Cafe Autism

And I have the qualifications to make that diagnosis – a brain – unlike Leary, who has no qualifications to make the statements that he makes about autism in his upcoming book that I’m sure you’ve all heard way too much about by now.

Back in one of the pieces I originally wrote about this issue last month I suggested that Leary make his book chapter available online if he really wanted to settle this since he was claiming to be quoted out of context. Autism United (www.autismunited.org) has done just that. So now, I’ve read the chapter and I can say, I stand by my original evaluation of Leary’s attitude toward autism: he’s a moron.

Here’s just a sampling of some of the offensive things that Leary writes in the chapter:

• Asperger’s doesn’t actually exist. It isn’t actually an autism disorder, just “an Asshole Who Won’t Shut The Fuck Up”
• Autism rates are up because of “parents who wasted time, their brain cells and a lot of healthy DNA on way too many recreational drugs is this doctor’s guess”
• Autism rates are up because “inattentive mothers and competitive dads
  want an explanation for why their dumbass kids can’t compete
  academically so they throw money into the happy laps of shinks and
  psychotherapists to get back diagnoses that help explain away the
  deficiencies of their junior morons. I don’t give a shit what these
  crackerjack whackjobs tell you—yer kid is NOT autistic. He’s just
  stupid. Or lazy. Or both.”
  
• Autism rates are up because “I think the parents don’t wanna face the cold
  hard facts that their joining of the loins has produced a semi-retard
  with a nervous twitch so they jump on any available train—in this
  case the autism express—and blame good old Mother Nature.”

I used to think Leary was funny – he had a biting, healthy lack of respect for authority and pretense. But somewhere along the line he lost respect for anything. This tone of this chapter (and I can only assume the whole book) is so mean, so vicious, that there is nothing funny here even when he isn’t aiming at my child and her peers.

Leary’s entire tone seems to have degenerated into a state of hatred of the world, where he sees no value in anything, nothing anywhere worthy of respect or caring. His tone seems hopeless for the future and for those less fortunate than him.

I don’t know what happened to him to make him this way but it makes me very sad that he felt it was appropriate to sink to the lengths of turning his internal anger on children who can’t defend themselves.