why do some people consider low functioning inferior ?

Post Reply New Topic

I would say that the biggest reason that some people really consider whites superior and blacks inferior is because black people are a racial minority, and it's almost universal for the majority to stereotype and marginalize minorities. I would imagine that, were the races reversed, the situation would be almost identical. In this case, I would agree that it is probably personally advantageous to be part of the majority, whether it is a racial, religious, or political majority. The conflict isn't really between races at all, but majority and minority. Would I say that whites are actually superior to blacks because of this? No, I wouldn't. And that is because the reasons that some people believe and perceive whites as superior are BS. Literally the only reason people feel this way is because of the human tendency to mindlessly demonize differences in people. This would be true regardless of how the various races were actually represented in society. A hypothetical country that is 80% white and 20% black would likely be nearly identical to one if it were 80% black and 20% white, assuming all else is equal. The actual race of the majority and minority is irrelevant. The same could not be said in a hypothetical world with vastly more people with cerebral palsy. That imaginary world would be worse, both for those suffering from the condition, and for everybody else.

This is not true. This is so not true. Antiblack racism doesn't exist because there are fewer black people than white people. Antiblack racism against African=Americans exists as a holdover from the triangle trade that delivered African people as slaves to the United States. When black people were held to be equal to 3/5ths of a white person to give the white people in those states more representation.

So, centuries of being abducted from their own nations, pressed into slavery, and then treated like rubbish even after slavery was ended to the point that awful racist crap is still happening, and you boil it down to "if there were more black people than white people, then black people would treat white people the same way."

Notions of "black people" and "white people" didn't even exist before this particular institution of systematic abduction of black African people to be used as slaves, and it was used to "scientifically" justify the notion that black people were inferior. Before that, it didn't exist. White people invented this entire system of "race" in order to claim that some so-called "races" were inferior, worthy of being enslaved, or worth of annihilation and genocide.



So you know that poor people vastly outnumber affluent and wealthy people. Women slightly outnumber men, making them the majority. This theory falls apart on the surface. I will say having fewer people as part of particular groups can have an impact, but it is not the definition or cause of oppression.



Literally the only reason people think this is because white people decided they wanted to own black people and invented reams of spurious scientific and religious claims to justify their ownership of human beings. This was not a mindless demonization, this was a deliberate act that has been continuously upheld by white people until now and will probably continue to be upheld into the future.



This would not be true because you'd basically need the entire history I described above. It is not a natural default state of humans to treat others this way, it is part of an entire system put into place to characterize black people as inferior to white people.

Please don't make excuses for oppression that people are subjected to. It is not normal for people to be like this. It is indoctrinated into people as part of a society that demonizes people for arbitrary traits, to divide everyone into an "us" vs. a "them." This is a gross oversimplification and extremely historically inaccurate.

This video actually describes the processes of colonialism and imperialism that were used to establish white supremacy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M[/youtube]

Last edited by Verdandi on 22 Dec 2013, 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

First, littlebee is a woman.

Second, given what I just responded to about why you think white supremacy exists as a system in the modern day, I am not really inclined to trust your analysis.



No, it is not a true statement. It is a false statement, it is a capitalist statement. It is a statement that assigns arbitrary values to people on the basis of impairments and disability. What you are doing here is making excuses for calling people inferior, and making a straw man argument about "equality."

Anyway, it is not up to me or you to decide whether having cerebral palsy is preferable or not. I think I'll leave that up to the people who actually have it. Those people I know who have it seem to be more frustrated by the attitudes of other people (like your own) than simply having cerebral palsy.

And no, those two statements are not equivalent, nor are they accurate. Yes, someone born with cerebral palsy is as human, is as valuable, as anyone else. The question is not "would you rather have cerebral palsy than not?" because that is an inane question that has no chance of going anywhere reasonable. The question is "How do we arrange things for these people who have cerebral palsy so they do not have to face obstacles that other people do not have to face by virtue of not having cerebral palsy?"

I am talking about the social model of disability: http://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/our-br ... disability



You're actually wrong about the "harder time empathizing with able-bodied people". See, the point of empathizing is that you don't share an experience, but you imagine it. The thing about the real world is that virtually everything is presented from an able-bodied perspective. So someone with cerebral palsy would basically have to be raised in a bubble with no human contact to never be exposed to able-bodied perspectives.



Everyone really does have equal value. I live my life with a clear conscience.

Also just want to add that arguments like those you're making are frequently used to argue in favor of eugenics. For involuntary sterilization, for killing, for genocide. Arguing for the inferiority of some people compared to others is a monstrous stance that leads to tragedy and atrocity. That might be copacetic with you, but I would much prefer more compassionate worldviews.

Don't give me this 'racism is a white people thing'. That's obviously a load of crap, simply due to the fact that racism exists in places with practically no white people, and even existed in places that had never seen a white man before. And don't pretend like slavery was invented by white people either. Slavery has existed since humans first figured out that they could force others do their work for them through the use of violence. Race makes absolutely no difference in this matter. I mean, the Bible has quite a bit to say about slavery, and last I checked, pretty much all the people at the time were different flavors of brown. Pre-colonial North and South America are a good example too. Not a white person to be seen there. Race didn't seem to matter to them one bit. And that's exactly my point.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about a totally hypothetical world here. Sure, our world has a long history of white people oppressing black people, but I think that this was largely a coincidence in how humanities history played out. Those with power subjugate and take advantage of those without power. It just so happens that, in colonial times, nations of white people happened to have power while nations of black people generally did not. Had the races been reversed at that time in history, the roles would have been reversed. Not to mention that this also ignores a very important part of the transatlantic slave trade. Most of the slave traders who sold slaves in the ports of West Africa were also black. They literally rounded up their own countrymen to sell for a profit. So either, these slave traders were a bunch of uncle tom's, or race wasn't really all that important. Like you said, the truly vicious demonization of blacks didn't come until after. But it could just as easily happened to Chinese people, if only it were more convenient to enslave them instead.

These people might think that the higher-functioning autistics are able to be more human (probably a poor choice of wording but my communication skills suck anyway) and are therefore more worthy of human status. People can be strange like that. Some people like to equate lower functioning with lower ability to be productive. Many value contribution to productive society over anything else. Think of the NSDAP.

Finally one finds a neuro-typical- style beat down drag out fight on a forum operated by and for people on the spectrum. I prefer knowing that if I comment here I will not be beaten up but will find empathy. Saying something goofy on an NT forum leads to bad places, we all know that. Saying something goofy here shouldn't, but apparently it does also.
So noted.

THEY put all of US down for being patently different. NTs would have a field day mocking all you principal actors in this little drama. They don't care if you are high low or inbetween. Whether you have lice or can do quadratic equations in your sleep. This thread is like listening to a group of people in a railway car arguing about the size of their bank accounts on their way to an extermination camp.

I shall now retreat to my shell and stim while wondering where on the spectrum I lie and why people get so wound up about labels in a world that loves to use labels to put people down.

Words should be chosen carefully. "Inferior" actually means "below" Feet are inferior to the head. Inferior can be used to denote ranks such as in the military. "inferior" should only be used in very specific ways, and should never be applied in a general sense such as to a subset or population of people or a group of people with a medical condition or to a medical condition that affects a population of people.

The reason is because of the way people understand the word. The belief that populations of people were below them in a general sense has been used to justify wars, racism, and genocide.
It's no wonder that people get defensive when they hear that word applied to any form of autism.
I know that the people posting on this thread who insisted on using the word did not mean it that way, and tried to explain, but it still sounds wrong.

LFA isn't inferior, it's more debilitating. Being lice infected isn't inferior, it's more painful.
What is the sense in trying to explain what was actually meant and getting into endless debates and arguments, when all that was necessary was to choose the right words and the right way of saying something in the first place.
Unless the wording was meant to provoke.

Who said anything goofy that got "beat down" for it?

Also, if you truly believe that arguments like these rarely or never happen here, I strongly suggest you preserve that perception by avoiding the PP&R and Love & Dating subforums. This is far from the harshest exchange I've seen here.



^^^^^

This is it.

"Who said anything goofy that got "beat down" for it? " Clearly not I. "Meant to provoke" is a broad assumption, and if that was the intent you lot fell into the bear trap head first.

Umm, I guess I shall follow your cheerfully shared advice, and leave you lot to keep beating each other up.
In my own world, where I feel safest, hammering each other with labels put on us by the NT world at large is daft, but by all means carry on!

Hi Conchscooter.

I know it does seem like a drag out fight, but there's a chance someone is learning something here--at least one person, as I know for a fact I am, and I'm probably not the only one. I surely hope not.

Also the provoke comment was probably meant for me. I think it is reasonable to question why a person might select language that may be perceived by some as emotionally charged. Personally I appreciate feedback, even if negative, but for some reason do not want to respond to that right now, though, as usual, I have some interesting (at least to me) comments to make. I will think about it for a while longer, as something is starting to gel.

I want to train myself to wait a bit before I speak in a potentially inflammatory situation, as then I am less likely to be functioning from reaction and more likely to be functioning from conscious intent.

Anyway, the opera isn't over until the fat lady sings:-)

Often, for autistic people, choosing the right words and right way of saying something and anticipating people's thoughts and feelings in response to one's words is verry merry berry difficult or impossible, so I tend to cut people slack on this one.

Agreed

Thanks. I'm still gelling with what I am going to say, but in regard to your comment which makes a good point, the use of this kind of language can also be a form of passive aggression (which I have been accused of, actually), and any reasonably intelligent autistic person is perfectly capable of using language in this way. .However, I am well aware of what passive aggression is, and do not consider myself to be approaching from this angle, and I am very vigilant at examining my own responses and motives as I have been trained to do this from age twenty---not to suggest that a person cannot miss seeing certain patterns. I acknowledge I was aware that this language was to some degree kind of charged, but genuinely shocked to see some people's responses. It was akin to having the wool pulled off my eyes.. This could possibly be an autism thing, but, if so, I do not know if it is my autism or their autism or both:-)

What is probably an autism thing and also a naive or undeveloped theory of mind thing with me is that I was expecting people to understand certain concepts which I was expressing in a way which seemed very clear to me, but several they were not grasping the intended gist of what I was saying. I have this problem a lot but have only become aware of it somewhat recently. I first became aware of it two or three years ago when I realized I was idealizing people (in that I expected various people, including my own children. to understand what they obviously could not, at least in the way I was explaining it). It seems at first glance it is not such a bad thing to idealize people, but in a way it is a form of not listening to them and so not accepting them for being who they are.. I did not know the term theory of mind until two or three months after I joined this system last March, when my younger daughter told me about it during a phone conversation...

Last edited by littlebee on 23 Dec 2013, 11:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I had been cutting littlebee a lot of slack for weeks but she only becomes more abusive, hence no more slack.

Also, I think that it is fine to argue, since people arguing back and forth at least brings the different perspectives into the open, so the rest of us who may not be as good at thinking in these ways can know what the perspectives are.

Hey! There's something shiny over here!