A while back, a bunch of Autistic advocates and activists did a flashblog to get Google to remove hate speech from its automated search completion, remember?
It had to do with the fact that before this, searching for "Autistic people should" gave suggestions such as "be killed". And. And and and.
We were successful. In a sense. But this is not what I intend to talk about right now. But it is related.
What I intend to talk about was those commenters during that drive that claimed that our worry about these things, our anger at our murderers getting the sympathy, our fear of violence, was unreasonable. Because people don't think that way. The search suggestions is a result of autistics talking about those opinions and not actually a representation of what people think.
Autistics aren't getting abused and killed. And people aren't sympathetic to our murderers.
It doesn't happen.
Except it does.
Alex Spourdalakis was murdered by his mother, and go look at the comments, if you think you can stomach it.
A fourteen year old boy was murdered. By his mother. A fourteen year old boy with the name Alex Spourdalakis was found murdered in his bed. Stabbed multiple times in the chest. By his mother. Who is trying to claim that she was overwhelmed. That he was such a burden. That she couldn't care for him.
His mother was offered services, and declined them. And then she murdered her son.
The story as it is right now suggests that she made multiple attempts before succeeding.
She tried to murder her son multiple times.
And then, the person that is supposed to love him, who is supposed to care for him, who brought him out of hospital because of treatment disagreements, stabbed him in the chest. Multiple times. Whilst he was in his bed.
SHE MURDERED HER SON, and in those comments? People are sympathetic to her. They understand her actions.
I am lost and sad and angry.
I grieve for Alex.
One day, you lot have to stop murdering us!
