Sunday, March 3, 2013

Autistic People are Beautiful

This post is reprinted with permission from Rebel Mom's blog Raising Rebel Souls, which you can read here.
 
Autistic people are beautiful.

Intensely beautiful!
and lovely!
and joyful!

When I first noticed my young Son flapping his hands,
I saw a maestro,
a hand dancer,
a beautiful child!

I had no idea yet that he was Autistic.
I had no idea yet how the world would change what I saw.

Suddenly, his hands became red flags waving.
Suddenly, I became afraid.

Duped by what society thinks about Autism.
Tricked into tragedy.
Led into lies.

The world has it all wrong.

Autistic people are beautiful!
My Son is beautiful!

When I first noticed my other young Son began connecting with others,
I saw a benevolent Soul,
a gift of openness,
a true friend,
a lovely child!

I had no idea yet that he was Autistic.

Suddenly, his personality became "outgoing to a fault."

The world has it all wrong.

Autistic people are lovely!
My Son is lovely!

When the world contradicted all those good feelings I had for my Sons,
I Rebelled.

I found the Autistic community, Autistic people, Autistic friends!
I had no idea yet how they would change what I saw.

I saw them demanding the rights to their reputation,
I saw the reason why.

Autism is not to be feared!
Autism is not a tragedy!

The world is lying to you!
The world has it all wrong!

When I looked to Autistic people it was not so hard to notice.
I see true again!

Incredible happiness,
Dapples,
Thousands of wonderful things!

Autistic people are joyful!

My lovely Sons, every day, you show me just what joy means.

Autistic people are beautiful.



This poem is part of a flash blog aimed at changing the way Google auto-completes it's searches on "Autistic people are..." Last week, a very successful flash blog was held to protest and change the same kind of thing, with "Autistic people should..." Unfortunately, when either of these phrases are typed into a search bar, Google offers automatic and seriously damaging suggestions like:

If you type "Autistic people should" into a Google search box, these are the results that Google suggests based the most popular recent searches.
Picture from Musings of an Aspie


Picture from the main flash blog site, Autistic People Are...

This is obviously unacceptable, and Google has made some changes, but they have more work to do! Join us!

We continue to protest!

1 comment:

  1. I got a search suggestion that said that autistic people are atheists. I am a Christian. I got an appalling result that says we have no souls! I am an organism capable of expressing emotions. I have a soul.

    ReplyDelete