{"id":2778,"date":"2010-10-06T19:23:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2778"},"modified":"2010-10-06T19:23:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:23:59","slug":"a_seat_at_the_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2778","title":{"rendered":"A Seat At The Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several months ago, I wrote about Ari Ne’eman<\/a>, a young man with autism whose nomination to the National Council on Disability was held up because some advocates didn’t like his views on disability as a societal construct rather than a medical problem. Ne’eman finally won confirmation over the summer and he gave an extensive interview to Wired<\/i><\/a>. He responds to the attacks (some of them pretty vile) that greeted his nomination and discusses the tension between people with autism and the organizations that claim to represent them (a common theme in disability circles). He also demonstrates awareness of his role as a representative for all people with disabilities, as evidenced in this response to one of the interviewer’s more clueless questions: <\/p>\n

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Wired.com: <\/strong>Some of your critics suggest that as a \u201chigh-functioning\u201d person with Asperger\u2019s syndrome, you present an overly rosy picture of life on the spectrum. You work in D.C., do a lot of public speaking and networking, and are obviously capable of things that someone who lives in a wheelchair or can\u2019t speak cannot do.<\/b><\/p>\n

Ne\u2019eman:<\/strong> I know quite a few people in D.C. who use wheelchairs, and I know people who use AAC devices and work in public policy. Some of my mentors fall into those categories. So while I\u2019d agree that there are many things I do that some other autistic people can\u2019t, I wouldn\u2019t say that it\u2019s the fact that I\u2019m not a wheelchair user or an AAC user that makes that the case.<\/b><\/p>\n

I recognize that I\u2019m fortunate in many respects and am able to do things that some other autistic people can\u2019t do. But I would also point out that these things didn\u2019t \u2014 and don\u2019t now \u2014 come easily to me. I\u2019ve been fortunate to be able to count on the inclusive culture of the broader disability-rights movement to help support me.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a strange idea out there that neurodiversity advocates think that autistic life is all flowers and rainbows, but I don\u2019t know anyone who thinks that way. Most of us have had deeply personal experiences of social isolation, bullying and abuse, lack of support, discrimination, and plenty of other problems. But it\u2019s much more productive for us to focus on how we can improve people\u2019s lives than to keep presenting people as pitiable burdens.<\/b><\/p>\n

No more pity. It doesn\u2019t help anybody.<\/b><\/p>\n


<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several months ago, I wrote about Ari Ne’eman, a young man with autism whose nomination to the National Council on Disability was held up because some advocates didn’t like his views on disability as a societal construct rather than a medical problem. Ne’eman finally won confirmation over the summer and he gave an extensive interview […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-IO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}