About us 'Without Us' ? : Acceptance is Radical, Awareness Compliant
In the US's public imagination and in mainstream culture, April is celebrated as 'Autism Awareness Month'. As such, the 'A month' witnesses an overflow of disparaging messages about autism each year : Hundreds of banners, colorful messages, posters and images circulate through the various social media platforms - from Facebook to Twitter and Instagram to Wordpress and Blogspot -- telling the world that autistics exist (full stop). In other words, aside from stopping at 'raising awareness', which to all material effects and purposes does nothing to transform experiences of abuse and oppression in the everyday, these playful banners and tear-jerking posters exclude #actuallyautistics from the equation. And it follows that, while raising awareness 'about us' without us, these faceless, charitable entities erase our RED experiences by painting us blue! What strikes me (although it does not in the least surprise me) is the blatant hypocrisy of white, liberal, bourgeois campaigns that promote the 'importance' of letting the world know that we exist (full stop), while fully disregarding the wide range of rich experiences that we contribute to the weaving of the social fabric via music, performance art, poetry, education, activism, scholarship, grassroots social movements or quite simply by contributing our stories, our ways of being and of knowing as well as our visions for a just world.
Awareness is not doing, awareness is not being; awareness is discursive and as such it often stops at saying. And, even though discourse (in the form of positive cultural symbolism, for instance) has the potential to represent material life in ways that account for difference as a necessary part of the human experience, discourse is often deployed to perpetuate dominant perspectives on difference as something to be reckoned with (often feared, excluded and exterminated) as opposed to a diversifying force to be celebrated.
Acceptance, on the other hand is operationalized into everyday practice to
promote the idea that us autistics, as human beings, have the absolute right to exist safely as well as to lead fulfilling and dignifying lives without society's permission, or concession.
Acceptance is EVERYDAY - April is one out of 12.