It’s all too common for autistic people to be victimised, which is an extremely bad thing, but how to change it? Autistic people can be total prats ourselves, and we’re capable of bigotry and just as many bad things as any other human. So it’s not that we’re poor little people who need the world to look after us like helpless children. It’s easy to get very angry about the ways in which the world is cruel to people who are different and that anger can be absolutely right. But anger may not be the best way to change things right now.
I get very angry about a lot of things – including how my fellow autistics get treated all too often. But in order to change that I (we) need to persuade the world to see us as fully human. Boring, normal and ordinary. And shouting angrily at people may not be the most persuasive way to do that. We’re approaching the season of the Christian year when people thing about how their lives could and should be better: the season of Lent. It’s a big trait in Christian thinking that rather than telling other people off, you should sort yourself out first. Being an example of how the world ought to be is more effective than wagging a finger. And I’m fully aware that Christians are not always particularly good at doing that and self-righteously wagging a finger at other people is sooo much more fun than being a better person yourself. So much, so human.
Autistic Civil Servant 