aspie rhetor

On Michael Savage

I don’t really know where to start. For those who are unfamiliar with what’s been going on since July 16, Michael Savage, a conservative shock jock, claimed 99% of all autistics were fakers who needed better parenting:

“I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ … [I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

I’ve been trying to be as objective as possible about all of this — I was really, truly hoping that somewhere, somehow, something was taken out of context. I listened to the first two hours of Savage’s follow-up show (recorded on July 21), and I couldn’t bear to listen for the third hour. First, he refused to apologize. Essentially, even though Savage is claiming the out-of-context defense, his claims for “original intent” sound just as foul, to me, as the original comments pasted above. Savage denies that there is an autistic spectrum. He also believes that, quite literally, somewhere upwards of 60% of autistic people are not really, in fact, autistic.

Savage continually reiterated that the “truly autistic” were not, and never have been, the subjects of his attack. He maintained that his claims were about overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis, that he was merely trying to defend defenseless children, to help helpless children.

Nevertheless, not once has Savage offered a definition of what he feels “true autism” is. After listening, I’ve determined that he supposes true autistics cannot speak (or, at most, cannot speak intelligibly). One of his two expert guests spent quite a while discussing otherwise “normal” late-talkers versus autistic children, using Einstein as an example. While I loathe the tendency to retro-diagnose dead geniuses with autistic spectrum disorders, Savage’s show perpetuates the myth that true autistics must, of necessity, not only be nonverbal, but must also possess a low IQ. Moreover, several callers, in support of Savage, maintained that they had (or knew of) children who’d received diagnoses of autism as toddlers, yet eventually began speaking, so, lo and behold, those kids certainly weren’t autistic!

I don’t deny that overdiagnosis and or misdiagnosis occurs. Just because I’ve never met anyone in those two categories doesn’t mean that the possibility doesn’t exist. Yet, I also think that the children in those examples still might very well be autistic — talking and intelligence (or, intelligence as we arbitrarily measure it) do not preclude autism. Moreover, I’ve read more scientific literature pertaining to underdiagnosis than I have about any sort of overdiagnosis. Call it the “epidemic” or better medicine.

In reality, I feel hurt. I realize that it’s silly for me to have missed a Law & Order marathon for a shock jock’s twisted ideas, but I was curious. And with each passing minute of listening to his rants, I felt personally attacked. I’m pretty certain that he thinks Asperger’s and HFA are bunk, and what’s more disturbing are the throngs of people who wholeheartedly agree with him.

Savage and his supporters say that it’s all the fault of drug companies, that they meant to attack pharma and welfare-leaching parents. While many people with autism are medicated on something or another, there is no drug treatment for autism. Autistics may be medicated for aggression or anxiety or depression — but not for autism. (Unless their mother is Jenny McCarthy, that is, and happens to believe in unscientifically proven diets and/or chelation.) This argument seemed pretty nonsensical to me. I’m autistic and I’m not medicated. I’m in different sorts of therapy, for sure, but my aim isn’t to get a hand-out from the government. My aim is to manage my sensory dysfunction, to be able to hold an everyday conversation, to reduce my anxiety, to live a decent life with a decent job and with decent relationships, and so forth. And I don’t think that AS/HFA individuals are draining funds from some amorphous giant pot of money, as if anything we seek somehow steals from a child with classic autism, who, as Savage has so poignantly noted, needs our pity. (groan)

Savage’s conception of true autism as profound suffering and incapacity goes to the heart of a very important disability/advocacy issue: an extremely medicalized and pitiful view of disability. It is dangerous, and downright discriminatory, to assume that those with disabilities are only defined by their inabilities, by their dependencies. Per Savage, autism is wholly a trial, a tribulation, an extreme form of suffering, something to be pitied and dreaded. Assuming that nothing good or amazing comes from those with autism is extremely damaging. By this definition, those who can talk have no form of autism; those who are mainstreamed have no form of autism; those who are involved in romantic relations have no form of autism; those who blog or take pride in themselves have no form of autism. It’s as though any societal “feat” (for lack of a better word) precludes autism entirely, as though “good” and “autistic” cannot be uttered in the same sentence, as though autistic, to quote an Autism Speaks promo video, is “death.” The only hope is hope for a cure — and if anyone is able to speak, is able to write, is able to reproduce, is able to find stimming enjoyable, then they suddenly were misdiagnosed as being autistic, and they no longer need or deserve educational, medicinal, or therapeutic support.

I’ll come back to this all later, I’m sure. But for now, I need to somehow lower my blood pressure before something pops.