Autism Stigma Disorder
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HHS Secretary Kennedy is an eugenicist piece of shit who really hates autistic people. He has been following a common right wing tactic, which is to wave a piece of legitimate research (in this case, the latest findings on autism rates for children in several states), scream We Must Protect the Children! and use it to promote lies and hate.
“Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children.”
I’ve said before that the not very subtle subtext of the anti-vaxxers who claim childhood vaccines cause autism is that burying a child is preferable to raising an autistic child. Left out of that belief is the fact that the diseases that vaccines prevent can leave a child with serious, chronic health conditions. Because these people are fuckwits.
During his press conference, Kennedy did everything except shout “Autism! Ooogabooga!”
They’ll never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.
None of that is in the report. And neither is this.
From the podium on Wednesday, Kennedy declared that “overall, autism is increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate” and called it “shocking” and “relentless.” He added, again, and without apparent basis, that “most causes are now severe” and insisted that 25 percent of boys diagnosed with autism “are non-verbal, non toilet-trained and have other stereotypical features” including “stimming and toe-walking,” traits he has brought up frequently in past remarks and cast in a negative light.
Kennedy will attempt to slither around the inconvenient fact that plenty of people are willing and able to tell him he’s wrong and to fuck off while throwing baseballs at his head or writing poems about what a creep he is, by saying he’s only talking about autistic people who can’t tell him to fuck off or throw baseballs. Who knows what he’d say to the parents, caretakers and advocates who tell him he’s wrong and to fuck off. I suspect he avoids such confrontations. But even if that is what he means, who gives a fuck? He’s using his position to promote lies about a marginalized group. What the public will hear is the administration saying that autistic people destroy families. Saying “I just mean the bad ones,” I would argue, makes it worse.
Attorney and poet Elizabeth McClellan spelled out what he’s doing during a Mother Jones interview.
It’s completely dehumanizing. He didn’t lead with “poet.” He led with they’ll never pay taxes, they’ll never have a job. It’s just “useless eaters” rhetoric. And then he fluffs it up with, they’ll never write a poem. They’ll never play baseball. Some people won’t—some people have higher support needs. They are still people. They have a right to live and a right to dignity. And that’s not what he wants for us. He is using the straight-up eugenicist playbook. People who can’t go to the toilet by themselves are still people. People who can’t write a poem are still people. I doubt [Kennedy] can write a poem, but he’s still a person.
You can’t eradicate autism without eradicating autistic people. It’s genocidal rhetoric against us that’s justified by “autism destroys families. It destroys children.” No, it doesn’t. It’s bias against autistic people.
McClellan also notes that Junior doesn’t show any interest in helping the people he is supposedly so concerned about, just shouting about how awful it is that they exist.
His taking an axe to the Department of Health and Human Services means that a lot of autistic people are not going to have the support that they need to thrive and survive. Now, I’ve had support to thrive and survive. I don’t need a whole lot of support to do what I do, but I need it, and I probably would have had a less miserable childhood if the diagnosis were more available. [RFK Jr.] falls into using language like Asperger’s, which, of course, was the distinction that was used to decide who would die and who would work under the Nazis.
Another point of concern: The study found a higher rate of autism among children who aren’t white. And Kennedy’s beliefs about Black children are equally fact-free and disgusting:
Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence
Do I need to say that this rotten whale’s head of a statement is absurd, no matter how you slice it? I hope not.
Kennedy said on the 19Keys online show last year. “And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented — to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens. You’ll actually have to talk to people.
And they’ll tragically all die of pneumonia.
