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Ableism
(A page from Anarcho-Autism by Detroit Leprechaun)

CW //
ableist slurs, ableism, ableist meme, genitalia mention, abuse, discrimination, hate crime, gruesome destruction of objects of emotional value

Ableism is defined as "discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities."

Ableism is rampant throughout the world today. All disabled people from those with physical disabilities to those with debilitating mental illnesses to those with atypical neurotypes face
ableism. Autistics, like all neurodivergents, also face ableism.

You may wonder how neurodivergents can face ableism when neurodiversity is something to be celebrated. The question is raised, are autistics disabled? While some autistics may like to think of themselves as differently abled rather than disabled, I hold that autistics are indeed disabled, but by a different model of disability than most are familiar with.

Amythest Schaber, an autistic YouTuber, activist, public speaker, and blogger, has an excellent video on the question of whether or not autism is a disability, and it is from this video that I draw these models of disability.

The most used model of disability, the one that doctors and professionals use, is the medical model of disability.
This asserts two things: that any
deviation from the norm is bad and must be corrected, and the physician is central to the whole process.

By this model of disability, I would believe that autistics are not disabled. However, in the context of neurodiversity, I prefer to use the social model of disability. This model also asserts two things. Firstly, while a person may have an impairment, it is not the impairment but society that disables them. "It is society's exclusion of and failure to think of and accommodate for people's impairments that disables people."

Secondly, it is the disabled and ill people who should be the center of the discussion, not the physicians. By the social model of disability, I hold that I am, like all other autistics, disabled. As autistic activist Lydia X.Z. Brown explains, "the experience of disability and being disabled is the result of the interaction of a person's inherent differences with a society and its attitudes and policies."

Ableism manifests itself in many forms. For example, one could be openly bigoted against disabled people. One could more subtly imply that non-disabled people are superior to disabled people. One could believe that deviation from the able norm is unnatural. Or more structurally, one could fail to meet or even attempt to meet the needs of disabled people.

Ableism in our culture begins with using disability as an insult. Beyond the r-word, people have taken to using all sorts of intellectual, physical, and mental disabilities as ways to attack people. This includes using "autistic" as an insult. They use the word "autistic" to describe something they find illogical, silly, or often that they just disagree with. In doing so, they imply that autistics cannot think coherently, that all of us have intellectual disabilities (it still being grossly ableist to make fun of those with intellectual disabilities), and that those with opinions different from theirs cannot be neurotypical.

This is a common practice, especially online, frequently done in such places as You'Tube comment sections and Reddit thread. Similar ableist jokes include saying that various nouns "gave" people autism and the use of "reeeeeee," an onomatopoeia of screeching, as a way to describe someone's frustration. Users of these sorts of jokes believe that making fun of disabilities is funny, as disabled people act in ways that are...

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#AnarchoAutism #DetroitLeprechaun #Anarchism #Anarchy #Neurodivergent #DisabilityJustice #Ableism #AntiHate #AntiFascist #Bullying

from Anarcho-Autism by Detroit Leprechaun
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#Anarchy #Neurodivergent #AnarchoAutism #DetroitLeprechaun #AnarchistMemes #Sabotage #Liberation #Anarchist #Anarchism