I was going to begin this post a much different way, but the Autism bullies who have been hacking my Autism AAC Internet computer just commandeered my screen and obliterated my post part way finished. Now I feel like Snoopy's 'A dark and Stormy night,' no good, crumple up the paper, and start the piece over again. Except that is a non-Autistic sterotype, and I do not use paper.
I have to warn my readers, I have a significant aphasia and also some paralysis to some of my facial features and expressions resultant from my Infant Paralytic Poliomyelitis Autism Vaccine injury. That means, critical parts of my left brain language sequence - order - and linear organizational functions have been damaged or otherwise do not exist like they do for my non-Autistic counterparts. It also means, NO one can "interpret" any meaning from how my voice sounds or trying to "read" my facial expressions, gestures, or the like ("non-verbal language communication").
There are three essential segments of society, all of them Totally Ignorant about Autism, who become highly irritated when they must interact and integrate themselves with an adult with Autism: People who really know me by living around me like my caretakers have; People who know me who are totally Ignorant about Autism and have not been clued-in how to "issue-spot" it to get the maximum Exam question points, People who have to deal with me by having some duty to me or I to them; and all other people and acquiantances I run into if I go somewhere.
Non-Autistic society has decreed an Eleventh Commandment that people with Autism are required to exhibit the same facility in navigating the social World with the same Top "normal" Exam Score as the "common sense norm" of the non-Autistic World prefers. Unfortunately, some of the most recent scientific research, see HERE: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/afp/healthusresearchautism, provides proof people with Autism cannot do this because it is against the laws of Nature.
I think most of my readers from the Autism community, especially those of us who travel the adult Autism circuits, pretty much know that adults with Autism experience a similar difficulty that can only be described analogously to the "coming out of the closet" of Gay men and Lesbian women. In all contexts, we either choose to "come out" or we are "outed" by others not of our minority groups who disapprove of who and what we are. Adults with Autism likewise experience the phenomenon of "coming out" or "being outed."
I was "outed" after I became probably the first person with Autism to historically graduate an American Bar Association-accredited law school, and my non-Autistic peers in the legal profession[1] disapproved of the idea a person with Autism would ask to become integrated in their almost 100 % non-Autistic homogeous group[2] of Bar / court franchises around the Country.
Being "outed" was really quite an unpleasant experience, because suddenly I felt like Anne Frank when persons who were Intolerant were looking to "out" her because she had Jewish heritage. In my case, it was when the California State Bar Court Hearing Dept. Judge denied me my California Bar license by stating the anti-Semitic Ashkenazi / Sephardic predicate Bar Associations around the Country used to keep out European Jews in this Country's history: "The debate which Applicant raises is not a new one. It is as old as the continuing societal debate on free will versus predestination." Cal. Bar Ct Hearing Dept., Case No 94-M-18311-NRL, pg.12.
In essence, the non-Autistic part of the legal profession did NOT want to integrate with me because I'm a person with Autism descended from "capable hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times, according to a paper published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology in May," see HERE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110603122849.htm, and because "genes that contribute to autism may have been selected and maintained because they created beneficial behaviors in a solitary environment, amounting to an autism advantage", Id. - they were Envious of the gifts of an Autistic savant and Autism more specifically.
All of us who travel Autism circles have seen the type of social cooperation-bully calling that frequently occurs among the Neuro-typical social type. It's bad enough when it's a Frat hazing, like that which occurs sometimes among peers in other professions such as business, accountants, doctors, veterinarians, dancers, etc., but when Frat hazing Autism bullying occurs in the legal profession the adult with Autism gets "outed," ostracized, and excluded - very often as we see at Barbaric places such as the Rotenberg Center, preyed on, hunted down, and retaliated. And why it is Worse for those of us adults with Autism who Dream of traveling legal peer circles ? Because ...
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), gave courts the right to "say so." But I think thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would have certainly replied: 'That's not good enough.'
My "outing" was the result primarily of the freak-out Neuro-typicals had when encountering my Autistic intelligence, Autistic language, and Paralytic Poliomyelitis residual facial paralysis and motor neuron disabilities and what it did to my sound of voice and inability to both read facial expressions, gestures, and the like ("non-verbal language communication") and for them to be "read" by other non-Autistic people, as well as my Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish ancestry containing the homo neanderthalensis genes. Being "outed" for my neuro-religious species convergence type[3] made me feel like J. Edgar Hoover must have felt when he was "outed" wearing the infamous "Red Dress" that gave rise to the "Red Scare" (otherwise known as "McCarthism"), or how Lucille Ball must have felt when she was "outed" with Desi.
Non-Autistic people who bully people with Autism by using social cooperation-calling techniques, frequently push around and abuse a lot of helpless Autistic children and helpless adults. I hear a lot of Horribly derogatory remarks, such as "Hey Retard," or "Stupid Idiot," or "Why can't you be like us?", or talking over our heads about us to others as if we do not know the Incredibly insulting and very mis-guided things they are saying about us. See Ari N'eeman: "Nothing about us without us."
I get to say how DE-VALUED this makes people with Autism feel, because (to borrow Hon. Clarence Thomas' sense of achievement in having earned it on merit), I have three University degrees and passed the same 'most difficult Bar Exam in the Country' as everyone else, and I can describe how it makes ME feel to be called those kinds of words as if I were a piece of dirt on the ground that has no value or worth.
People with Autism do not Deserve to be mis-treated this way just because we are historically different than Neuro-typical non-Autistics, just because we have an adaptive Autistic advantage under some evolutionary environments, see HERE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110603122849.htm And, really, it is totally anti-Semitic !
People who live around me all day like my caretakers, who really know me, do not usually have a "problem" with my Autistic nature. The other three categories ALL across-the-board mis-interpret, mis-judge, and mis-perceive almost everything about me and my intentions - and most especially that I am Not Stupid. I just Can't Talk.
The existing mis-treatment and pervasive abuse of people with Autism is currently at levels approaching Medieval torture. We have many talents adaptive to areas where non-Autistic Neuro-typicals fall short. This is not a matter of social heirarchy -- it is a matter of science and the neurological difference. The same way a K-9 can be adaptive for Natural Disaster research and rescue.
I am not going to stop sharing my life as an adult with Autism, because if there is just ONE person with Autism my life and efforts help to live a better quality and better understood life for my speaking out, then my life has been worth it.
How other make people with Autism feel is somthing to think about. We DO feel -- more intensely, in fact, than others.
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[1] My non-Autistic peers include basically lawyers, judges, legal assistants and the like who speak the same "legalese" language I was explicitly taught to speak, and this is evident to anyone who ever went to law school.
[2] I have frequently asked Bar Examiners, Bar Associations, Lawyers, Judges, and other legal profession people if they know what Autism is, and I never once got a response that -- if it were painted in a painting -- would not look like a Chimp with their mouth hanging wide open. "Huh ?" Therefore, such almost 100 % total Autism Ignorance serves as an admission by act that literally every lawyer, judge, and other legal profession position is 100 % homogeneuosly held by those who are non-Autistic (hereafter "Neuro-typical").
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