My latest not-so-random random musing on LinkedIn about autistic truth and justice.

Recently, I reposted and called out (together with many other autistic / neurodivergent people) someone brazenly stealing a prominent and respected autistic advocate and speaker’s words verbatim and claiming it as theirs. The quote in question was this one by Chris Bonnello:

The quote reads:

“I’m autistic, which means everyone around me has a disorder that makes them say things they don’t mean, not care about structure, fail to hyperfocus on singular important topics, have unreliable memories, drop weird hints and creepily stare into my eyeballs.”

“So why do people say YOU’RE the weird one?”

“Because there’s more of them than me.”

(Autisticnot weird.com, fb.com/autisticnotweird -Chris Bonnello)

And the original post by Chris Bonnello calling out this plagiariser is here in this link.

This sort of thing deeply disturbs our autistic sense of justice. But it may not matter as much to non-autistic minds. In fact, publicly calling out injustices, inaccuracies, untruths or half-truths renders many autistic persons vulnerable to attack and even shaming by the non-autistic majority. I left a charity I was passionately invested in because of that. When I raised the issue privately, I was ghosted for a year. They only took notice when I went public. And that resulted in a 40-minute scolding session as if I were a recalcitrant primary school student, the perpetrator digging in their heels justifying a ridiculously inaccurate use of language, nobody standing up for the truth (except for one very gentle oblique but meaningful statement by someone I still respect), a former friend offended afterwards because I did not comfort them with platitudes when they declared themselves ‘guilty’ of not having defended me (I did not even raise the subject, they raised it themselves). I am in a privileged position where I have nothing to lose, and also nothing to gain. But truth-speaking can cost many autistic persons dearly. Loss of employment is a huge example. Yet, repression of truth and justice is an abomination for the autistic mind, leading often to severe burn out and breakdown. When I told them that accurate, clear and open communication is an autistic support need, they said it was “so hard”!!!! Disability support is indeed hard, in that it is inconvenient to those having to support, but isn’t that what a decent society, especially fellow disabled advocates, should be making effort to do?

There is an old Chinese saying: “若要人不知，除非己莫为.” Roughly translated as: “If you don’t want others to know about your misdeeds, keep your slate clean.” It must have been coined by an autistic person, don’t you think?