Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Today Is World Autism Awareness Day

Today is World Autism Awareness Day.

A couple of days before this day, I was at University of Michigan, giving a talk called Autistic Activism in an Age of the Blues.

If you click on the name of the talk, above, you can see my description of it that the Department of English Language and Literature put forth for people to use in order to decide if they wanted to come.  The basic idea was to explain the background, or rhetorical genealogy, of lighting it up blue, starting with the onset of puzzle piece as a shorthand way to represent our people.

None of it has much to do with our actual people, or anything real about us. 

The turnout was first of all so many people I was surprised! And second of all--this part is not so surprising because I am getting used to paying more attention to real life than to media representation--full of lovely people. To hear the ad campaigns and the news and the researchers that get funded by the right kind of corporations tell it, everyone thinks I'm a tragic burden from fearsville, pityland.

In real life, I go around in the world keeping meeting a diffuse divergent kaleidoscopic spectrum of the wide world of wonderful.

Rock on, real life.  Especially Michiganders.

One of the many Rockin' People is the emerging technologies librarian Patricia F. Anderson of University of Michigan, and I'm mentioning her in particular (hi there :) ) because she made this wonderful thing, a Storify, where you can read the things I was saying at the talk that she and others picked up and Live Tweeted by writing them quickly on Twitter right when I said them. Multi-tasking Heroics! AND THEN! She put links to the real things we were talking about, like Tone It Down Taupe, so you can easily look it up.

Also when you are on there on her Storify page you can see other talks she went to and did this. It is fun.

Here's that link now, in case you want to see more details about what we talked about: The Awesome Storify Narration of the Michigan Talk.

So the lovely people and I talked about all sorts of things, like neuroqueering, and being a mother, and our own families, and school, and subversive ways Autistics deal with stigma, and how all the ways of being neurodivergent are not that different from one another...and so much more.

Take that, Stigma Awareness. I'll be aware of Acceptance, Appreciation and Awesomeness instead.

Love,
Ib

9 comments:

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    1. Elizabeth J. (Ibby) GraceApril 4, 2014 at 8:00 AM
      Please contact me if you would like to advertise here. I have a responsibility to readers to know how you spend the money you raise before appearing to endorse your work, even though I love wind chimes too! Love, Ib

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  2. In real life, I go around in the world keeping meeting a diffuse divergent kaleidoscopic spectrum of the wide world of wonderful.

    Rock on, real life.

    That. A million times, that. I find it so easy to go crashing down the rabbit hole online. But then there are the PEOPLE all around and about us and WITH us and supporting us and loving us and yes, yes, yes, that.

    xo

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  3. Oh how I wish I could have come to your talk! I hope you will visit Ann Arbor again soon for another one. I've never met your friend Melanie, though I admire her work from afar. My hubby sometimes sees her riding the bus when he's on his way to work. He noticed her neurodiversity buttons and asked me if I had any idea who she was.

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  4. Hi spellitaut! What a cool name! We would love to see you! If I come back, how can we tell you so as to meet up?

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  5. WOW ALL THANKS TO DR WILLIAMS I HAVE NEVER BELIEVE IN HERBAL REMEDIES.
    my son have been a patient of autism . I had tried a lot of anti viral med prescribed to me by doctors over how many years now but I could not see any improvements in my son symptoms. One day when going through the internet , i got to know about this great Herbal Dr who uses his herbal remedies in curing people from autism,quickly i contacted him and he prepared a herbal medication for my son which i received and he used it as instructed by dr williams. After few weeks the improvement were very visible. the speech delay and the poor eye contact stopped, I would recommend this to all my friends,families,around the globe suffering from autism.you can contact him through his email on drwilliams098675@gmail.com.for advice and for his product THANKS TO YOU ONCE AGAIN ADMIN FOR SUCH AN INFORMATIVE BLOG

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  6. ALL THANKS TO DR WILLIAMS FOR THE GREAT DEED HE HAVE DONE FOR MY DAUGHTER?
    My daughter suffered from autism for more than 2 years which we started experiencing in her when she turned 1 year and 5 months we all thought it will end but got even worse as days went by. We tried all several treatments and therapy prescribed by various doctors we met but to no avail, she lost total concentration and always complain of sensitivity to sound . She usually tells me she haves poor eyes contact. This were steady disorder that disrupted her entire life, even at night she slept less because of this.It was during a casual conversation with a friend that i learned about Dr Williams herbal medicine I was able to contact him on his email address. and give him all the necessary information that he needed,few day later he sent me the herbal portion and his medicine was able to restore her back to normal and she is very okay now without any side effects whatsoever. If you have autism, do not hesitate to contact him on drwilliams098675@gmail.com for advice and for his product. I hope this also helps someone out there  .

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  7. DR WILLIAMS CURED 7 YEARS AUTISM
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    With our little breakthrough with homeopathy treatment, we made further search for natural cure. Fortunately we saw testimonies about herbal medicines which cure autism. We saw a lot of claims though, contacted them and didn’t get a useful reply. Lucky for us, we finally got a reply from Doctor Williams, he directed us to his blog where we saw a lot of information about his herbal medicine . Without further delay I made a purchase for her, I switched her over to it. We had great breakthrough, that in 3 weeks, her autism reduced. After 1 months as Doctor Williams promised , all autism symptoms stopped. It was like a miracle for us. since all this days now Lesia became autism free. Her story is quite lengthy, I hope it also help someone out there.for more information you can email Dr Williams on drwilliams098675@gmail.com

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