A Little Autism Education for Michael Savage
So I finally got around to reading Michael Savage on the Autism Controversy after grading papers, going swimming with Charlie and explaining to the water aerobics teacher why the boombox was contributing to him looking mighty distressed and since the class was over maybe it could be turned off?, making Charlie’s lunch, overseeing him practice cello, searching for the Leapster (not necessarily in that order). Yes, I know you’ve all read it, blogged it, rolled your eyes over it, read too many websites inveighing over the mean-spiritedness of remarks. Here’s Savage being called the most hated man in America (what better way to get, if not sympathy, attention?). Here’s AFLAC Just Saying No to advertising on Savage’s show. Here’s Salon on protesting parents and Savage self-defending.
Swimming, searching for lost new toys, folding, making, driving: These activities offer ample time (especially when there’s an overturned tractor trailer on the highway) for reflection, and this part of Savage’s original comments was on my mind:
Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I’m not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden — why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], “When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], ‘I don’t know, the dust got me.’ ” See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.
I was once a minority child with asthma, though I don’t think I’m the kind of “minority” Savage is referring to. And while I would have to, at least in part, agree with him that autism has become something like the “illness du jour”—who doesn’t know about it, or know someone with a child with it, these days?—-I don’t think, or rather I know, that my understanding of autism is not the same as Savage’s. (Well, you knew that already.) Reviewing Savage’s The Autism Controversy comments, his main point (remember, I’m grading papers and I’m in looking-for-thesis statement mode) is that autism is being “overdiagnosed,” that some poor kids are being “falsely diagnosed,” are indeed being “victimized” by being “diagnosed with an ‘illness’ which may not exist, in all cases.” Oh, the poor bamboozled parents thinking their kid has the “disease du jour” and, in truth, in order to figure out what their brat of a kid really has, those parents need only look in the mirror, and see the actual cause of said brattiness in their kids. It’s you, buster, it’s you lazy and lousy parents! You’re doing a rotten job and that is why, ipso facto, you have rotten kids.
Well.
It’s either fascinating, or discouraging, or infuriating to find the “bad parents cause autism”—-the refrigerator mother theory of autism, or “Freudian analysis” according to the Executive Director of Autism United—invoked so baldly today. As Emily pointed out, the savagery of Savage’s remarks seems to be, sadly, reflective of the sentiments of more than a few anonymous commenters about Adam Race and Alex Barton.
Savage’s main point seems to be that kids today are being over/falsely/wrongly diagnosed with autism instead of just getting the “this is some rotten kid” label; he thus suggests that the significant increase in the prevalence rate of autism over the past decade (it’s now 1 in 150)—that the so-called autism epidemic—is because of over-diagnosis and that “99 percent” of autistic kids just aren’t. (They’re just bad.)
One hopes that Savage might, at some time or other (especially as he is, as he noted, the “brother of a severely disabled person who suffered and died in a New York ’snake-pit’ of a ‘mental hospital’”), get educated about autism, what it is, and why the prevalence rate is up; about why people feel that there’s an “epidemic of autism,” and why the rising prevalence rate is due to the confluence of a number of factors, including the broadening of the DSM criteria for autism, physicians being better able to identify autistic children, parents knowing more about autism, children receiving an autism diagnosis who might before have been given one of mental retardation or something else, a cultural climate in which it’s less of a stigma (unless you listen to Savage’s show) to be disabled.
These and a number of other factors for the so-called autism epidemic are discussed in a July 21st ABC news interview on autism diagnoses skyrocket with Roy Richard Grinker, the author of Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. An anthropologist, Professor Grinker also talks about his research on autism in South Korea. When South Korean children are screened for autism using the same diagnostic tools as are now used in the US, the prevalence rate is about the same, 1 in 150.
Professor Grinker also speaks about his teenage daughter Isabel, and about how important it was for him and his wife to turn from focusing so much on what she could not do (as compared to other children) and focused on her strengths.
Focusing on strengths.
Maybe what most infuriates me about Savage’s remarks on autism is that he speaks only of deficits and “kids being bad,” of kids who have problems and who are problems. And, in doing so, he is not able to see where the real problems are, namely, in limited perspectives like his own that see only “the problems” and not the great kids who learn to make their way in a world that, so often, does not want them. That likes to make fun of them.
And if you go to ABC, it’s not this (Savage) video to watch, but this one, about truly understanding autism.
Tags: abc, adam race, alex barton, asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, Diagnosis, disabilities blog, disability, Epidemic, Family, family blog, Health, michael savage, Parenting, pdd-nos, psychoanalysis, rants, roy richard grinker, talk radioRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Diagnosis, Epidemic, Media, Stereotypes
49 opinions for A Little Autism Education for Michael Savage
squid
Jul 22, 2008 at 2:31 am
I’d love to see Savage figure out how to get my son or some of his equally sensitive friends to “cut it out” after sensory or emotional overload sends them on a behavioral bender.
Hopefully, our efforts to keep our children visible, to show our pride in them as well as their humanity (nod to JGG), will result in a media audience aware enough to disregard the unfairness and cruelty of such statements.
TRUTH ON THE MARKET » Autism Misinformation Continues
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:39 am
[…] and attention-seeking claims (the link is to the NY Times post, not to Savage … here is an alternative link). Here is more on how the discredited theory has been kept alive. Filed under: politics […]
David N. Andrews M. Ed. (Distinction)
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:45 am
Savage is … and this is purely speculation … an arsehole.
JoyMama
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:13 am
Makes ya wonder how parents who have kids both with autism and without in the household managed to screw up SO BADLY with one and not the other, huh?
Well, he was trying to hit a nerve, and he succeeded. I just hope that the protest lets some people take away the right message instead of the savage one.
kyra
Jul 22, 2008 at 8:54 am
he is so far off the mark that i can’t even respond.
Synesthesia
Jul 22, 2008 at 9:07 am
Where do people get this notion that children, if they aren’t behaving the way adults want to are bad anyway?
It reminds me of a depressing conversation I had with my mother who isn’t very conservative but still thinks that if you don’t hit kids they will turn out “bad” despite the years of abuse she endured.
It makes very little logical sense.
theasman
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:23 am
Kristina,
Sadly He is *partially* right. This part specifically
The “autism lobby of devastated parents is just a scam to get more money.”
When you see all these lawsuits on the unscientific disproven vaccine link what is an “outsider” to think???? If anything we should be mad at achamp /generation rescue/shoemaker/kirby etc who gave the autism community this image.
Emily
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:29 am
“Focusing on strengths.”
Amen.
theasman, ditto. When Savage tried to savage a “cabal” of MDs and Big Pharma, accusing them of overdiagnosing autism for money, I wondered two things; (1) there’s money for MDs and Big Pharma in autism? When did that happen? and (2) why isn’t he excoriating the real criminals in this drama, the snake-oil salespeople who manipulate anxious and vulnerable parents into forking over thousands of dollars for questionable “therapies”?
Club 166
Jul 22, 2008 at 11:18 am
Two thoughts.
1) It wasn’t all that long ago that most diseases were blamed on people themselves. Either the person had done something wrong, or G_d was punishing them for some failing that only He knew about. Epilepsy, cancer, you name it. We seem to have this need, as humans, to identify a concrete cause, and to start with the person and work outward from there. We abhor uncertainty. Thus “refrigerator mother” and “vaccine” theories abound.
2) Savage wouldn’t excoriate snake oil salesmen, because in his former life he was one (purveyor of various nutritional supplements).
Joe
Regan
Jul 22, 2008 at 11:23 am
questionable “therapies”
I don’t know, but based on his books, the lightning might be striking a little too close to home on that one.
A child having a hard time is a problem worthy of insult. A man having a tantrum in a studio in front of a microphone gets a paycheck.
I might be cynical, but given man and backstory, I think really educating M. Savage on anything except the bottom line is a lost cause. Educating the educable is of more interest. I’ll settle for him and other shock-jocks thinking twice before going on a tear again about those with disabilities being frauds and the key to effective parenting verbal abuse. I’m sincerely sorry about his brother–but all that tells me is that, if true, he really should know better.
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Wiener makes a living at taking a half truth and fobbing it off to his 80-90 IQ audience as a gospel truth. He does this by focusing on a problem and then making a broad generalization and coming to a believable conclusion. For example, he hates Muslims because he’s Jewish. He gets us everyone else to hate Muslims by blaming characterizing most of them as blood thirsty savages and baby killers. The truth is that Israel kills 10 times more INNOCENT people, including children, then to so called blood thirsty Muslims: http://tinyurl.com/6ayerg . Here is a quote:
“9 Israeli children’s deaths were reported in the headlines or first paragraphs of AP articles on the Israel/Palestine conflict in 2004, when 8 had actually occurred. During the same period only 27 out of 179 Palestinian children’s deaths were reported. (Children are defined by international law as those who are 17 and younger.”
Why doesn’t the main stream media cover the killing of innocent Palestinian children at the hand of Israel and over-cover the killing of Israeli children? The answer is obvious so I won’t go there. Wiener takes this bias to the next level.
According to Wiener, most Muslims are blood thirsty terrorists. Anyone who kills an innocent child is a terrorist in my book.
Taking an extreme view on anything shows lack of education and a cold, wanton heart. His view of autistic children is classic Weiner. I honestly believe the man has mental problems and is probably an alcoholic and closet gay based on his world view. I hope he loses more money over this issue as it hits home for most Americans.
David L.
Jul 22, 2008 at 1:01 pm
As disparaging as Savage’s remarks about autism may be, he is stating what most who know little about autism are thinking: these kids look normal, why don’t they just act normal? I used to work in just such a place where autism is thought of that way. It seems that since the beginning of the 1980’s, people have gotten much meaner towards each other and especially towards those who present as different. The zeitgeist, I guess.
Emily
Jul 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Joe, is there anything Savage *hasn’t* done in a previous life? He’s gotten around, I’ll give him that.
Liz Ditz
Jul 22, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I wrote to Radio Shack to complain about RS advertising on the Savage show. The short version: they don’t:
Thank you for your email to RadioShack’s Media Relations Department. We appreciate and share your concerns.
We would like to emphatically state RadioShack was not and is not a sponsor of the Michael Savage radio show. In fact, our agreement with the radio network airing his show specifically excludes his program (along with several others) as one on which our commercials may appear. The fact that one or more of our ads did run on the July 16 broadcast of this show was in direct violation of our advertising contract with the network. The network has admitted their mistake to us and apologized for the confusion they have created. Likewise, we are investigating whether any other radio stations who air the syndicated version of the program may have violated our advertising contracts and instructions. If so, we will demand a proper remedy.
Unfortunately, the network’s mistake was heard by many individuals such as you who have since spread the word that RadioShack sponsors this program. Likewise, Web sites that were quick to post our name as a sponsor without investigating the actual facts have been very slow to correct the record online. Until that happens, we would greatly appreciate your help in spreading the facts through your own personal network.
Once again, thank you for writing and allowing us the opportunity to set the record straight.
Sincerely,
Charles Hodges
Director Media Relations
Shawn3k
Jul 22, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I’m not sure if anyone is a Glenn Beck fan, but he was filling in for Larry King last night. Savage was on the show and Glenn to him to the mat in regards to his remarks. I subscribe to Beck’s radio show and I’m curious to hear what he has to say about it (haven’t had the chance to listen to that yet)….but I bet its good.
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 2:06 pm
If you missed that interview between weiner and beck, it’s here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WK2SYib5Sxg
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I can’t find the second part of the interview, only this small clip on this new piece:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aR12U8KjFCs
I am mostly interested in hearing what the experts had to say. When someone uploads the entire interview, I’ll post it.
Eleanor
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I see that there is a petition site up trying to get Savage fired: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/486739008?z00m=15830668&s_kwcid=michael%20savage|1477600410
My guess is that the more effective way is to get to his advertisers. Unfortunately, so far this uproad is just giving his nastiness lots of extra air time.
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:46 pm
As an advertiser myself, I advertise to get sales. If sales are hurt by advertising, it’s adding insult to injury (lost money).
Boycotting the advertisers and letting them hear about it is very effective. Even if an advertiser supports the offending party, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to pull the plug if it hurts their bottom line. I’d like to see this whack job off the air once and for all. I’m all for free speech as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or cause anyone to hurt someone else. This Weiner guy says things to incite riots so to speak. In this case, he wants to plant into the minds of Autistic kids that it’s their fault and that if they beat their kids into submission they’ll act right. Some parents in a moment of doubt might take his words to heed and act accordingly, hurting an innocent child in the process. This is not acceptable.
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:46 pm
As an advertiser myself, I advertise to get sales. If sales are hurt by advertising, it’s adding insult to injury (lost money).
Boycotting the advertisers and letting them hear about it is very effective. Even if an advertiser supports the offending party, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to pull the plug if it hurts their bottom line. I’d like to see this whack job off the air once and for all. I’m all for free speech as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or cause anyone to hurt someone else. This Weiner guy says things to incite riots so to speak. In this case, he wants to plant into the minds of parents of Autistic kids that it’s their fault and that if they beat their kids into submission they’ll act right. Some parents in a moment of doubt might take his words to heed and act accordingly, hurting an innocent child in the process. This is not acceptable.
liquid zeolite
Jul 22, 2008 at 3:59 pm
http://nosavage.org/
Good website working to ban this vile misanthrope.
mommy~dearest
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Whew! I’m glad we got our diagnosis before the Autism quota was filled! What an idiot.
Another Voice
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:18 pm
At least AFLAC and Radio Shack will not sponsor Mr. Wiener, AKA Savage. If a few more big sponsors drop him, his show may become history.
Regan
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Liz,
Thanks for posting the correction from Radio Shack.
Regan
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I am mostly interested in hearing what the experts had to say (on CNN).
Yyeesss. That would be infinitely more interesting than in essence hearing the entire radio clip…again, only now on TV, and then the excuse of out of context, real meaning, etc., while still saying much of what was said before, except in a much nicer tone of voice. Oh yes, he was really on the ropes [/sarcasm].
(I’m a very naive person–It’s all about money and market share for all of these folks, isn’t it?
Back in the day when Eleanor was first diagnosed I used to think that enlisting the media in public awareness would be helpful. Now…well.) Concentrating on the sponsors is the way to go–probably more effective and less risk of further visibility.
Emily
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Squid, you said, “I’d love to see Savage figure out how to get my son or some of his equally sensitive friends to ‘cut it out’ after sensory or emotional overload sends them on a behavioral bender.”
And that sounds like a pretty good description of what Savage himself does. An emotional bender. In essence, his rantings are like a middle-aged version of a meltdown.
Hank
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:43 pm
See http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Savage is an authoritarian. He isn’t happy unless he has someone to blame. Some things about the world aren’t black and white, and that bothers him.
He would be much more comfortable if autism could be a moral failing. And as an added bonus, then we could cut funding for research! Who cares why kids are bad? Parents can buy their own belts.
Bonnie Sayers
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:44 pm
That last video clip posted of the interview with Richard was very good. Only complaint is the interviewer (male) used the word “disease” when he did not want to say epidemic.
Kat Vallish
Jul 22, 2008 at 8:41 pm
My son would love to help Savage host his show. Only problem is that it would only be about reruns of old tv shows or the most recent Batman movie. All other conversation would be met with blank stares or announcements about going to the bathroom.
Instead of firing him, maybe we should all take turns showing up at the radio station for a visit with Mr. Savage. I know when my son was young this would have caused a great deal of caos. What fun we could have
Marla
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Truly sick. I just hate that people are listening.
Owl
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:23 pm
In making fun of Savage on my personal blog I described his theory of autism as a transition from refrigerator mommy to girly daddy theory. Couldn’t think of a better way to describe how immature his ideas were.
Regan
Jul 23, 2008 at 1:14 am
“The radio program of conservative “shock jock” Michael Savage has been canceled by one Mississippi network…
“It was just horrible what he said,” stated Steve Davenport, president of Telesouth Communications, in explaining the cancellation. “When you talk about people in politics, business people, that’s one thing. But when you talk about defenseless children, that’s another.” “
Emily
Jul 23, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Wow. Someone actually did the right thing.
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Jul 23, 2008 at 8:07 pm
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Lisa
Jul 23, 2008 at 9:39 pm
What was really striking about the whole tirade was the way he advocated talking to children. Any children. Verbal tirades involving the words “idiot” and “moron”? Why didn’t we think of this before?
He mentions that this is the way that his father spoke to him. Yet more proof, in case you needed any, that this particular parenting technique should never be used again.
emily
Jul 24, 2008 at 1:58 am
Liquid Zeolite: he hates Muslims because he’s an asshole, not because he’s Jewish.
It’s nice to hear that advertisers and stations are taking notice of his vile little hissy fit. It is, OTOH, fairly appalling that he has such an extensive audience.
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Jul 24, 2008 at 2:16 am
[…] has a recent Explainer column on how do you diagnose autism (prompted in part by Michael Savage’s claim that autism is widely overdiagnosed). Now Jim and I are convinced that Charlie could have been, and would have been, diagnosed in his […]
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 24, 2008 at 2:19 am
And one could say, “just” appalling.
theasman
Jul 24, 2008 at 5:17 am
Is It that appalling?? Islam is part of the judeo-christian tradition. A tradition that at each successive development says their people are god’s chosen. That the wicked ie not them will perish. In the old testament The ancient jews were often told to annihilate a group of people men women children and if they as in one case had mercy on the women and married, were ultimately punished for it.
The Christians have done just as bad in the name of being the chosen ones. There is no “mechanism” by which you make this intelligible to outsiders. The greek tradition you can explain yourself and you had to inorder to be ethical and right. In the judeo-christian it is about faith and convenents with the allmighty. Outsiders are irrelevant. For the ancient jews there was no conversion you were not one of the chosen or you were period. Not one of the chosen? death is ok. I’d say par for the course with savage.
@zeolite
Israel doesnt condone suicide bombings but palestine does. I support Israel end of story.
Also since Islam never took to the greek the way the western world did, the idea of universals and that everybody can be made to understand is not there. They only have judeo-christian of faith and convenents with god. So it is hardly surprising that radical islam calls for death of the unblievers if they dont convert and that is doing the unbeliever a favor. People who should know better continually believe if we could only make them understand that we are the bad guys etc/ *THERE IS NO BASIS OR TRADITION FOR THIS** There is no greek there. They have a convenent with God. They will kill you while you are talking. Our western values dont apply in this world!
The best thing we can do is to kill the radical muslims, burn their schools, books and mosques. It is the only real option for us. I dont want to live in the 11th century. They will not stop they will martyr themselves over and over.
Synesthesia
Jul 24, 2008 at 8:04 am
Yeah, that’s logical. Then what will really happen is you’ll just get an angry tide of angry muslims who weren’t radical before but became radical as their relatives and friends are killed in droves and their schools and mosques are destroyed.
That won’t solve a thing. There are more complicated issues that cause terrorism that aren’t even explored by this “solution”. War is so stupid and outmoded.
theasman
Jul 24, 2008 at 10:31 am
Well your answer is facile and based on nothing more than a hunch. If your relative was executed for committing crimes like murder would you get angry and go and commit crimes? or muslim more passionate and/or less disciplined than you?
As for the cause. It goes to the root of the problem. People always want to say it is the circumstances that people find themselves in are the reason for their behavior - (marx,hegel).
This is totally wrong. People’s values are the primary determinant of behavior regardless of circumstance. It is the values that radical muslims hold that asre root of problem. It is the values of the Palestinian people are the problem here.
Look at the Hawaiians. They want their kingdom back. They pursue every non violent avenue open to them. Why?? It is their values. Aloha is a word full meaning and import to them. They are truly a great people. Their values mean more to them than their sovereignty. Once the activist Bumpy kanahele was holed up in cave with a cache of weapons to start violence. The FBI went there. He gave up without violence.
It is poignant that the hawaiian islands are almost the exact opposite of the middle east on the globe. Those islands are imbued with its own spirituality. You have to be open to the beauty of land to see it.
Regan
Jul 24, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Interesting, and I think rather well-written summing up from someone self-identified on the conservative right,
A Savage Attack: Right-radio wrong
National Review Online
Celeste Martens
Jul 24, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I can only pray for your children. I worked for 15 years with children with special needs and my hats off to all parents that have to weather the storm daily. This creep is an idiot that has no clue what he is talking about.
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