A Response to an actor whose heart was in the right place, but whose execution could use some more information.
I am here writing a reply to this article: http://www.upworthy.com/after-a-boy-with-autism-disrupted-a-broadway-show-this-actor-leapt-to-his-defense?c=ufb1
Let me explain why this article (and Loh's comments) are harmful to the Autistic Community (even if they are supportive of the autism community).
First, definitions: The Autistic Community refers to the community of Autistic people (not their caregivers, only them). The autism community refers to the community of caregivers, medical professionals, and educational professionals who have Autistic kids/clients/etc.
This article is supportive of the autism community because it is saying that it is brave to take your Autistic kid into public to do whatever everyone else does in public. It is saying the world must not criticize people who bring their Autistic kids in public.
This is why that rhetoric is harmful to the Autistic Community (meaning, to actual Autistic people):
(1) saying that a mother is brave for taking her Autistic kid into public automatically implies that it is a huge hardship to take an Autistic kid out into public. It is saying that that hardship includes qualities for which the mother must have courage--something we don't expect everyone to have. The risk, here, is that the mother will get told off for bringing her kid in public.
The thing is, tons of parents are told off for bringing their kids into public when their kids have tantrums or volume control or impulse control issues (these are all things every kid has). This is not a phenomenon that only parents of disabled kids face. And while they may face it more often, is the parent's embarrassment and frustration MORE important than the humiliation and dismay that the CHILD must feel? Especially an Autistic child who is probably not throwing a tantrum, but rather having a meltdown (which is a situation in which their brain can no longer process much if any information because they've become overstimulated--unlike a tantrum, it is something indicating that there is something wrong with the environment the kid is interacting with, as opposed to a purely emotional reaction) or expressing themselves in the only ways they can. Saying that the only reason, or the primary reason, we must not harass parents of disabled kids to not bring their kids in public is that it is hard on the parent is ignoring the much greater (and more important, developmentally speaking) pain and suffering a child feels. It's essentially approaching the situation as if the child is an animal or robot. A dog doesn't feel embarrassed when someone yells at its owner for something the dog does (the dog probably thinks "wow, there's someone barking at us, I should bark at them!). A kid does.
(2) Loh implies that the mother was doing the right thing by trying to quietly escort the kid into the lobby. But he also mentions that no one was concerned with the woman who was crying loudly at an earlier performance. The woman was not trying to leave. The woman was allowed (both by the audience and retrospectively by Loh) to stay in the theatre and BOTH express her grief AND watch the rest of the play.
Were Loh being equitable towards the Autistic kid, he would have said that the mother shouldn't have felt the need to remove her kid. Her kid was in all likelihood freaking out because of what was happening on stage. That kid should be allowed the same privilege as the woman at a previous performance--to express his grief AND watch the rest of the play. After all, when something horrific happens on stage, audience members often seek/need the cathartic release of seeing a resolution of that horror (if that weren't true, then folks making theatre for social justice would stop withholding that cathartic release in order to try to encourage audience members to go do something in the real world!).
(3) Finally, "It was clear to [Loh] that the child had autism." How was it clear? Is Loh an expert on autism who observed and interacted with the child for hours or days or years in order to come to that conclusion? Was Loh watching the child to see if the child was using any of the adaptive equipment common almost exclusively to Autistics? Was the kid wearing a shirt saying something that meant the kid had autism?
See, the thing is, Loh is assuming this kid was Autistic because the kid was behaving in a way not socially acceptable in a loud manner. But tons of kids (including non-disabled ones) behave in ways that are not socially acceptable. Tons of kids are loud when they are upset. This was "a particularly intense moment" in the already intense medium of live performance. Who knows why the kid was behaving that way? Maybe the kid was just really, really shocked (as opposed to being really shocked and disabled).
In conclusion, yes, I agree that it was wrong for people to start harassing the mother for bringing her kid to the theatre. If it's a family friendly production, then everyone should be ready for all manner of kid noises, and shouldn't harp on people when their kids then make kid noises. But I would kindly ask Loh not to say things that contribute to the myths and misunderstandings around autism--in this case, that criticizing a parent of an Autistic kid for the kid's loud noises in public is bad because the parent is brave (the reasons we shouldn't do that are because we shouldn't be making the kid who, surprising as it is, has feelings that can get hurt when hearing feedback from the public that they are not welcome), that Autistics must be more secretive in expressing themselves than allistics, and that behavior that is loud and not socially acceptable is an indication of autism.
