Then why did the author make this mistake? They are not my ambassador. I didn't vote for them. He shall stop talking on my behalf.
This arrogant form of patronizing should be called out, and this is what i just did.
> I’m not here to present you with an authoritative definition of Autism — I’m here to complicate your narratives in a way that makes room for me and people like me to finally be included in the conversation.
Pulling sentences out of context is not making your case. If you're going to call out people for being patronizing, then you need to understand that people are also going to call you out for misrepresenting the tone and substance of the article.
Here's what the author actually says:
> I really appreciate you taking the time to read this — but I am only one Autistic voice. What I hope you’ll walk away with is an understanding that every Autistic person you interview will give you a unique perspective into what Autism is, how it manifests and what kinds of challenges it’s associated with. Each of these perspectives is as valid as any other.
You are picking apart something to represent it in a way that is not backed up by the entirety of the text. The author spends a huge amount of time specifically calling out the thought process that says autistic people are a monolith. Using the word "ambassador" in one sentence does not change that fact, especially when the author immediately afterwards very clearly specifies what they mean by that phrasing.
“In the autistic twitter community where I and a lot of other advocates spend our time we are inclusive and speak frequently about ourselves as a culture -- not as a monolith, mind you, but as a culture. We disagree frequently about everything from IFL/PFL to whether or not Autism should be considered a disability, but we recognize that we're all Autistic and we're all doing our best to make the world a safer place for all of us.”
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to object to this Twitter culture being represented as some more general autistic culture.
I think it would have been vastly better if this sentence had been left out. Or, instead of saying “Ambassador of that culture”, they had qualified it and said “Ambassador of a Twitter autism advocacy community.”
> I really appreciate you taking the time to read this — but I am only one Autistic voice. What I hope you’ll walk away with is an understanding that every Autistic person you interview will give you a unique perspective into what Autism is, how it manifests and what kinds of challenges it’s associated with. Each of these perspectives is as valid as any other.
I'm trying to understand how one sentence negates an entire article that says the opposite of that sentence. I can understand that sentence rubbing you the wrong way, but you do understand that regardless, the author isn't arguing for homogeneity?
We're discussing phrasing right now, and it's fine for a piece of phrasing to hit someone the wrong way or for it to get under their skin, that happens to me all the time. There's nothing wrong with getting hung up on an offhand comment or sentence that hits the wrong way. But it's important to understand that we are only talking about phrasing right now. The entire text of the article as a whole makes it abundantly clear that when the author uses the word "ambassador" they are not thinking of themselves as an anointed leader of a monolithic culture, they are using that word in a much looser sense to say, "I'm a member of this community asking for more representation from the community."
We're not really talking about the author's character or overall argument right now, because it's just not true that their argument is that they speak for all autistic people.
It’s not surprising that the way it does so is under scrutiny.
The word ambassador isn’t the only word in that phrase. The word ‘culture’ is also there. There is certainly an implication of two cultures in play.
The later part talks about a diversity of autistic voices of which the author is only one, but that doesn’t eliminate the ‘two cultures’ idea that has already been introduced.
The two cultures idea is definitely not universally held by autistic people. I suspect that this is at the root of a lot of the reactions.