Stuart Chaifetz: Autistic Kids are Autistic

Stuart Chaifetz has an autistic kid.  Stuart Chaifetz sent his autistic kid to school wearing a wire.  Stuart Chaifetz listened to the recording of what his son's teachers said throughout the day.  Stuart Chaifetz got mad.

So, he released a Youtube video in which he tells the story, plays parts of the audio recording, and articulates his angry.

Now, what the teachers said to those kids was monstrous.  Their conversations in the classrooms were completely unprofessional.  Let's be clear:  The teachers were assholes who deserve to be fired.

I have to say, though, that Stuart Chaifetz is being irrationally angry about some aspects of this situation.  Yes, the teachers were unprofessional.  Yes, the teachers obviously did not care for the well-being of the students.  If he'd focused upon that?  This would have been a great public service that uncovered the deleterious conditions of his child's classroom.  Unfortunately, he did the thing parents do where they go beyond reasonable criticism and start to become overly emotional and, so, irrational about their child's treatment.  Let's deal with these components to the video.


"They treated them as if they were sub-humans who could never tell what they were talking about."

Dude, your kid is autistic.  While he may not be sub-human, in terms of genus / species classification, he does have some fucked up genes, and so falls in the lower intellectual spectrum of the species.  When his teachers talked about getting drunk, or their social problems?  He most likely did not understand what they were talking about.  He might have understood the general sentiment of being frivolous and entertained rather than serious and instructive, but, again, he's fucking autistic.  If he could understand exactly what his teachers meant, he wouldn't be in the class.

That does not excuse what the teachers did.  It simply points to a flaw in the father's reasoning.

Complaining that the teachers treated the students as autistic kids, who couldn't tell what was going on, isn't a reasonable criticism to make.  One hopes that a teacher, charged with the task of instructing autistic kids, will treat them as autistic children; that's the point of the fucking class.

The problem, in this situation, is that the instructor exploits the autistic kid's shortcomings and inability to report their conversations about liquor and sex.  The teachers took advantage of the kid's disabilities in order to slack off.

That's the complaint to make that speaks to the true problem.  Faulting the teachers for treating autistic kids as autistic is a retarded complaint to raise, since that's what you want them to do.  What you don't want them to do is exploit the autism.

"They called my son a bastard."

Your fucking kid doesn't know what "bastard" means.  If they called your son a "shit-faced cunt dropping", but said it in a nice way?  He'd probably giggle like a bastard and have a grand time.

Granted, calling an autistic kid a bastard is unprofessional.  But the linguistic utterance is not at all deleterious to your child's self-conception.  He's not consternated about his self-worth, having been called a bastard by his teacher.  He doesn't know what the damn word means, so it really isn't harmful to him.

The person to whom it is harmful and angering is you, the father.  Because you know what "bastard" means, and you've that lingering insecurity that results from the knowledge that you have shitty sperm that produces autistic bastards.

All of that?  That's a problem for you, not your son.  It is harmful to your self-conception, and your feeling of self-worth.  Your son doesn't give a shit about the linguistic utterance.

Now, to be fair, the fact that the teacher is calling the child a bastard is probably indicative of their incredibly problematic attitude towards the child.  "Bastard" is not a term of endearment to be used towards one's students.  Again, it's an entirely problematic term.

But it's problematic for the teacher to use it, and it's problematic for the father to hear it.  The kid doesn't know what it means, so the term isn't at all problematic, with respect to the child's own experience of the situation.

The way to go with this quote isn't to get all huffy about the term directed at the child.  The way to criticize the statement is to focus upon the attitude it belies in the teacher.


All of that being said?  The part where they tell your son that he'll never see his parents again, and then sort of laugh while he's crying?  That earns the teachers a special place in hell.  So, yeah, Kudos for wiring your son and releasing this video.

But maybe tone down the parental empathy, and focus upon the genuine problems of the situation, rather than the parts that just hurt your feewings.

Jenny McCarthy: Autism is, in fact, funny.

Jenny McCarthy: Denis Leary is "Stupid"

You know, I don't care that much about entertainment news. It's usually little more than mindless fluff meant to garner attention and so money. The problem is when ignorant sluts attack people I like. So I would like to point out that Denis Leary is awesome, Jenny McCarthy is a slut, and Autistic kids are stupid. Really stupid. Well, stupid at most things. They seem to be very adept at stacking items or placing things in lines. Well, physical things. They're not so adept at putting, say, thoughts into lines of a rational sort.

And Autism is a great punch line. Consider the humor in a sad, crying parent pouring their heart out as they hopelessly grasp at assistance for their autistic child. The gut-wrenching sadness of a depressed parent seeking out any and all resources to aid their beloved offspring, perfect if not for that genetic mental disorder which renders them incapable of self-sustained survival. Reflect upon the frustrated fury of a parent whose child cannot find the help it needs, the educational modifications it requires. Delight in the leveling-down of society to a state in which it aids those with detrimental genetic diseases rather than, say, set them on fire and solve the fucking problem.

Of course, that is not to say that autism is the best punch line. AIDS is pretty funny. Cancer is funny too. So while Autism is a great punch line it's not the best punch line. Now, an autistic child who is born with AIDS who then contracts Cancer? That's a fucking awesome punch line.

Oh, and the kid was in one of the 9/11 towers.

And has Polio.

At some point the human species will pull its collective head out of its collective ass, rationally and objectively assess reality, and so discern the facticity of its existence and the truth of its being. The human species will one day realize that individual, particular people are replaceable, that propagating the survival of carriers of genetic diseases is detrimental to the whole. One day the human species will realize that its particular components are not all precious, unique snowflakes endowed by their creator with certain inaliable rights. One day the human species will realize that it is little more than a collective of particular biological beings who perpetually fuck over the rock on which they exist as they partake in this self-aggrandizing, biased, self-perpetuated bullshit stupid notion that there's some sort of meaning or purpose or use to existence.

But until that day comes? At least let us make fun of stupid people. If only to pass the time.

And for fuck's sake don't try to make Jenny McCarthy a voice of reason. Not even an Autistic kid would do that.