• Replies 40 replies
  • Subscribers 31 subscribers
  • Views 1199 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

share ideas to combat bad press trope - 'dangerous solitary autistic' ?

Marianne72

Watching a two part BBC documentary on Luton murderer, Nicholas Prosper, I thought 'oh, the 'dangerous solitary autistic' trope. I spent months on moving to a new social housing area, with 3 neighbours literally running away when I went out. They got used to me - taking shopping indoors in my wheel-barrow, for example, or building eccentric grow-houses on my allotment. The 'eccentric' trope is preferable Rolling eyes . How do you think we could 'change minds' [and keep the change] about public perception of solitary autistics being 'dangerous'?

I get a lot of pleasure giving-out solutions - even when I get no response. I email my housing association, MP, government officials, supermarkets.. I sometimes email someone whose been in the news, where I have experience and think they might be heartened.  I've had good responses for quite a few ideas. It's good to be appreciated. All your creative, inventive, engineering, techie minds - what a waste if all this knowledge/experience is just used out of sight indoors!

What about autistic think-tanks, discussing social problems and issues and offering formal reports to people who can 'make a difference'? BBC news does have a news about autism page - this might be a good point of delivery.

Parents

  • I'm not sure I'm doing the right think by 'responding' to my own question but I want to respond to several responses!

    TheCatWoman said:
    Maybe we should get together and have a Media Group

    OVERVIEW - would appreciate the view of a moderator as I'm new here

    NAS promote autism as a general disability/ability trope.  This isn't about publicising autistics as individuals but as an anonymous group [ah, but  THE 'anonymous' hacker group Neutral face. My idea is for NAS community members to have a separate layer, which is for offering written ideas as a group, toward resolving local/national issues which you read about in the news or on TV.

    I've thought of the name, ABBC - 'autistics building better communities' [or, 'amazing block busting chat', in the vernacular - because it is about offering ideas toward resolving issues that keep repeating, to the alarm or distress of the community - everyone, not just autisticsGrin !). 

    Looking at the many threads here reminds me of a huge number of cogs, whirring away, resolving individual problems. But if you look at the subjects, they very much overlap, viz: medical, anxieties, perceptions, social issues, ASB etc. These reflect general issues that affect NT's too, What if there was another layer within this community site but separate, where cogs [ideas] could be collated, refined then looped together to make a viable output aimed at the general good outside NAS to the wider community. I envisage discussion, such as on chat, but each thread [am I using the right word?] a specific issue. At some point, a conclusion is agreed then collated into an ideas sheet, pamphlet or informal report, published under ABBC under the umbrella of NAS, either as pdfs on a part of the site open to the public, or published on CreateSpace with ABBC as the publisher and royalties going to NAS to further their work. It is a contribution to the wider community, using the huge range of skills and expertise of people with autism. In this way, it promotes autism in a practical and positive way.

    Hairyloon said:
    Good idea, but I have no idea how to take it forward

    Nor me! It's just my box of fireworks brain giving out an idea to bring ideas together in a form that helps resolve problems that keep repeating, on a microcosm or macrocosm. 

    Iain said:
    Would you care to start since I'm sure you have at least one project in mind.

    Sure! They range from local to national issues, issues in social housing and those occurring in most places

    1. keeping warm in winter for those of slender means
    2. dog issues - noise, mess, attack
    3. anti social behaviours in social housing
    4. knife crime - not resolved despite legislation or charities or huge input from individuals like Baroness Lawrence
    5. perception that everyone must be successful

    I haven't answers for the below and would appreciate input:

    Iain said:

    What is the principle we are studying

    2 - what is the intended outcome

    3 - who is the target audience

    4 - how do we establish our credibility

    5 - what standards do we follow to enable peer review

    6 - how do we define success of the project.

    The credibility would depend on how the output is presented. I offer my authoring skills but there will be many others with writing skills. Perhaps each topic's inputters could decide on who best to lead. Not me - I'm 72 and my memory is taxed every day! The target audience depends on the problem being looked into. Standards and peer review - yes, the output must look as if effort has been put in. but it is being presented as the point of view of 'ordinary' autistics [now there's a conundrum Joy].

    Hairyloon said:
    I think that anyone can put up a thread...

    I'm using the wrong word. I meant, it would need a moderator to set up a new area for this informal think tank, to keep it separate from general chat. It might not work, but wouldn't it be a marvellous collective brain machinebrain . Somewhere ideas can be played with and turned into gold.

  • in reply to Marianne72

    Why do you think that having a group of us giving repsnses to the press would be a bad idea or an unworkable one when so many of the tropes are so negative and our voices are so rarely heard? I could see a situation where "we" could become the go to group for the media for comment on topical stories about ND people. There are a lot of us and if we don't stand up for ourselves then who will?

    Personally I'm not sure about a think tank, I can't see how it would be funded to do any meaningful research or how any sort of traction could be gained to make such a group a go to resource? 

Reply
  • in reply to Marianne72

    Why do you think that having a group of us giving repsnses to the press would be a bad idea or an unworkable one when so many of the tropes are so negative and our voices are so rarely heard? I could see a situation where "we" could become the go to group for the media for comment on topical stories about ND people. There are a lot of us and if we don't stand up for ourselves then who will?

    Personally I'm not sure about a think tank, I can't see how it would be funded to do any meaningful research or how any sort of traction could be gained to make such a group a go to resource? 

Children
No Data