Note For Anyone Writing About Me

Guide to Writing About Me

I am an Autistic person,not a person with autism. I am also not Aspergers. The diagnosis isn't even in the DSM anymore, and yes, I agree with the consolidation of all autistic spectrum stuff under one umbrella. I have other issues with the DSM.

I don't like Autism Speaks. I'm Disabled, not differently abled, and I am an Autistic activist. Self-advocate is true, but incomplete.

Citing My Posts

MLA: Zisk, Alyssa Hillary. "Post Title." Yes, That Too. Day Month Year of post. Web. Day Month Year of retrieval.

APA: Zisk, A. H. (Year Month Day of post.) Post Title. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://yesthattoo.blogspot.com/post-specific-URL.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Still Not Enough, Autism Speaks

Yes, I saw your change to your news post.
You're not done.
I know you hate apologizing, but you absolutely, 100%, can not consider your error fixed until:

1) You make it clear that it was Autistic activists who made the change happen. (No, self advocacy community and then saying autism activist group doesn't make it clear.) There are some acceptable variations, but we're looking at something like this:
Updated to reflect the efforts of the Autistic community:

Thanks to the efforts of an Autistic-run Flash Blog, Google officially changed the search results....
You're going to have to use the word Autistic (important capital A is important) to describe us, and you're going to have to say the event was Autistic-run. This is not negotiable. Calling us people with autism is unacceptable, calling us self-advocates is incorrect in this context as we were not simply advocating for our own needs. So... you're going to have to edit that article again. You should probably acknowledge  that it's been edited twice, not once, at that point.

2) You apologize for the error, publicly. This is also not negotiable. You can do it on the same post that is used to satisfy part 3, if you want. That would actually make sense.

3) You re-share the corrected post. Otherwise people won't actually see the fix, and fixes need to have the same reach as the mistakes. That means a new Facebook post and a new tweet, not just comments on the original posts. Also not negotiable.

Exact wording of the re-edit is negotiable, but you're going to have to call us Autistic in there, blatantly say that Autistic people ran and organized the flashblog. You can still use person-first language for all the references to autistic people/people with autism who are not the flashbloggers, but you may not use it for us.
Exact wording of the re-share and apology are also negotiable (as is their status as separate posts or as one combined post) but you do need to do both, and the apology needs to be for the fact that you did something wrong. Apologies for offense taken do not count.

And yes, I am holding you to a higher standard of correctness than the news outlets. News outlets are just reporters. You claim to be advocating for us, which means you should know better than them.

2 comments:

  1. Never give up. My son would not go near water slide at pool at the YMCA. We go their often ,but a 7year old Autistic son says no way.2years later he can't get enof of that slide my arms get sore lifting him out of pool. But its a great feeling. NEVER GIVE UP!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I... Don't understand what this has to do with anything, but that is great. Water slides are awesome.

      Delete

I reserve the right to delete comments for personal attacks, derailing, dangerous comparisons, bigotry, and generally not wanting my blog to be a platform for certain things.