Due to how many of us do not have regular contact with autistic people and, even those of us who are autistic or have sustained contact have a rather small data set for what the autistic experience is we have to rely on cultural and media narratives for more encompassing definitions of autism.

What audiences learn from these discourses is that regardless of any other disagreements people might have about autism — what it is, what causes it, how we should think about it, how we should respond to it — autism is a relentlessly white condition. That is the "truth" about autism.

How Rhetoric and Social Construction Create the "Truth" of Autism

 For someone just coming to understand that they might be autistic, for instance, their ability or inability to identify with autistic whiteness could be a powerful force in persuading them that they are or are not on the spectrum.

BIPOC individuals somehow have to look around or ignore this whiteness as the single most obvious and unifying characteristic of autistic identity to identify with others on the spectrum, which is not impossible, of course, but would seem highly problematic. 

Audience members who identify with autistic whiteness could easily come to ignore, collapse, or obliterate any number of critical differences that might actually exist between them and people they know on the spectrum, such as class, gender, or sexual orientation, obfuscations and denials that would surely cause more rifts in a relationship than any identification via autistic whiteness might bridge. 

Implications of Autism as Rhetoric for Self Identification 

The rhetoric of autism as a white disability does not just permeate our interpersonal connections but also institutions with how the label of who is and isn't autistic shapes the supports people are able to access throughout educational, workplace, judicial, and other institutional settings. 

The rhetoric around autism and whiteness elevates the white autistic experience to be the one considered in legislation and the building of accommodating services for autistic individuals.

Institutional Implications of Autism as Rhetoric 

- How Rhetoric and Social Construction Create "Truth"


University of Wisconsin - Madison

In this piece, Paul Heilker examines autism as a form of rhetoric and how the various forces, media portrays, autistic community understandings, and cultural forces, work to construct autism as an overwhelmingly white phenomenon in public discourses. 

Autism, Rhetoric, and Whiteness

Heilker, P. (2012). Autism, rhetoric, and Whiteness. Disability Studies Quarterly, 32(4). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v32i4.1756 

- Aristotle's definition of rhetoric
- Autism as Aristotle's rhetoric
- Dilip Gaonkar's definition of rhetoric
- Autism as Gaonkar's rhetoric
- What these rhetorical constructions have in common
- Effects of autism as rhetoric

Autism As Rhetoric

- The media and autism as rhetoric
- Autistic community discourses and autism as rhetoric
- Cultural forces and autism as rhetoric 

Forces That Shape Autism As Rhetoric

In the following nodes, I use identity first language to refer to autistic individuals. I chose to use this language because it is the language I use as an autistic individual, it is the language used in the article, and it is the language preferred by a majority of autistic individuals in the United States (where the research and researcher for this article is based). 

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