There used to be a guy who went to my school, named James, who was blind. One reason I thought James was cool was because of his competence and confidence in asking people for help. He would walk into a room and ask what he needed to know about what was in the room. (I don't mean to act like this is some kind of unusual quality in a blind person, but I hadn't met anyone who was blind before so it seemed really cool to me.)

Once I was talking to Noah about James and Noah told me something he had heard from James's former roommate. James's roommate had asked, "What do you imagine it would be like to be able to see?" and James said, "It would be like having a hand that could feel everything in a room all at once." This has always stuck with me and I don't think I realized why until I watched this video that's been going around tumblr.

The video is an ad for a marketing firm, called "The Power of Words." It depicts a blind guy begging on the street and not getting very much money. A woman comes up, grabs his sign, turns it over, and writes a new message on it. For the rest of the day, the blind guy makes tons of money, and when the woman comes back later he asks, "What did you do to my sign?" She says, "I wrote the same thing with different words."

This would obviously be patronizing no matter what the sign said, but I found the words on the sign to be the most interesting part of the video. The guy's sign originally says, "I'M BLIND, PLEASE HELP." The woman changes it to, "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY AND I CAN'T SEE IT."

This illustrates exactly what non-disabled people want from disabled people.

A lot of blind people are unemployed either because they weren't taught the skills they need to be independent, or aren't given the proper accommodations for getting and keeping a job. I think it's reasonable in our society for a disabled person to express frustration that their disability keeps them from getting the things they want, and to ask for help from other people because of their situation. So although I find a blind beggar to be a questionable subject for an inspirational video, the existence of such a person is realistic and I don't feel that I can condemn the video just because it's about a disadvantaged disabled person asking for money.

However, we're told in the video that the fact that this guy can't work and needs money isn't enough for people to want to help him. People only want to help him when he comes out and says not only, "There are things I can't do because of my disability and that sucks," but, "My experience of the world sucks on an existential level, not just a practical one, because I can't experience the world the way non-disabled people can."

I think one of my Autistics Speaking Day posts was about my desire to always add the phrase, "It's no big deal," after telling people about my disability, even though it actually is a big deal. This is because I don't trust people to understand the difference between the fact that there are some bad things about being disabled, and the idea that my disabledness is tragic in some overarching, objective way. Or rather an overarching, objective, spiritual way, if you know what I mean--the idea that disabled people are less human or less alive due to being disabled.

I think the most negative view you could reasonably have about being disabled is that it makes your life really hard, and it makes you upset a lot, and that sucks. This isn't necessarily my view but I would never criticize another disabled person for having it. But that isn't enough for non-disabled people. They have to feel that disabled people are missing not just the ability to have a job or feel secure, but that we're actually missing a vital part of being alive on the pure basis of our impairment.

I realize now that what James said stuck out to me because I heard it in the context of a society where stories about blind people are often about how they don't get to look at sunsets, or colors, and how tragic that is. I think I remember reading a children's book about a kid who "helps" his blind friend by describing different colors to him in terms of emotion. But if you're blind, the really cool, lovely details of life don't have to do with visual information because that just isn't a part of your life. Not getting to look at a sunset really isn't a big problem. What I liked about James's quote was that he thought of problems due to blindness in very practical terms--because he was blind, he didn't immediately know what was in a room the way sighted people did.

But for sighted people, this isn't enough.

Blind people have to say that their day is worse on an experiential level because they are blind.

And I think this duality--objective impairment, and the nebulous, often unlikely connotations of misery that are attached to it--explains a lot of the things non-disabled people do to disabled people, and why they seem so ridiculous when you look at them straight on.

I can hear the laughs

I know this is what tumblr is for, but I just covered one of my Lifetime Favorite Songs (literally since I was 12), and, because of the things I have been writing about the last few days, I have been thinking how disability, music, sexuality, and religion all feel to me like sort of the same thing, and this song covers it all which is maybe why it always feels to me like it contains everything I'll ever need to hear.



You can really fall, wake up in a ruined house,
wrapped up in a torn-down curtain.
And when I get to hell will the lovely girls come down
to the banks of that red, red river?

I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.

You can take a lot, put back not a thing,
still come home looking thinner.
And when I get to Oz, will the lovely witch come down,
kiss my pale, bleeding brow?

I can hear the laughs when they find I've fallen down again.
I can hear the laughs and it hurts so bad I have to smile.

disability services are not accessible!

Hello. I'm a person who attends college. I'm also a disabled person, oh my gosh. I was hoping to talk to you today about the subject of, "DISABILITY SERVICES ARE NOT ACCESSIBLE."

Basically, the reason I found myself wanting to talk about this is because, you know, sometimes I take classes--being in college--and if I mention to my professor that I'm disabled, or...you know, either as like, "I'm having trouble with this because I have a disability that affects me in this way," or just in a way that, like, isn't related to academics but is just like, "I think I responded to this story this way because I'm disabled," I don't know...

So basically, you do this and then the professor will be like, "Well, like, if you need any accommodations, we should...you know, you should go to the disability services office and we'll get you some accommodations." They say this to be helpful. And, um, sometimes on the first day of class, you get the syllabus and if the professor is, like, a really sensitive professor they'll have written, like, "Students with disabilities, um, please contact the disability services office if you need accommodations." So, um, at this point, I completely give up on ever being able to get any kind of support from this professor as a disabled student, because disability services is so awful. I basically need disability services like I need a hole in the head--actually, I mean, not even as much.

So, what are my problems with disability services? It seems like they would be really great--they make college accessible for disabled students.

Um...okay. My first problem is...I got this pen so I can make little signs. Okay. My first problem is, "DOCUMENTATION." This means that...well, basically the way it works is that if you have a disability and you're in college and you want accommodations, you can't just say "I'm disabled," you have to bring in a diagnosis of your disability that is from the past three to five years.

So, um, this might seem like it makes sense--disabled people are always going to the doctor and getting diagnosed all the time! But, actually, um, it doesn't make that much sense because that's not actually true. Like, some people, they might be diagnosed with their disability when they're like ten and it's not a disability that changes, so, um, they don't ever get diagnosed with it again. So then they're like eighteen and they're in college and they're not eligible for accommodations because they don't have a recent enough diagnosis.

So, basically, I guess the reaction that a lot of people would have would be, "Well, so, get another diagnosis." Um...I guess, number one, is, like, yes, some people could do that but why is it necessary if it's a disability that doesn't normally change? And, number two, like, that actually takes a lot of time. It's kind of hard to go and do that when you're in college. And, number three, that actually takes a lot of money. My family has a lot of money--I can go and get another diagnosis if I'm told that I have to get one to have something that I need. Um, other people's families wouldn't be able to pay for that, so it's actually kind of a class bias in disability services.

Another thing I have about documentation is just that I don't necessarily understand the point of it in every case. Like, I think, hypothetically you could make some argument about how people are going to pretend to be disabled for like the benefits they get from it 'cause being disabled is extra fun. Like, I guess you could say someone is going to pretend to have some kind of kind of, like, chronic illness so they can have their own room or something like that. I don't know. I'm sure you can think of examples.

But a lot of the time there isn't really any arguable benefit for getting accommodations that you don't need. But...you know, if someone says they want to take a test in a different room for, I don't know, anxiety reasons, or, like, they're easily distracted, or, like, anything...how could taking a test in a different room, um, actually make any difference to someone who didn't actually need to do it? Like, if anyone goes and takes a test in a different room, it doesn't make them do better on the test unless that's actually something that they needed in the first place.

So, um, it basically bothers me because, as I'm going to go into, I can't help but feel that disability services almost has a hatred of disabled people because it's, like, this constant assumption that we must be lying and that we should do all this work to prove that we're not lying, which brings me to my second point which I'll just call, "ALL THIS WORK."

So, um, okay. Let's say I'm in class. I'm disabled and I realize that I would do better with a particular accommodation. Um...so let's say I tell someone that I need this accommodation. Whose responsibility is it that I get this accommodation and therefore, um, my schoolwork is just as accessible to me as a it is to non-disabled kids? Do you think that it would be my professor who is being paid to teach all the students, or do you think that it would be the disability services office who is also being paid to make college accessible to disabled students? Well, I'm going to read you something awesome which I found on the St. Petersburg College disability services website. I think it really just like sums up the whole attitude.

"Colleges and universities have no responsibility to identify or seek out students with disabilities. It is the student's responsibility to make his or her disability known to the proper individuals, to provide correct and current paperwork documenting the disability, and to request accommodation personally"--I really want to go and talk about this in a minute.

But anyway...yeah. It's our responsibility. All the time. I don't know if you know anything about being, um, disabled, but sometimes, like, it's really hard to do anything, and things that other people think of as being very normal, like, may be, like, pretty, really hard for you. So, it may, all the time, be kind of like going around and carrying, I don't know, a really, really giant heavy bag that no one else is carrying and you're expected to do everything the same as them anyway. So, I guess disability services felt that, like, one bag isn't enough, so they have to add a second bag of making you be the one who has to go through all of the effort to get accommodations instead of them just doing it--which it seems like would be their job, but no.

So, um, what do you have to do? You have to figure out what accommodation you need, you have to go to disability services--or maybe you go to your professor first, I don't know--um, you get your d--you get your documentation, which may take a lot of steps if you don't have documentation, but, um, you get your recent documentation, and you meet with your professor...and also, sometimes you have to keep doing this over and over again when you've already done it.

For example, I have a friend who had to take a test in a separate room, so every single time that she had a test in the class she had to bring a form to the professor for him to sign saying that it was okay for her to take a test in another room. So, basically because of the basic, like, cognitive problems that she had going on at the time she couldn't actually go to the professor and get him to sign the form. She couldn't remember or focus enough to do it. So she basically didn't get her accommodations because she was made to do all the work and she wasn't actually able to do it. So...it just doesn't really seem very fair I guess when someone is already dealing with things, and when someone, besides, is a student, and when someone else is doing this as their job, that they can't just do some things for you.

Um, a particular thing is when you're supposed to personally go to your professor and tell them about your disability and what accommodations you need. For some people this isn't really possible. In fact...yeah. For example, let's say someone has an anxiety disorder and they don't want to go talk to someone about it. Let's say someone has any kind of disability that is kind of stigmatized and they don't always like to go around telling people about it.

(break)

Sorry, my roommate was going to the bathroom and I didn't want that to be in the video.

Um yeah so basically there are various reasons that a person might not want to be able to go to a professor and start telling them about their disability, or that it might be very difficult for them to do so, but they're still required to do it. And this ties into what I was saying before--basically that disability services kind of seems to hate disabled students, because, um, even though things are already kind of hard, we're basically supposed to do all this extra work just to be treated the same.

Um, yeah, shit, what was my third thing?

I guess what I was going to say--I don't need to write it down. I'm probably wrong. I probably do need to write it down. But I was going to talk about, like, surprises. Basically disability services has this really cut-and-dry view of disability where you always know what you need. So, um, you know, if someone needs extra time to take a test, they'll always know that that's what they need. If someone needs...I don't know. You don't really need that many examples.

Basically, you know, someone's supposed to be able to know before they even start the semester what kind of accommodations they're going to need, and, you know there can't be any surprises. But...living with a disability, there are a lot of surprises. And one reason this is is just because of...I guess because of the general sort of complexity of, like...it's not always that you can't do something completely, but that for a lot of people it's that you can't do something sometimes or it's harder for you to do something.

So, this means that, like, you know, you might not ask for an accommodation on, like, a paper because you don't feel that you're...like, maybe you have, like, a reading disability, but you don't feel like you're so affected that you won't be able to work really hard and do this one paper. But then the paper comes around and you're like really super tired or, like, you have like three papers and it takes you so long to do this that you just can't do all of it, so you just don't do one of your papers. There's basically no way in hell that you could go at the last minute and be like, "Hey, can I have a disability accommodation? Because of my disability, I can't do all these papers at the same time." And...you know. That wouldn't be seen as real.

Something else, kind of an in-between issue, but something that's always personally bothered me is that, you know...if, for cognitive reasons, I cannot do something in class, like...I'm not even saying that I want to get away with that and have it not affect my grade. But I would appreciate it, I guess, if the professor doesn't decide that I don't care about their class and start being really nasty to me, which has happened; and, um, I don't know, I guess I wish that there was some way for disability services to actually be involved in issues when someone is either being discriminated against because of their disability or in which, like, professors are misunderstanding things that happened because of the person's disability--because if you're in a class with a professor that like really hates you it can make it really hard to succeed because you don't ever get any support or help from them.

Shit my roommate's dropping stuff and I know I'm gonna get really confused in a minute. I guess that was basically the whole point I was making, though. Basically, no room for clearing up misconceptions about disability--basically no room for anything relating to prejudice against disability--especially because disability services is extremely in the medical model of disability, in which everything is about the disabled person and basically it's the disabled person's fault that things don't work for them. Um, that's actually like, for me, I would kind of say that's what the whole thing is. That's what it feels like. The whole thing is about how it's the disabled person's fault and they should feel very very bad and the only way they can make up for causing such a problem is by doing all this extra work and getting their documentation together and shit.

What else did I have to say? Let's find out.

Shit--you know, it's really too bad, because I made another video about this and I said something so smart and I can't remember what it is.

So I guess you might be asking, what is something else that you could do, besides disability services--for example, if you are a professor, how could you help? Um...do it yourself?

Like...there's probably some things, I assume, are probably against the law. But there are other things that you can just do, and I know this because one time, for me, a professor let me take an exam in a separate room for emotional reasons, which I explained to him, which he accepted without me having any documentation because he was a really good person and he knew that there wasn't a reason that I would need that accommodation unless I actually needed it.

Um, there's things like that. There's things like trying to make your class universally accessible. What universal design means, basically, is that instead of making something so that only non-disabled people can access it and then, like, very long-sufferingly, like, making a tiny ramp for a disabled person to get in...you just make everything so as many people can do it as possible. So when you're designing your class, just think about different ways that people might need to access the information.

Or, you know, if someone's in class, just write on the syllabus if they're having trouble with something because of their disability, they can just talk to you. You don't need to have the whole part about "go to disability services," because you don't know what that means, so just say that they could talk to you, and then people will actually think that you get it, because you actually will.

Um, yeah, that's basically it. Sorry I can't remember the amazing thing that I said in my video that I made of this the other day.

(break)

Guess what? I just went back and looked at my other video and I found what I was going to say. I was going to say something about--wait--"BEING AN ADULT AND DEVELOPING GOOD SELF-ADVOCACY SKILLS."

So, this is something I have seen. When disability services people are being criticized for the fact that they basically make disabled students do all the work to get their services, they'll usually be like, "Well, we're actually teaching our students to be responsible, take initiative, and develop good self-advocacy skills." Well, this sounds nice, especially because a lot of the time disabled people are treated as being children, or treated as being incompetent and needing people to do everything for us, which obviously isn't a good thing. So, like, maybe first off it sounds kind of good when they're saying, "Oh, we're gonna make you do things for yourself." But actually, if you say that you're treating someone like an adult, but they're actually the only person who's being made to behave that way, then you're not really treating them equally.

Because, when you're in college, you aren't exactly being treated like an adult--like, no one is. You basically have someone kind of taking care of a lot of the details of your housing for you, a lot of the details of your eating, depending on the housing and eating decisions that you make, but you have a lot of people doing stuff for you.

And, if you're not disabled, your classes just are accessible to someone like you automatically and you don't have to do anything. So, if someone is disabled, and suddenly instead of doing it for them, you know, given the fact that they're a young adult and maybe they still need some support and can't do everything on their own, you say that they have to do it all on their own, because they need to get mature and get self-advocacy skills, you're actually holding them to a different standard from other students. Which is not fair, actually, so don't do it.

late night germs

I got this weird comment on a really old YouTube video called "More about Asperger's and looking normal." Sometimes I get comments where I think English isn't their first language, or maybe it's just related to their disability, but either way the person seems to just be responding to things like the title of the video or some random word mentioned in the video, and just saying how they feel about that thing. I certainly don't mind this or anything, it's a lot less annoying than people who will do shit like getting in an argument with me over whether I really have ASD, based on some line that they willfully misinterpreted in the video.

Anyway, this video is actually just documenting the beginning of my realization that I didn't need to try to play a role to cover for being different, and explaining that I had come to this conclusion by meeting people with severe disabilities and realizing that a lot of them they were pretty cool, and if the scariest thing I could think of was that I might look sort of like them if I wasn't careful, I had a pretty good life.

But this guy's comment is about how he has Asperger's and he looks normal and he wants to date a girl with Asperger's who is pretty and looks normal. When I saw this comment and saw what the word normal meant to this guy--obviously something very innocent, unless I misread it--I felt like maybe I overdo the whole "I don't look normal and I don't want to look normal" thing. Because for some people normal just kind of means good or whatever. Sometimes I even use it that way. ("I'm sorry I'm being so annoying." "No, you're totally normal.")

But I really don't like to be told I look normal. Is that normal?

I think for me being told I look normal is like--well, it's not good because it feels like I'm not being given any space. Like just because I look a certain way to you right now doesn't mean I always will. Maybe someday I will look less normal. I want room to react and move the way that feels right. This means that for me it's nice to think of myself as "looking disabled." This doesn't mean that I have to always or even sometimes look like someone that other people can easily recognize as disabled. I'm disabled so by definition I look disabled, since I look like myself. If I think of myself as "looking normal," then it's only sometimes true. Or it's a feeling instead of just being.

the hangover show

(I'm too embarrassed to transcribe the spoken parts of it, but if watched I'm pretty sure it will produce lulz.)

Yeah so re the fiction thing, it actually isn't a real awesome project, it's kind of a dumb idea. But I read Bible Camp Bloodbath and it was pretty swell (I would really recommend reading Lockpick Pornography by the same author, it was really important to me when I was in high school) and I got all excited about the idea of posting a book in blog form.

But I don't want to post anything actually good because you know someday I would like to get some books published in real life and get a really small amount of money for them. So I was thinking of posting this weird book I wrote when I was 16-18 which is...okay, maybe I just think this because I wrote it, but I feel like it's a pretty terrible book that has a certain charm.

Do you like Twilight? It's kind of the same thing. I genuinely think that even though all the sequels suck, the first Twilight book and movie are genuinely great in their portrayal of two kind of boring people who have a really boring but really intense relationship. Because that's what it feels like when you're a boring person and you have a crush on another boring person! They come into bio lab and you're like OHHH NOOOO and then a bunch of paper flies up right in front of your crotch and it's terrible. Well that's what my book is like.

how an autism spectrum disability affects my life now

[the video hasn't processed yet, if it doesn't make it onto youtube I'm going to plotz though.
FUCK YEAH SEAKING IT'S PROCESSING
score

]

Hey um I tried to do this yesterday but the video was too long and it wouldn't post. Um, I made this video a year and a half ago which is called "How Asperger's Syndrome affects my life now." I, um, constantly want to delete this video because I don't identify as having Asperger's Syndrome anymore, and um the video also starts with me saying something like, "Well I guess I'm very high-functioning so you probably shouldn't judge Asperger's Syndrome from listening to me," and in retrospect I think that's a ridiculous thing to say. But I mean like everyone else I like when people talk to me on the Internet and I get a lot of comments on that video so I don't want to delete it. But I wanted to make a sequel.

Um, first of all, like, the whole Asperger's thing...kind of a stupid word, not going to be in the DSM anymore because it's not a concept that makes sense. Um, I mean it's not the only ASD diagnosis that I ever got, either, and I also um...the thing is that the reason I used that word about myself was not ever because I wanted to. Like, I used to use the word autistic when I was much younger. But um, from non-disabled people I would face you know criticism because I would be told, "You shouldn't be using that word about yourself because you're not severely disabled enough" or something like that. Um, I don't really think that this is a way of talking that makes sense, I mean there are lots of...pretty much every disability that I can think of, there are some people who are very severely affected and some people who are very mildly affected. I also don't think that people can just talk to me and decide that I am mildly affected when they don't live my life. Um, so, I guess, I'm no longer interested in feeling guilty about using the word Autistic about myself--I mean I consider myself part of Autistic culture, I consider people with severe disabilities to be people who I feel as much loyalty to as I do to people who have a disability experience very much like my own, I don't, um...I mean, I've known a lot of people with severe autism, and I mean it's more severe but it's not something else, and I don't...that doesn't really make sense to say it is.

Yeah, sorry, to actually talk about myself, um...I, like, I feel like, I mean before, I didn't know other people with autism so I was very um, my whole view of what stuff was was very much based in what I read in books by people who didn't have autism, so I was, I feel like I was always trying to fit myself into that kind of category and then when I didn't fit it I would just say, "oh well I must be so high-functioning that that's why I don't fit into that description." [note: but then there were other things I couldn't do that even people with "classic Asperger's" [i.e. worse than mine] were supposed to be able to do, so I didn't understand that.] But you know as I've gotten to meet other people with autism and other disabilities I've realized that you know I have stuff going on that's pretty classic sometimes but it hasn't been written about as much but it happens to most of the Autistic people that I know.

Um, okay, so, first of all, the whole social thing has been something that's really massively changed for me in the past year and a half since I made that video and since I became more involved in disability culture. I think the thing is that even though before I used to think of myself as being, like, "better" and "recovered" and "not really autistic anymore," like, because I was always judging by, because I was always judging myself by the standard of whether I looked like a normal person, I...it was very hard for me to relate to other people who didn't have disabilities because I always felt inferior to them.

Like, um, I guess um the way that I walk is kind of different from some people who don't have disabilities, so um, especially with other women--when I was friends with other girls, if we were both walking down the street I would become so conscious of the way that I walked and the way that it wasn't like the way the other person was walking that I would get like pretty upset, and um it really poisoned my relationships especially with other girls because I was very, I was always comparing myself to them and thinking how I couldn't move like them and stuff like that which is kind of stupid.

Um, another thing is that I was really really worried always that other people didn't really want to be around me and I was just like attaching myself to them, so it meant that it was hard for me to reach out to people and then when I did I felt really like upset about it and like they didn't really want me there and I mean...I think this has been a really...it was a really bad thing in a lot of my friendships because I couldn't help...I would always resent people as if they'd actually done something to me, when in fact like the only thing that was going on was that I thought that I was inferior to them so I just resented them. And um I guess all I can say is that since I've become more conscious of identifying as disabled and less upset about being disabled, it's pretty, like...you know if I'm walking along and I know that I'm walking differently from someone else it's like, surprise! I guess I'm disabled so I walk like I'm disabled. Shock! Not really a big deal. Um, I mean I figure that other people probably want to be around me just as much as they want to be around anyone else so I'm not afraid I guess of trying to reach out to people and talking to people and...

It's funny because people, um, professionals always talk about "social skills" and they frame social skills as being able to look like you're normal, but I mean, what I would call my social skills have vastly improved now that I don't care about that anymore because you know when you're not thinking about trying to make yourself look like you're normal, you really are much more interested in other people and you have a lot more energy to spare on just caring about other people and listening to what they have to say.

Um, other stuff, the brain stuff, which is actually, like, the real problem. Um I've been watching The Walking Dead recently which is a TV show about zombies and I figured out that I'm basically a zombie. For example if a zombie was following a person that it wanted to eat, and the person leaves, the zombie will just keep going in the same direction, and um that's pretty much what I'm like. It's hard for zombies to like make new decisions or um figure things out, like they just see objects that they used to use when they were alive and they just get triggered into using them the same way 'cause they don't really, you know, get it. Um, it's very hard for me to think about anything in a new way or to switch myself into any kind of new task, which can be a really huge problem. It's, um, and I mean there's also a lot of stuff which I guess is probably a bit like having dementia which is just you know constantly forgetting what you're doing a lot--and I mean, I know all this stuff is the kind of stuff where people can be like, "oh that happens to everyone," which is totally true, but I mean the way that it happens to me is very pervasive and makes it hard to do things.

I also have pretty severe anxiety problems and um a problem is that I get such severe anxiety about my um (laughs) cognitive problems, which I guess are what you would call poor um central coherence and executive dysfunction, and stuff like that, if you like big words, um I get so upset about those things that I like will intentionally like block off like the part of my brain that tries to remember what I have to do and um will intentionally get myself stuck on like new ideas--or, not new ideas, I will intentionally get myself stuck on old ideas so I can just kind of stim out on them and not have to um do the actual work--which I mean, it's very hard, the only way...I mean, the good way for things to happen is for someone else to just sit down with me and like calmly explain to me what I have to do and help me like stay like emotionally stable during that.

But that doesn't always happen because I don't get disability services at school because I haven't been recently diagnosed enough, etc., and even if I was people would probably be like, "well, autism is just a social disability so why do you think you need help with mental stuff?" Um, yeah, not a lot of fun, that stuff.

Something that's interesting, I don't know how many people it happens to, but I, um, when things are very bad for me I have like dissociative and derealization symptoms which are um...it basically means that everything kind of looks and feels the same. So like talking to my mom and talking to my best friend and talking to a stranger all feel exactly the same. It's like um I mean intellectually I remember who people are but it's kind of as if I had just been fed the information and I didn't actually have like the lived experience of having them in my life. So it's just like when you're with people you don't feel the same click of recognition when you're having that kind of episode (I guess it's, I guess you could call it an episode) and I um I don't know. It can be really scary. Especially because you feel like you don't know them so it's kind of like a sense of stage fright, because you know it's as if you're performing a relationship with someone that you don't really have in your life. So um that can be really hard and I think that's a lot of why I try to avoid all my cognitive stuff and just end up fucking myself over by trying to ignore like the brain stuff, just because um when I look at things head-on I get a lot of anxiety and the results can be so unpleasant that I feel like it's almost worse not to do it.

Okay, I ran out of time, I hope this video is short enough that it'll actually post. But I just wanted to make this because the other video I don't like so much and I really think this is better and more in line with what I actually think about and believe now. Okay.

Regular Person Listening Day

Hi, it's Autistics Speaking Day, which is a thing. Um, well, basically an organization for autism made up of people that aren't autistic--I don't know if you've ever heard of that before, but there's a lot of them. They decided that they should do a thing on November first, called Communication Shutdown, and they thought that people should promote autism awareness and try to think about what it's like to be Autistic by not using social networking sites like Facebook.

Which, I mean,

number one, like disability simulations tend to not be good, because you can't tell what it's like to have a disability just by putting on a blindfold or sitting in a wheelchair or not going on Facebook (which doesn't actually have anything to do with being Autistic)...but you can't tell what it's like, so it's silly to imagine that you can and it's better to just listen to people and treat everyone respectfully,

um, you know,

and, um, I think a lot of Autistic people, when we hear about autism awareness, are like, "well I mean, wouldn't people be more aware if they just listened to us, instead of doing something like this, which doesn't really have to do with us?" So Corina Becker, who is an Autistic person who does a lot of cool things, decided that we should have Autistics Speaking Day which just means that people who have autism could just, like, write or say something, like, on the Internet or somewhere else, just to tell people how they feel about stuff.

I made a post and stuff, it's about the sort of thing I always talk about, nothing interesting, I'm going to link to it in the description of this video.

One thing I wanted to say is just...I mean, when I see the phrase "Autistics Speaking Day" that does make me feel, you know, it makes me feel weird because some people can't speak and some people can't even write.

So, by definition, it has to leave some people out I guess, at least superficially, but, I think, um, I feel like people may see that and say, "Well, the people with autism in my life, they can't write a post, and they can't tell me how they feel." So, um...to people who feel like that, who are in that situation, I think that there's still a way of observing Autistics Speaking Day with the person in your life. And, um, one way of doing that is respecting the person and knowing that the life they live has meaning for them.

One example of the opposite of what I'm recommending is something that one of my psych professors said I think a week or two ago when she was talking about autism. Someone mentioned that one of the kids with autism they had worked with was very focused on like, people's hair, or like, shoelaces, or something, I can't remember what it was...

No, it was trains, which are great, it was actually something that's, like, inarguably cool, but then my professor was like, "Well, you know, that's autistic people, they get really interested in uninteresting things."

So, um, I mean, how does anyone decide what an uninteresting thing is? Like, I don't like the TV show Glee, but my friend likes it, and my friend doesn't like the TV show Mad Men because she thinks that nothing happens. And some people like sports, like, professional sports, and I don't like professional sports, I like comics books and some people don't, um, and, well, I like trains, and I like, um, looking at colors, and some people, um, they just like spinning things and looking at them. People like a lot of things and I guess I don't really like the idea of saying that...

I mean, it's certainly possible to say, "For this person it's become, like, a severe problem that they're always spinning things and not doing anything else." You know, you can say that, but I feel like the level of judgment in saying, "They're interested in uninteresting things..." (coughs) Sorry. I'm also sick, um, in addition to being Autistic.

But um, I think a lot of the time, people have a way of talking about people...I mean really, all disabled people, but often people with very severe disabilities who aren't verbal, people have a way of looking at them and saying, "their meaningless behavior, um...they...I don't understand what they're doing so I think that it's meaningless."

Um, I guess I feel like one thing that Autistics Speaking Day, which I guess you could just call it Regular Person Listening Day, I guess one thing that Regular Person Listening Day could be about is just seeing that everyone does what they do for a reason, and if someone in your life is doing things that you don't understand, like making noises, or getting very upset when you don't think they should be upset, or not being able to wear their clothes because their clothes are uncomfortable for them and their sensory issues, I mean, I feel like a way of listening to them is just refusing to ascribe meaninglessness to behavior that you don't understand, um,

I think that's a kind of listening that you can do for everyone no matter what they can do in terms of talking.

Two YouTube things

I love the Internet:

I have a mildly autistic daughter. She's 11, and she shares a great many of your reported behaviors and, I think, feelings. We also have a hard time telling what's autism and what's just the unique brand of weirdness that every individual person has. I wouldn't worry about it too much. (I know, easy for me to say!) By the way, I hope my daughter turns out as self-possessed and self-aware as you seem to be. Thanks for posting. Stay shiny, Browncoat!

However, what I came here to say was that if you aren't watching Dave Hingsburger's videos about working in institutions at the beginning of his career, you should be. They're...well, I don't think "great" is the word exactly, but I think they're important. I should warn you that this particular video made me cry a lot, and that they're all pretty disturbing so far.



Here is a very good transcription.

I think I'm in danger of falling in love with Lauren Lopez

She reminds me of the kid from Home Alone.



(I know, what happened to the tumblr? Soon I will post about something legit. I'm going to post about language and ASD people not necessarily being able to switch between different styles of speaking. If you recently had a conversation with me about this, my post is probably about you! I'm just trying to think of a fake name for you. I hope you're excited.)

This woman is a delight; and, On Speaking Badly.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the woman in this video, portrayed a character on Family Guy who has Down Syndrome and, when asked what her parents do, says, "My mother is the former governor of Alaska." Palin had a shitfit of course, and then Friedman did some interviews saying that she thinks it's funny and Palin should get a sense of humor. In this video she becomes visibly upset about the fact that Palin is using Trig's disability to get attention. Friedman emphasizes that her parents gave her a normal childhood and that's what Trig should be able to have too.



(Transcript by Tlonista here at FWD/Forward.)

Some person commented and said that Friedman obviously didn't understand the situation because she said Palin was trying to use Trig to get "votes." Argh, why does it matter whether she used exactly the right word for what she was trying to say?

I remember that I used to have this reaction to videos of intellectually disabled people talking with other people, where if they didn't talk that much, or spoke in a cliched or prepared-sounding way, I would think that maybe they weren't expressing their own opinions. Specifically, I'm talking about videos where the star of "Retarded Policeman" would appear with a non-disabled friend or family member, and express that he was okay with being in the show, and that people shouldn't get offended on his behalf. (There was also a video saying that he was okay with the word "retard" in Tropic Thunder.) This is the first video, where he appears with his sister:



Ponce: Hello, world. Josh "The Ponceman" Perry here, with my sister Stacey.
Stacey: Hi, guys. We've been reading a lot of your comments and wanted to clear a few things up about Josh. Josh is an actor.
Ponce: And I am hilarious!
Stacey: He is hilarious. And he loves acting.
Ponce: And I want to do this for a living.
Stacey: So just sit back...
Ponce: And enjoy it.
Stacey: And to all you people who have a problem with Josh acting, or even if you find it offensive in any way...
Ponce: I just want to say, I have Down Syndrome, but you people are fucking retarded.
Stacey: As the Retarded Policeman would say...
Ponce and Stacey: (in Retarded Policeman voice) Bye!

Ponce and his brother Scott (who writes and acts in short films with Ponce, and also wrote some of the Retarded Policeman videos) ended up refusing to make any more Retarded Policeman videos because they said that Ponce wasn't being paid enough given how successful the videos were, and made a video about that.



Josh: Hey people.
Scott: Hey guys. The reason Ponce and I are doing this video is because, over the past year, we've had a ton of our friends and fans ask us why we're not doing Retarded Policeman anymore, and why there's no new episodes.
Josh: I love the show and I liked doing it.
Scott: Yeah, in all sincerity, we absolutely loved doing Retarded Policeman. It's one of our favorite things. However, the simple answer as to why we're not doing it anymore is that we had an agreement with Mediocre Films that has not been honored. That's really all I want to say about it. Um, we, um, we put a blog up about that if you guys want to check that out, it's http://theperryboys.wordpress.com, we'll put the link here, and put the link in the side there. But believe me when I say that we have tried everything that we could for this past year--basically, all year, trying to work something out and make things okay so that we could continue, but we've sadly reached an impasse--like, we know we're not gonna work things out. Uh...that's it--anything else?
Josh: I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, I loved doing Retarded Policeman, and I love all your comments, and I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, it breaks my heart.
Scott: Okay. Just leave us comments, you know--we love your comments here, we love your comments there. That's it, we're gonna move on, we're gonna do bigger better things, we're gonna keep doing what we do, and that's it, right? Out and out.
Josh: (in Retarded Policeman voice) Bye!
Scott: (snickers) Nice.

When I first watched these videos I felt uncertain. If Ponce was really expressing himself, then why did the things he say either sound scripted, or sort of unfocused; and why did he generally not take the lead in expressing points? Then I realized how dumb my reaction was. If I was making a video like this, I would want someone else to express the big points. I'm not such a good talker myself, and it sucks when people think that (because I say "like" a lot or lose my train of thought or have to prepare what I'm going to say) I'm not sincere. Sometimes I even start thinking that I don't know what I'm talking about, just because I can't produce an immediate response when someone says something. So I couldn't believe that I would judge whether someone else was expressing their own thoughts, just based on whether they talked "well."

Andrea Fay Friedman is obviously emotionally affected by the idea that Trig isn't being allowed to have a normal life. As a person whose parents were told to put her in an institution when she was born, Friedman doubtless has a clear idea of the prejudice that people with Down Syndrome face, and the pity and admiration points a person can rack up just for having a kid with Down Syndrome. So why the fuck isn't Friedman allowed to say that she thinks Palin is exploiting that, and that Trig deserves to have parents as good as Friedman's? Who cares if she uses the word "votes?"

(In the event that Ponce/Josh Perry is one of those people who Googles himself all the time, and finds this: Dear Ponce, I hope that you don't think I'm insulting or criticizing the way you talk. Just trying to explain how stupid it is to judge people by the way they talk. I really like the videos you and Scott do, especially the Paranormal Activity one.)

Public Service Announcement

Battlestar Galactica Pokemon

Pretty much the most important thing I've ever done.

Feo means ugly in Spanish

so I previously mentioned my unfortunate tendency to sincerely like things that you're supposed to like ironically. The worst result of this is probably my love for Cute is What We Aim For, which is this incredibly AutoTuned band for 14-year-old girls that features the ugliest man ever singing about how he hates women. I'm not kidding. Listen to this song that I accidentally covered BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP IT:



I feel sort of anxious because even though I think my cover is rad, I'm afraid of all the 14-year-olds on YouTube finding it and being really mean to me and telling me I'm ugly and stuff. Sometimes when I was 14, boys would come up to me and say, "Feo you!" the way you'd say, "Fuck you." The only Temple Grandin quote I agree with is about seeing groups of teenage boys hanging out at gas stations and being so freaked out you don't even want to get out of the car.

but seriously, this is the catchiest song EVER? and I'm from a commuter town so I'm bound to like it. Not my fault.

The most boring thing ever

A Feministing thread about this video was linked by Ouyang Dan on FWD and it (the thread and the video) is legitimately the most boring thing I've ever seen in my life. Everyone on the Feministing thread is shitting themselves about how great it is for 14-year-old girls to be expressing these sentiments which is like--really?

1. No one who's 14 still plays with Barbies anyway, so I don't see how it's some amazing rebellion for a 14-year-old to make fun of Barbie. It reminds me of how when I was eight my friend and I used to watch Blue's Clues (which is aimed at 3-5-year-olds) and make fun of how Steve didn't know anything.

2. I would have killed to look like these girls when I was 14. Actually I still would. I guess I shouldn't make assumptions about how other people feel about their appearance, but it's just hard for me to imagine that this song comes out of a struggle, that those girls have felt really bad about themselves and now they're writing this song to fight those feelings. These very pretty, thin girls are writing a song about how you don't have to be pretty and thin! Yeah! Awesome!

A good example of something not-boring is Sleater-Kinney; specifically, Corin Tucker. Corin Tucker is different from these girls because she's actually talented, but also, she isn't incredibly skinny or conventionally pretty. I've seen her be called fat. I'm not saying that you should like bands because they're less conventionally pretty, but just that being part of Sleater-Kinney fandom actually made me feel less anxious about the way I look, whereas the Care Bears on Fire video says the right words, but doesn't make you feel anything different.

3. I have to admit to not feeling a ton of pity when women say things like, "I have a super high metabolism, and people always tell me I'm too skinny and should eat something." It sort of reminds me of "It Ain't Easy Being White" by Gob Bluth:



I know that I'm not seen as fat--I'm about a size six or eight--but I know a lot of girls who are a lot thinner than I am, and I've never felt good about my weight. If I somehow get one of those metabolisms and become a size two and everyone keeps telling me to eat something, I'll be incredibly delighted. Maybe I'm displaying insufficient empathy, but seriously, I just can't imagine that these magic metabolism people feel as bad about being skinny as they claim. How can they?

But that said, that doesn't mean that "eat a sandwich" is actually a feminist thing to say. First of all, some women are not thin because of their metabolism, they're thin because of an eating disorder, or another health reason; criticizing them for their thinness is hurtful. Second of all, when women are thin because of their metabolism, it's still kind of a stupid, messed-up thing to say, even though they're the privileged group. And finally, the bogeyman (implied when women bend over backwards to insist that they're thin because of their metabolism)--some women are thin because of a really strict diet. But why insult those women, either? To reference yet another dead TV show, this reminds me of a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which Veruca and Oz have the following exchange:

Oz: Big lunch?
Veruca: I like to eat. I hate chicks who are like, "does it have dressing on it?"

To give some background, Veruca is a villain, though she's a small-scale, human-relations villain, not a Big Bad like Angelus or the Mayor. She is basically in the show to try to seduce Oz away from Willow. Veruca has various things in common with Oz that make Willow feel left out, and in the scene I'm quoting, Willow soon approaches Veruca and Oz and is made to feel uncomfortable because they are talking about music (they're both musicians and Willow is not). Veruca seems to relish making Willow feel uncomfortable and left out.

Feeling stupid and uninformed about music (IIRC, Veruca and Oz are talking about some very stereotypically masculine thing, like gear) is an archetypal feeling for a woman surrounded by men. It seems like Veruca is setting herself up as "one of the guys;" a girl who understands stuff that most girls don't understand. Those stupid girls, feeling left out of music! How could they possibly feel that way? Certainly not because guys don't make them feel welcome, or anything like that. And it's the same with the food. It's Veruca vs. those stupid girls who are obsessed with dressing and don't appreciate hamburgers and stuff, like guys do! Of course Oz would never find a woman unattractive because she was heavy! Of course Oz would never insult or judge a woman for being heavy! No man would do anything like that. This is just some stupid thing that women made up, because they're stupid, and they like to freak out about things that aren't real.

I'm not saying that Joss Whedon is good on weight issues, because that would be the most hilarious mischaracterization of the century, but I think that particular scene is really striking and accurate. A woman refusing to see the ways women are oppressed, so that she (while still being quite conventionally attractive, if slightly less thin than Alyson Hannigan) can be The Exception, the woman who doesn't worry about dumb stuff.

I sound like I'm going off on a tangent, but this is how I feel about that video. I was told in elementary school and in Girl Scouts that Barbie would fall over if she was a live woman. Everyone knows that. "Barbie Eat a Sandwich" is the most wholesome, socially acceptable song you could possibly write about body image. What if Care Bears on Fire wrote a song about a girl's mother criticizing her weight all the time? Or her boyfriend making snarky comments because she eats a cheeseburger? Or a girl who was actually "fat," not a size four or whatever they are, going to the doctor and having her actual health issues be ignored because the doctor is guilting her about her weight? That song wouldn't be so wholesome and socially acceptable to everyone because it would actually be calling out people who discriminate against women for their size and eating habits, instead of criticizing a woman for being too thin and not eating enough (who, okay, okay, as everyone on Feministing keeps saying, isn't a real person--but that just makes the song even more cowardly and makes me even more annoyed that people think it's so brave and great or whatever).

So, to finish up, this song is just incredibly boring and doesn't say anything cool at all, and now I will post my favorite Sleater-Kinney song:



Basically I think this song is really good, and not-boring, because it portrays the narrator's issues with food in a complex way and shows how they come from the oppression of women. Instead of a woman blaming another woman for being so stupid as to care about her weight and what she eats, we have a woman angrily and sadly expressing how she feels and raging against the forces that have made her feel that way.

(I hope it doesn't come off like I think all eating disorders are related to sexism; I know that's not the case.)

really charming things people have said to me on the Internet

"What are your interests? My interests are California and Harry Potter...sorry, I'm being weird, I guess I'm at the lower-functioning end of the Asperger's spectrum." (I think this was somewhat sincere, that's why it's charming)

"I haven't emailed you because all I can think about is how you'll just answer me and tell me what a dick I am."

"No one really cares about the world or about people." (This is charming because it's a Francisco Hernandez reference!)

A set of pictures of rooms crammed with food, books, clothes, and possibly garbage, labeled "Life skills"

"I thought I should email you before I email my family because you'll get more nervous if I don't email you and think that I'm mad." (same person as #2--how cute is her theory of mind?)

I could say more but I don't want this list to become a Toddopoly, and I think that's likely to happen. Basically, I just feel really lucky that ASD people sometimes get in contact with me because of YouTube, because I don't know any ASD people in real life (well, one person seems ASD, but isn't diagnosed and doesn't describe herself that way). It's nice to watch people become scared in the same way that I am scared, and be careful in the same way that I'm careful.

My friend who seems ASD (who I haven't seen in eight months, but who is on campus, so I'll probably see her within the next few days) is a girl named Jane who always skips around and apologizes for things. One of my favorite things with Jane is that sometimes we both just sort of run off at the mouth using all our apology and carefulness scripts, and then we both rush to reassure each other. "I'm sorry I'm being so weird"/"No I'm sorry I'm being weird"/"But you're not being weird, it's my fault, I'm the one being weird"/"No you're not being weird, I think you're great"/"No, you're wrong, actually you're the one who's great, I think you confused the pronouns you were trying to use." It's like a puppet show after a while; the words aren't really language, just a game. A really safe game full of history.

I am not an especially good friend, by any means, but my friendship can have a systematic quality, and I don't think that's such a bad thing because I'm starting to realize how nice it is in others.

ASD Savants/Disability Redemption transcript

Hey, so I wanted to talk about the idea of redemption--I'm not trying to convert you to Christianity, it's a completely different kind of redemption. I think the idea of redemption is around in the conversation about Asperger's and high-functioning autism. And what I mean by redemption is the idea that if someone has a disability, if they're good at something else, it's okay that they have a disability.

And the kind of things you can be good at, it's a very narrow thing, it's the kind of things that are considered to be good by, like, intellectuals or something. Or I shouldn't say that--like, let's say you're really good at playing soccer, that would probably be okay. Or if you're really good at killing cows, or music criticism. Anything like that. If you have an ASD but you're good at something like that, then it's okay that you have an ASD, and you shouldn't even call it a disability, because all the trouble that you take up is canceled out by the fact that you do such and such good thing.

Well, this just isn't a point of view that I want to be part of, because I think it's kind of messed up and offensive. And the whole idea that people who take extra work to take care of, or people who have a disability--even people who are just kind of different and need a different thing from the world--we live in a culture that sees that as such an awful thing, like such people are such a huge burden and you should be really freaked out about them. And into the middle of that come people like Temple Grandin who will try to argue that people with Asperger's and HFA are, like, super special smart at certain things, and because of that, it's not really a disability, or it's okay, or "a dash of autism creates a genius" or whatever stupid recipe thing she's been saying lately--I just think that's really ableist. If you think, "well, it's okay to have this, because it creates a genius"--I mean, the whole idea that being a genius is such an important and valuable thing--well, it's not the most important thing in life and that's not the only kind of valuable people that there are.

It's weird for me, because I guess I'm a "high-functioning" person, but really, the reason I think of myself as a high-functioning person is just because people don't perceive me as having a disability most of the time. But it's funny because I don't feel that I'm a genius or that anyone perceives me that way. I definitely don't feel like a fucking savant--I mean, I'm good at some things, but it's not anything big, and I think when people meet me, there's very little sense of me being a genius--I mean, to the extent that anyone thinks anything about me in terms of disability or difference, it's probably that I'm kind of out of it, or that I seem like kind of an asshole, or just that I'm kind of stupid. So I don't relate to the genius thing. I guess I relate more to people who are intellectually disabled, because I feel like people give them the same kind of impatience and weird looks that they give me.

So those are the people that I feel the closest to, and it's upsetting to see other Asperger's people, like, throw intellectually disabled people under the bus--I just see so much writing by people with Asperger's, who if they see themselves grouped with people who are 'retarded,' they'll be like, "Oh, I'm not retarded, it's not the same thing, people think it's the same thing!" and it's like, okay buddy, it's not exactly the same thing, but there's some overlap, just calm down, there are similar things about the way retarded and autistic people move, and the way we sometimes process things, and the way people treat us.

Like, okay, I get that it's not exactly the same thing, but don't fall all over yourself trying to distance yourself from another group of people with a disability because it just makes you look like an asshole. And I really feel like this idea that people with ASDs are valuable only as long as we have these particular amazing talents is just kind of bad in the long run. And I feel bad when I think about any particular person who's achieved some measure of success because they're seen as being so super talented and their ASD is some adorable quirk because they're so talented it's okay--what if that person goes through something really bad and their speech kind of shuts down? Or, like, I used to be really good at reading and now I have a lot of trouble reading--that skill is just not really there for me anymore. And, if you've spent so much time arguing that you're okay because you're so good at such and such, what do you do if you stop being good at such and such? What does that make you? Does it make you not okay anymore?

I don't think that it does. I don't think anybody should have to redeem themselves for their disability by being a genius, you know?

I think people can act like this with all kinds of minority groups that make them uncomfortable. I mean, you can see it so much in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy--the whole fact that all the gay guys in public and on television are guys who have these particular skills that are supposed to be useful for straight people (I know, and they don't have any lesbians because we're not good at anything, I guess) but it's just like, they're trying to say, "Look, you have to accept gay guys--yeah, they're gay, and it's weird, but look at this other stuff they can do! Look how they can help YOU!" and it's like, why do you have to be so fucking selfish and think that other people only matter if they can contribute something in a way that you think is an appropriate way to contribute? I mean, what's wrong with someone being just a regular gay person who's kind of mediocre? You'd be okay with a straight person being mediocre.

And like, the average nondisabled person that I meet, I don't usually think that they're super great and they're going to cure cancer or something, but all of the sudden you're supposed to think that people with Asperger's are okay but a person with Down Syndrome isn't okay because a person with Asperger's might cure cancer?

Kind of stupid, and also, most of the time, not true. Lots of people with Asperger's, like me for example, are pretty dumb, not particularly great at anything, and I don't think that affects my value as a human one bit. That's all. I just wish that people wouldn't talk about ASDs this way, because I feel that while it may enhance the social status of a small group of people with ASDs who have special talents, it really insults and hurts a lot of other people with disabilities, and in the long run can even have a negative affect on the people who are considered to be savants.

A bit more on Glee

Seriously I think this is what Ryan Murphy knows about intellectually disabled people: they're inspirational or something! But they're not good at anything and they live in hospitals waiting for us to come and read to them! But we have to pretend that they're good at things to make them feel better, but then we'll yell at them for being bad at those things, because we don't want to discriminate!

I could write a million essays on how weird the portrayal of characters with Down Syndrome was. For example, the joke about Brittany cheating off Becky's math test. Obviously the joke is, Brittany's so ditzy she thinks people with Down Syndrome are good at math, or else, Brittany's so bad at math that a person with Down Syndrome is better at math than she is. I don't necessarily mind this, because people with Down Syndrome usually aren't good at math; I can imagine a show making fun of disabled people's impairments in a blunt, dark-humor kind of way, that I wouldn't find offensive.* But this particular joke is just so weaselly, you can even pretend that it isn't a joke about Becky's disability if you want. In a previous episode Terri said she didn't want a baby who was a "Mongoloid," and obviously this was supposed to be shocking-funny, but I bet that no character would be shown using that word to describe Becky. And I think that's because the writers of the show aren't willing to face the fact that they are insulting actual people when they use words like Mongoloid.

They want to be seen as shocking and offensive in a daring and funny way but they're not willing to own it. And that's what really annoys the hell out of me about that episode, and the show in general. And also the show's fans who claim that offensive elements of the show are "satire." If it was satire, it would be funny. Mercedes's constant complaints about the music are not supposed to be quotable one-liners, nor are they supposed to be a parody of stereotypical black characters. She's just a badly written character whose creators rely heavily on stereotypes when they write her dialogue.

*I'm not especially fond of the Retarded Policeman videos on YouTube, but at least they're not weaselly; most of the offensive material is performed by an actor with Down Syndrome. The videos make fun of intellectually disabled people, but in the end I think it must positively affect viewers to see an intellectually disabled actor who is talented and funny. When Glee makes fun of deaf people they're not as brutal as the Retarded Policeman videos are about intellectually disabled people--but they imply that deaf people exploit their deafness for personal gain and can only be successful because of others' pity. The makers of the Retarded Policeman videos actually know that intellectually disabled people can be talented, which makes them automatically better than the creators of Glee.

eta: okay this one is kind of good



but I still think How's Your News? is a million times better (actually, it's a million times better than just about anything):



this is my favorite:

Telling the truth

Opening a bank account was my goal for today, but apparently the RBS just changed their weekend closing time from 5 to 2. I got there and got in line around 1:40, and a woman almost immediately told everyone past a certain point in line to go home and come back tomorrow. At least I know for sure that it's an easy place to open an account, since there were several other students there for the same reason.

When I woke up I went into the kitchen through the dark hall and made myself a mug of tea. Then I sat in bed, drank the tea, looked out the window, and read Erin's wonderful story. Erin's story takes place in a college town that is more Oberlin than Oberlin is. The central character is experiencing a crisis, but the story is told from the perspective of her two best friends, who come off as exhausted and a little bored. It's finals, and they're finishing their papers even as they try to keep their cartoonishly emotional friend from going off the rails. They keep taking naps and zoning out in grocery stores and in the backseats of cars. I think the reason this story appeals to me is the imperfect tense-ness of the tone; it is not so much the plot but the fact that the two best friends are so used to the girl's histrionic behavior, that they are surprised by nothing, that they are mostly traversing a worn groove. It's easy to say they do this; it's hard to say they are doing it, and have been for a very long time.

Sometimes I feel like technology is ruining the life I should have had, when I would have been in a riot grrl band or something, but often I feel like I was born at just the right time. I love YouTube. I don't think anyone could have imagined how wonderful YouTube could be. Specifically, although it's really cool that a few strangers listen to my music, I am mostly excited that I get to talk about Asperger's online.

This is only a condition that people have been diagnosed with for the past ten or fifteen years. And because of that, the textbook portrayals are still very basic: people with Asperger's are teenage boys who are obnoxious, don't have feelings, spout off Wikipedia entries at the slightest provocation, are good with physics/spaceships, and so on. This one-dimensional image has real negative consequences for people who cannot get accommodations or even diagnoses because they don't fit the stereotype. Professionals don't seem to consider the fact that humans change and adapt; that girls who are serious and compulsive get yelled at, guilt-tripped, and punished by parents and teachers; that anyone who is bullied tries to escape it; that people who have been diagnosed with AS may take a systematic approach to eradicating the symptoms in themselves. They also, bafflingly, don't understand that a person who is kept from connecting because of anxiety or social slowness can actually want friends just as much as anyone else.

This leads to lots of people being told that they don't have Asperger's (or another ASD), because they have friends, want friends, don't speak in a monotone, don't monologue, don't publicly stim, are emotional, or worry about what other people think. It also leads AS people, even the diagnosed, to think that they don't have the right to identify as disabled or use their AS as an explanation for things, because they aren't stereotypical anymore. (This was my situation for a while.)

So a lot of ASD people are writing blogs and recording YouTube videos about their lives. And this is a fantastic thing. This summer I started making videos about having and coping with Asperger's. Not a lot of people watch my videos, but some people do, and about once a week for a few months I have gotten a long comment from a person telling me they feel exactly the same way, asking for advice, or wanting to tell me what it's like for them. It's amazing to feel like I can be helpful just by putting together a semi-coherent video where I am honest about my life; that I can be a source of information just by being a thoughtful person with an ASD.

I realized this is what I always imagined riot grrl was like. Not worrying about the fact that you are just a kid and not the best speaker. Just accomplishing something by telling the truth.