The Bullshit of Mothers, pt. 1

So, in the course of this little-read and decidedly under-appreciated blog, one will occasionally go back and find little gems like this:

You wrote about my son Zhane Fulp and his billboard in your article. He has Autism and for him to be able to write this and have his billboard displayed makes me very proud. It has been a long road to get to where he is, just for you to have your say. I ask that you remove any mention of my son from your article.

And this is from someone who is one hundred per cent okay with her son's name being on the internet (and identifying him first and foremost as someone with autism, before anything else), but not if someone has something to say about his actual work, if it is something other than insincere praise for his being An Inspiration.

I would have had to view him as being Autistic above all else (which I couldn't, as I didn't know him, and only had his work by which to judge) to view him as being so Inspirational. What I saw instead was an embarrassing cluster of words about some media non-entity on Channel One that some kid somewhere had a crush on.

Now, I bet that's a lot closer to the truth than the picture his mother is trying to put across. She views it as An Inspiration (tm) that her Autistic is writing anything at all. I view it as Some Kid Is Working Out His Masturbatory Fantasies in ALL CAPS:

(Which, if you recall, read as...

"I HAVE TO SAY THAT JESSICA KUMARI IS MY HERO BECAUSE SHE HAS HELPED CHANNEL ONE NEWS ENTERTAIN THE HEARTS OF MILLIONS. I WATCH CHANNEL ONE NEWS EVERY MORNING AT CHESTNUT GROVE MIDDLE SCHOOL AFTER BREAKFAST AT THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. CONGRATULATIONS, JESSICA. CONGRATULATIONS. "

I'm more cracked up at 'CONGRATULATIONS, JESSICA. CONGRATULATIONS,' than anything else. It's just one o' those Show Biz Moments: Thank you, o thank you Media Figure for talking to Me And Only Me each and every day from Magic Box. Would die without you. Can't Live. Love You.)

So for whatever it's worth, I'd like to remind you, Claire, that if you open up your doors to the Internet, you won't necessarily always see or hear what you want to see or hear. That's basic, and in fact it's so basic that some person on the other end of the continent shouldn't have to tell you that.

But far worse than that is this idea you have that other people don't get to state their opinions about this thing that you have released into the public Marketplace of Ideas. You don't want your Son Who Is Autistic to have to hear unkind things? Maybe you shouldn't have allowed him to be on the Internet.

The fact that you wish to score some sort of sympathy points here makes you a rotten human being, in my opinion. Just for (me) to have (my) say, by the way, You're the one who writes like a person with autism. He just writes like a kid.

And fuck, who the hell Googles their kid's name?