(My apologies for the all-caps in the following press release, folks... I did not write this and I didn't feel like retyping it either, so I've put it in small font. Please also forgive the title of Denis Leary's book being incorrectly typed.)
For Immediate Release............. contact Sid Schwartz 212-564-4692
NATIONWIDE AUTISM PROTEST AGAINST DENNIS LEARY BY NYC GROUP
NEW YORK NY. EVELYN AIN PRESIDENT OF AUTISM UNITED , A NATIONAL ADVOCACY GROUP REPRESENTING OVER 5,000 PARENTS WITH CHILDREN EFFECTED WITH AUTISM IS CALLING FOR A RALLY AND PROTEST AGAINST DENNIS LEARY. WHEN HE APPEARS AT COMICS COME HOME 14, IN BOSTON AT THE AGGANIS ARENA. THE GROUP PLANS TO HAVE HUNDREDS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN PICKETING THE CONCERT. IT IS ONE OF THE LARGEST COMEDY EVENTS IN THE USA.
THE PROTEST IS IN RESPONSE TO UPCOMING BOOK "WE SUCK"" WHICH DESCRIBES KIDS WITH AUTISM BOTH STUPID AND LAZY. THE GROUP IS CALLING FOR A BOOK BOYCOTT AND ASKING COMPANIES LIKES BARNES AND NOBLE, AMAZON, AND ANY OTHER STORE NOT TO CARRY IT AS ITS HURTFUL TO FAMILIES NATIONWIDE. ONE OUT OF 150 CHILDREN NATIONWIDE ARE DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM.
ACCORDING TO MS. AIN '' THE AUTISM COMMUNITY IS NOT TAKING THIS AS A JOKE, IF DENNIS LEARY FEELS BY PUTTING THESE SHOCKLEY COMMENTS IN BOOK IS GOING TO CREATE HYPE, WERE GOING TO HAVE AUTISM FAMILIES FROM COAST TO COAST PROTESTING HIS APPEARANCES, SHOWING THE JOKE IS REALLY ON HIM''
www.autismunited.org
CONTACT SID SCHWARTZ
646-896-1128
Looking at this press release and the autism lists lately, it seems that Denis Leary has said something offensive...
"OMG!! Denis Leary?? Say something offensive about something?? Not Denis! Naaaahhhh, he's a paragon of decency! A proud upholder of diplomatic virtue! The man who could charm the robe off of Ghandi for Pete's sake!!"
Get real, folks. This is Denis Leary, the man who has built a very lucrative career on insulting many, many people, groups and concepts over the years!
What the heck am I talking about, you may ask?
Denis Leary wrote a comedy book called "Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid,"... where he insults just about everyone on the planet. (You know... I'm truly surprised the Catholic Church hasn't put up larger protests against him since he rails against Catholicism a *lot*! And he's really nasty about it too...)
This must be the book he referred to in No Cure for Cancer when he said he's going to write a book called "Shut the F*** Up: A revolutionary new form of therapy" by "Dr. Denis Leary".
The problem is: He happened to insult the boom in autism diagnoses... and parents and shrinks along with it.
"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."
Apparently "Autism Schmautism" (the title of the chapter) is one of his favourites according to the Vanity Fair interview which you can read here: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/11/wayne_leary200811
Granted, I'm not fond of the notion that autistics are just lazy or stupid. Most of us on the spectrum are not even close to stupid! Quite the opposite in fact... yet so many of us are treated that way because of common opinion (provided by professionals and agencies) which only serve to drive opinions like Leary's!
You know what's kind of funny about all of this?
The same thing was being said about ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in the 90's. Remember all the kids being put on ritalin back then? Folks back then said those ADD kids were just lazy, stupid and undisciplined by inattentive parents! Remember that?
But how many really had ADD? Seriously?
If the kids were misbehaving, it was ADD, according to the professionals and doctors who stood to make a little money on the sales of ritalin. Not the fact that schools were dumbed down, that authority over children was taken away from parents and teachers because their kids could sue, the fact that video games and TV shows seem to accommodate a shorter attention span, or because parenting seems to have entered a new dimension in lack of discipline and proper upbringing because of bleeding heart shrinks that think that self-esteem is more important than actual performance or behaviour. (They don't fail kids in school anymore... did you know that? 'Tis bad for the self-esteem, apparently!)
I asked myself how many kids in the 90's really had ADD or ADHD? Granted, some did. Some really did! Some still really do (my husband being one with ADD and it made his life hell until it was diagnosed when he was 43).
The same goes for autism. I ask that same question now about autism.
Is autism really on the rise or is it the "ADD of the 21st Century"? I've met a number of parents whose kids were incorrectly diagnosed with autism and treated for it when it was really PTSD or some other type of issue.
Before anyone slams me for being insensitive, here are some more questions to ponder which may examine the prevalence in autism today:
- Perhaps autism has always been somewhat prevalent but never diagnosed because not enough was known about it? If the adults who attend my monthly meetup are any indication, there are a lot of adults out there who are on the spectrum but were never diagnosed, but are seeking that diagnosis now! Every month someone comes in asking where they can pursue a diagnosis. The problem is, no one wants to diagnose adults with this.
- I look at Leo Kanner's original paper on autism and see how he mentions that the parents of his subjects were very brilliant but aloof and a little odd. Could it be that those parents were on the spectrum too?
- Could society have been more accommodating of these differences at one point but the vast changes in societal expectations have changed enough that these "different" characteristics are now abnormalities? Perhaps even disabilities?
- Is autism really so common? Has it always been?
These questions must be asked, in my opinion.
Back to Denis Leary for a moment: He also used to make jokes about all of those whiners who are unhappy because their lives didn't turn out the way they wanted them to. Remember "Life sucks, get a f***ing helmet!" from No Cure for Cancer? (Stemming again from trends in the "Neurotic Nineties")
Just so you know... autism isn't the only thing being slammed in the book. Obama, Renee Zellweger, nuns... they're all being insulted here! He also says that “we need to take Rush Limbaugh’s head and make a bong out of it”"
Wow. That's pretty deep, man...
"Why We Suck" - kind of gives you a preview of what type of book we're looking at, folks, doesn't it? This is not exactly influential, ground-breaking, PhD material we're looking at. I don't really see this as being something that is going to change the way the world thinks about things.
Not like the failed NYU "Ransom Letters" Campaign, or the demeaning comments made about autism by societies and parents in the media every single day.
For instance, Autism Ontario has a new campaign out called "Forgotten" where they're putting out the message that "Children with autism grow up to be adults with autism". (Kind of like "baby rats become big, adult, disease carrying rats" in my mind) I have my own opinion on this negative slant of trying to draw attention to autistic adults who need services. I'm much more in line with the National Autistic Society's "Think Differently About Autism" campaign in the UK...it's positive, something North American autism societies could really stand to learn from! There's even a video called The Most Beautiful Child which tries hard to be positive at first, but gets nice and negative by the end...
Now we ASD adults get to deal with that stigma too. Looks like I'll still be hiding the fact that I'm on the spectrum from employers or some time yet!
These are things that deserve protests by advocates in my opinions.
Why don't we protest to stop people like Denis Leary from making such nasty comments about autism by stopping the gloom-and-doom rhetoric spewed out by "authorities" on the subject?
Where are all those mad dog protesters?
Where are those so-called "advocates"?
Come on, people... let's advocate *for autistic people* already and get this doom and gloom stopped once and for all! Let's stop making autstics look like an evil blight on society already...
Oh wait... they're the ones who tend to be making those statements! Whoops! My bad. Sorry about that...
I believe that if these folks were to put their amazingly high amounts of energy into accepting their children and learning how to actually communicate with and benefit their children in the long term, their kids might be better off. So might they. Perhaps autism in their lives wouldn't have to be this horrible thing that they have to keep fighting against but something they could be working with to create a brighter and more positive future for their children.
How is mad-dog protesting against offensive comedians (or even radio talk show hosts) *really* helping their kids?
Let's go a little deeper, shall we?
If we want to pick bones about offensive comments against autistics in books, I found Jerry Kartzinel's comments in Jenny McCarthy's book pretty offensive, actually.
You might remember this phrase: "autism steals the soul from a child; then, if allowed, relentlessly sucks life’s marrow out of the family members, one by one" in the intro). I ranted about that already in this blog, so I'll keep this short.
That, to me, was way more offensive than anything Dennis Leary could joke about in a book where he openly insults lots of groups and people for laughs!
Choose your battles wisely, folks.
That's all I'm saying here.
Just my thoughts, of course...
