spectrum and with other developmental disabilities are linked to the perception that these people are less than human. We – the adults, families, professionals and others affected by these conditions - assert that nothing could be further from the truth.

We are also concerned that the negative stereotypes the "Ransom Notes" campaign depicts could make it harder for the many people with disabilities and their family members who are working to ensure that students with disabilities have the right to be included in their home schools while still receiving all necessary services. Federal law mandates that students with disabilities have the right to a "free and appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment."

Your advertising campaign claims that children with disabilities could be a detriment to those around them and as a result hurts the efforts of parents working to secure the opportunity for their children to be included with their peers. While we recognize and applaud the good intentions intended by this effort, we must urge you to withdraw this campaign immediately, as it threatens to harm the very people whom it seeks to benefit: people with disabilities, their families, and their supporters. In the press release announcing this campaign, the Center gave as one of its goals "eliminating the stigma of being or having a child with a psychiatric disorder". We are in full agreement with the goal of eliminating stigma against people with disabilities and their families. Yet, this campaign serves to increase that stigma rather than lessen it. We hope that you will heed our concerns and those of many other people with disabilities, family members, professionals, and countless others and end the "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign.

Please do not hesitate to contact any of the organizations listed as signatories to this letter in order to better solicit the opinions of the disability community prior to your next advertising campaign. We would be more than glad to help the Center to develop better strategies to achieve its excellent goals. The NYU Child Study Center has the potential to do enormous good for children and families affected by disability. By showing that the Center respects the views of people with disabilities, families, and professionals, you can make that aspiration a reality.

Sincerely,

Ari Ne'eman
President
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/
info@autisticadvocacy.org

Bob Kafka
National Organizer
ADAPT
http://www.adapt.org/

Diane Autin
Executive Co-Director
Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey
http://www.spannj.org/

Jim Ward
ADA and the National Coalition for Disability Rights
http://www.adawatch.org/

Janette R. Vance
The Family Alliance to Stop Abuse and Neglect
http://www.thefamilyalliance.net

Estee Klar-Wolfond
The Autism Acceptance Project
http://www.taaproject.com/

Barbara Trader, MS
Executive Director
TASH
http://www.tash.org/

Jim Sinclair
Autism Network International
http://ani.autistics.org/

Stephen Drake
Not Dead Yet
http://www.notdeadyet.org/

Stanley Soden
Director of Independent Living Services
MOCEANS Center for Independent Living
http://www.moceanscil.org/

Ethan B. Ellis
Executive Director
Alliance for Disabled in Action, Inc.
http://www.adacil.org/
President Next Step, Inc.

Phil Schwarz
Vice President
Asperger Association of New England
http://www.aane.org/

Sharisa Kochmeister
President
Autism National Committee
http://www.autcom.org/

Laurie Ben-Haim of BBDO: D'oh!

In response to an earlier post about the NYU Child Study Center's ignorant "Ransom Notes" advertisements, Kate Gladstone wrote a comment that sheds some light on how this ad campaign went so far wrong:


Ms. Ben-Haim has confirmed for me that her ad-agency tested out the ad-campaign on *parents* of disabled kids, but not—repeat, NOT—the disabled kids (or adults) themselves. When I asked her why the agency didn't also test out the ads on disabled people (the folks the ads actually talks about), she admitted she didn't have a good answer for that one.


Quite apart from that egregious omission, I really have to wonder what rocks were turned over to find a significant number of parents who thought "Ransom Notes" would be a good idea. From what I've seen so far, every parent blogger who has written about these insulting and exploitative ads has been totally disgusted by them, with the lone exception of Harold Doherty's trolling—or, as Christschool more eloquently described it, literary flatulence—on Kristina Chew's blog. Many parents have written letters expressing their outrage (for anyone who wishes to do so, here is a link to contact information for various people associated with NYU and the Ransom Notes ads).

I have to wonder—maybe someone at the ad agency called Autism Speaks and had a nice friendly chat with Jon (My son is nothing but an empty shell) Shestack and with Alison (I wanted to drive my daughter off the George Washington Bridge) Singer. Maybe the conversation went something like this:


"Hey guys, I'm thinking about plastering New York City with ads that describe autistic kids and other children with disabilities as tragic kidnap victims, hopelessly unable to care for themselves, doomed to lives of total isolation, a detriment to themselves and others, and so forth. But gee, I really don't know diddlysquat about any of these conditions, and I'm not sure if these ads will motivate parents to have their kids seen by NYU's psychiatrists. Can you put me in touch with some parents who can give me an idea of what kind of response to expect?"

(maniacal cackling laughter) "Sure! You bet!"


That's about the only explanation I can think of, anyway.

Still, I have more respect for Laurie Ben-Haim's "D'oh!" answer (which was at least honest) than I have for the bizarre attempt by Dr. Harold Koplewicz to claim that the worldwide outrage over the ads is evidence that they are working. Here's my career advice for Dr. Koplewicz after he gets fired: Try asking Karl Rove for a job.

Mission Accomplished?

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." — Gandhi


Although some folks were upset by the insensitive tone of the mass e-mail sent by Dr. Harold Koplewicz to everyone who complained about the Ransom Notes ads, I view it as a positive sign that the NYU Child Study Center took less than a week to advance from the ignoring us stage to the laughing at us stage. (By way of contrast, it took Autism Speaks more than a year to realize that they couldn't just ignore us in the hope that we would all go away.)

In his letter, Dr. Koplewicz has this to say:


"Ransom Notes" may be shocking to some, but so are the statistics: suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24, and serious emotional problems affect one out of 10 young people, most of whom do not get help. The strong response to this campaign is evidence that our approach is working. We acknowledge the challenges faced by individuals with these disorders and their families. We hope to both generate a national dialogue that will end the stigma surrounding childhood psychiatric disorders and advance the science, giving children the help they need and deserve. We want this campaign to be a wake up call. Please join the dialogue.


Here's a strategic point to ponder: The fact that Dr. Koplewicz acted so quickly to compose a mass response to our letters is a clear indication that we have deluged him (and other influential people at NYU) with enough e-mail, snail mail, faxes, phone calls, etc., to make him feel very uncomfortable. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have bothered to answer us at all. That means we're doing a great job, people, and we need to keep the heat on—and, if possible, turn it up a notch or two.

If you have already written a letter of complaint to NYU, send another one to make sure they clearly understand that you have no intention of taking crap like "[t]he strong response to this campaign is evidence that our approach is working" for an answer. It looks like Dr. Koplewicz has the mindset that one can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs—or, in this case, that one can't effectively advertise mental health services for children unless one first destroys the hopes, dreams, and spirits of said children and induces mass panic and vicious prejudice by means of misleading and sensationalistic ads.

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network has made contact information available for various people associated with NYU and the Ransom Notes ads. (I suggest copying Dr. Koplewicz on all letters sent to anyone concerning the Ransom Notes ads, so that he can clearly see the extent of the worldwide revulsion these ads have caused.)

Also, tell your relatives and friends about NYU's ads and ask them to send protest letters as well. Write about these disgusting ads on your blog and on whatever forums you visit. If you know anyone in the media, either in the New York area or nationally, ask them to cover the story. Contact disability rights groups and anti-stigma campaigns such as NAMI's Stigma Busters. If you know any NYU alumni, ask them to inform the university that it won't get another dime of donations from them until it pulls the ads and issues a public apology.

We'll just see how long Dr. Koplewicz continues to put up a brave front and pretend that widespread public outrage is "evidence that [his] approach is working."

As Barack Obama mentioned not long ago, in reference to a certain overconfident opponent—some folks have made the mistake of declaring "Mission Accomplished" a little too soon.

Held for Ransom

The Child Study Center at New York University has a new advertising campaign entitled "Ransom Notes," which is, unfortunately, just what it sounds like. "Awareness" posters focusing on various psychological conditions and developmental differences, including autism and Asperger Syndrome, are written in the style of ransom notes from kidnappers. They begin with "We have your son," and go on to describe in absurdly melodramatic terms how he is being destroyed for life, etc. I'm not going to quote this repulsive dreck in any more detail or give it an active link, but this is where you can find it:


aboutourkids.org/about_us/public_awareness


Thanks to hollywoodjaded for bringing this appalling example of hate speech to my attention. I posted the following comments into the contact form on the website to express my disgust, and I urge readers to let them know what you think of it, too.


To the person(s) responsible for creating the grossly offensive "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign: Because it's so obvious that you did not consult with any autistic people or other neurological minority groups before trotting out that odious medieval stolen-child changeling nonsense, I'm going to take this opportunity to educate you on the actual views held by many people in the autistic community today.

Many of us do indeed feel as if we're being held for ransom, but you've got the identity of the perpetrators all wrong. To find a clue, you might want to take a good look in a mirror. We—that is, America's autistic citizens and our families—have had our lives hijacked in recent years by a greedy profiteering agenda that has deliberately and viciously stigmatized autistic people as broken, less than human, our souls stolen from us, and similar bigoted garbage, all for the purpose of making money by selling therapies. As a result, we now face prejudice and discrimination every day, in all aspects of our lives.

We are being held for ransom by psychs who, after inventing the Asperger diagnostic category in the 1990s to drum up new business by pathologizing millions of people who had been considered normal up to that point, now have the hubris to claim that they are the only ones who can save us from the horrors of being ourselves. The list of accomplices in this obscene scheme is long and shameful. It includes quack doctors peddling wonder cures, amoral researchers vying for grant dollars, nonprofit organizations more interested in self-aggrandizement than in actually helping anyone, posturing politicians trolling for votes, advertising agencies that have no qualms about creating the ugliest propaganda if the price is right, media corporations that regularly concoct bogus epidemics and milk them for all they're worth, and more.

On the About Us page on your website, you claim that one of the central goals of your organization is "to eliminate the stigma of being or having a child with a psychiatric disorder." But after seeing Ransom Notes, I just have to wonder if you really think you're going to fool anyone with that claim.

Cinderella and Other Fairy Tales

When I was eight years old, I sometimes jumped rope with the other girls at recess, if I wasn't wandering around picking dandelions or looking for shiny pebbles. A favorite jumprope chant started with "Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went downtown to meet her fellow."

It had many different endings, but no matter what happened, Cinderella never could manage to live happily ever after in romantic bliss. She always had some sort of tragic mishap. (Among other things, she made a mistake and kissed a snake.)

I was reminded of that old jumprope chant recently when I looked at the RDI website (farrsite.org) of Dr. Steve Gutstein. At first glance, counseling parents on how to explain and model social relationships seems reasonable enough, and some parents have indeed found this approach helpful. However, this claim on the site, regarding the autistic spectrum, is absurdly reminiscent of Cinderella-dressed-in-yellow:


...less than 10% are expected to gain full-time employment and less than 5% are projected to live independently. Friendships and relationships outside of the immediate family are rare and marriage is almost unheard of. Debilitating anxiety, hopelessness and isolation become the norm.


Translation: Parents, if you don't immediately fork over the big bucks for RDI services, you'll never have any grandchildren and your autistic kid will be living in your basement playing video games and popping Prozac for the rest of his life.

Of course, Gutstein isn't the first psychologist to make outlandish claims like this to hype a particular therapy, and unfortunately he won't be the last. What irks me is that it's so obviously false. Even the most cursory look at blogs, lists, and forums in the autistic community will turn up plenty of married autistics, for instance, and gay autistics in long-term committed relationships. There are even lists and forums specifically for autistics and their partners to discuss relationship issues.

It's enough to make me think that the government ought to start an investigation of this false advertising. Oh, wait, this is the same government that wants to spend a billion dollars combating the existence of its autistic citizens. Never mind.

There's a more significant issue here, anyway. Whatever the actual numbers of married autistics and employed autistics may be (and I don't believe there are any accurate statistics because so many of us are "in the closet"), teaching autistic children how to interact in conventional non-autistic ways does not address the underlying problem.

What is that problem? Well... when I first encountered the American workplace in the 1980s, professional women often wore pantsuits and brightly colored "power" ties, carefully avoided "girl talk" while at the office, and practiced walking with a confident stride and speaking in a lower-pitched voice. These "social skills" were supposed to compensate for the handicap of having less natural authority than men. When they went home at the end of the day, however, many of these same women put on Wonderbras and skimpy dresses and plenty of additional makeup before heading out to the clubs. After all, they would never be able to attract a guy if they made the mistake of looking too masculine after hours...

Going back a little farther in history, the first African-American millionaire was a woman known as Madame C.J. Walker. She made her fortune selling hair-straightening products to women of color. Other black entrepreneurs sold creams to whiten the skin. There was always a demand for these products because, if a woman had a naturally dark complexion and strong African ethnic features, she was seen as inferior goods in the black community and had very little chance of finding a husband. That prejudice persists to this day.

Minority groups always have tried to cope with intolerance by teaching their children how to look and act more like the dominant social group. That only strengthens the prejudices, however. When the particular traits of the majority come to be accepted without question as essential human traits, bigotry becomes so deeply ingrained that it is not even recognized for what it is.

Maybe someday we'll know better... and the fairy tales will end with everyone living happily ever after.

The Disability Prejudice Train

I got a few comments on my Autism Whines Blues post from people who thought that I was being too critical of Autism Speaks and who pointed out that most of the pro-cure parents have good intentions.

Well, OK. For the record, I don't dispute the fact that most of the ordinary working folks who make small donations to Autism Speaks honestly (although mistakenly) believe that they are doing something to help autistic children. I also agree that most of Autism Speaks' rank-and-file supporters (unlike their leaders) are caring parents who would never dream of murdering a child.

There's one more point in need of clarification, which explains the other two. Although the language and views expressed by Autism Speaks are extreme by many standards, they represent a natural and logical outgrowth of an existing cultural prejudice that equates disability with death.

Today's quest to eradicate autism took root in the same social environment where Dr. Jack Kevorkian spent many years exhorting disabled patients to commit suicide with his assistance; where, as Joel just wrote, euthanasia is widely viewed as a compassionate means of saving a person from an undignified life; where eugenic abortion has become so commonplace that about 92 percent of fetuses identified as having Down Syndrome and 95 percent of fetuses identified as having cystic fibrosis are aborted; and where medical charities often solicit donations by playing up the supposedly inevitable horrors of living with a disability.

I recently received a solicitation letter of that sort from Smile Train, a charity that sends medical teams into developing countries to perform cleft lip and palate surgery on children from low-income families. The letter began by asking if the reader had ever saved a child's life, and it went on to make the following assertions (emphasis in original):


Although a cleft is not a matter of life and death, it's not much of a life for the child.

Being born with a cleft in a developing country is a life sentence of shame and suffering.

Most children with clefts never eat or speak properly. They can't go to school or hold a job. They're often ashamed to go out in public and are taunted mercilessly by other children.

Many children with clefts are abandoned every year soon after birth by their families. The "lucky" ones survive to spend the rest of their childhood in orphanages.

The good news is that there is a simple answer to this problem and a way to help end the suffering of millions of these children. We've found a way to provide cleft surgery that is safe, effective, and affordable.


Nowhere in the letter is there any suggestion that it might be desirable, or even possible, to end the intolerance that is causing these children to be abandoned in orphanages—the same intolerance which, in our allegedly more civilized parts of the world, causes many parents to rush to the abortion clinic as soon as a cleft becomes visible in the ultrasound picture. Rather, the letter simply takes it for granted that anyone who does not speak "properly" is doomed to a life of social exclusion and suffering.

So yeah, maybe I'm being a smidge too critical of Autism Speaks. They didn't invent disability prejudice; they just took it to new depths. And it's the widespread social acceptance of attitudes like those described by Smile Train that made it possible for Autism Speaks' leaders to declare publicly, to applause and donations, that their goal is the worldwide extermination of a minority group consisting of an estimated 60 to 70 million people.

You want to save a life? Take a stand against disability prejudice. Any one of us could fall victim to it at any time. The life you save could very well turn out to be your child's or your own.

Autistic Pride vs. the Autism Industry

Originally posted July 2005

While browsing the Internet for autistic pride sites, I came across a godawful site that was advertising some cutesy medication timer intended for gadget-loving aspies. A testimonial allegedly written by a parent of a young adult aspie cheerily declared, "When its alarm goes off, he has fun taking his medication or vitamins now and can take pride in his compliance and extra independence!"

It was enough to make me want to look for a good supplier of barf bags. Anybody out there reading this page who takes pride in being a compliant pill-gulping drone and feels extra independent because of it? I didn't think so.

Of course, advertisements like that aren't even meant to be seen by aspies. Such products are marketed exclusively to parents. It's part of a double-barreled bullshit attack by the autism industry, in which parents are first misled into believing that their children are hopelessly mentally defective, then barraged with promises that buying the right products and services can lead to "extra independence." In this context, "extra independence" means a lifetime of passively consuming the autism industry's wares while causing minimal nuisance to one's parents by reason of one's existence.

This despicable marketing strategy includes the recent efforts by the autism industry to paint the neurodiversity movement as some sort of major radical threat to the right of parents to make decisions for their underage children. It's a ridiculous accusation made by a calculating, amoral industry that sees a major threat to its own profits in the possibility that some parents may insist on treating their autistic children as healthy, capable human beings. Far from being anti-parent, a large number of neurodiversity activists are in fact parents, and they are seeking to end prejudice and discrimination against autistic families.

The accusation of interference with parents' decision-making is particularly ironic when you consider the extent of the autism industry's relentless assault on vulnerable families. Its entire business model is designed to coerce parents into making panicky and uninformed decisions. Ugly personal attacks are routinely made against parents who are unwilling to blindly jump on the bandwagon of "early intervention" through behavioral therapy, special diets, medication, chelation for purported mercury poisoning, or whatever the latest whacko fad happens to be. Kathleen Seidel describes the vicious abuse of parents by quack treatment faddists in Evidence of Venom.

The autism industry's greatest crime against families is that it intentionally seeks to destroy parents' joy and pride in their young children. To ensure a steady supply of new customers, autism is described in the most negative terms imaginable, with the goal of convincing parents that their child is a pathetic, defective sufferer whose birth has blighted the family. The success of this propaganda is measured in how thoroughly all semblance of a happy family life has been extinguished.

And then these filthy slimebuckets have the incredible chutzpah to accuse civil rights activists of interfering with parents.

They can take their quack treatments and medication timers and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.