"The Stupidity and WTF-ness of Your Remarks Boggle My Mind."

I touched on this subject this morning but moments ago I found something related that makes the point so much more eloquently and effectively:

Here are some facts for you: White is fast becoming the minority, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world and the rate of autism is increasing more than childhood cancer, diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined.

So here’s a news flash for you – by those statistics, I and my family are the new normal. You are not.

How do you like me now?

But let me put aside my highly well-deserved snark. Let’s get real. Today you want your neighbor’s child to be killed because he is disturbing the peace, because he is annoying, because as a square peg he doesn’t fit nicely into this round hole of a world. Tomorrow that kid will be someone in your family. It may be your future grandchild. Hell, your own child may — God forbid — one day become ill or have an accident and cease to be “normal” by your standards.

What then? Kill them all?

The stupidity and WTF-ness of your remarks boggle my mind.

And I’ll be honest, because I always try to be – I know personally it’s not easy to be around my kid. He sure makes it tough sometimes. He can be loud, inappropriate and a disturbance to others. He has touched people as he has walked by them, he has gone up to people in restaurants and taken fries off their plates and he goes with me into the women’s bathroom when we are out in public because he cannot go to the bathroom by himself. And, he has had loud, scary meltdowns in public.

We try our damndest to make good choices for him. We are teaching him to live in this world, in our society, the best we can. We are establishing relationships with local business owners, grocery store employees, staff at local restaurants and with others in our community so they can be part of our large teaching circle. We take our son out in the community because he is part of the community, and we will NOT isolate him to his house. When he is in a bad period, we don’t take him to certain places because we know it will create a bad disturbance that isn’t good for anyone.

So many autism families do these same things on a daily basis. Our children are growing into adults, and they will be a part of everyone’s world. So have some compassion and patience. Work with us. Cut us some slack. We are well aware of how things look, and we are walking a tightrope of creating a community of inclusion for our children while trying not to make things too difficult for those around us.

Maybe that letter was a hoax. Maybe in the next few days some news will come out revealing that it was a big sick joke of a letter. But here’s what is sad. There are people out there like the anonymous author of that letter. I’ve encountered them. Every autism family I know has encountered some version of that letter-writer.

And that, my friends, is unacceptable.

Righteously written truth.

Pass this on.

Let's end the ignorance.  Or, at least slow it down.