Are Americans really more prejudiced?

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I heard in America they are more prejudiced towards autistic people (I am from England myself).

I don't mean to be ignorant but in my life I have met some Americans who have been rude to me upon meeting me for the first time. Back in 2003 when i was 13 I remember I was on a 2 week holiday in Orlando Florida and although I did meet a few Americans who were polite I remember some were bad mannered towards me when I spoke to them (like waiters in restaurants).

Do you agree with me on this or not? Some people do say that American people in general can just be rude.

Depends on which part of America where you are. Many are certainly bigots, ignoramuses, and brain-washed, but you can also find pockets of populations in certain other locations where people are very tolerant, too. I used to live in a city where even the religious people were, for the most part, highly tolerant of different beliefs/religions. That is not to say that I still did not encounter the thought-police archetype.

It depends on the Yank, just like it depends on the Brit.

You have tolerant Yanks. You have bigoted Yanks. Same for Brits.

It seems, though, that provisions for autistic people are bit more advanced in the UK than it is in the US.

While holidaying in Orlando I remember I attended a diner restaurant with my family. This African American waitress approached our table and when I spoke to her (to order my food) she gave me a proper angry look like her teeth were literally showing. My dad then said to me "say please".

Perhaps she looked that way at me because I was being rude without realising it or because she didn't like autistic people?. If she was African american she should be able to relate in some ways to the difficulties people like me face in society.

There seems to be an inordinate amount of people from the UK on this website, I don't know if I'd call it more prejudice as far as autism is concerned but I think there probably is a lot more awareness and support in the UK compared to the US. I don't know, I've never lived anywhere else.

I think people might get the wrong impression of people of one off meetings with a very small size of people, I can say my experience with French tourists has been less than pleasant but I'm sure there is nice Frenchman or woman out there somewhere.

fwiw Most Americans prize British accents, most have a very high opinion of the country and I don't think you'd face any prejudice at least in the negative sense in this country being Brit. Americans like pretty much all accents.

Also a lot of waiters specifically hate serving foreigners because they don't believe they will tip which is how they make a living in this country rather than a wage. This might explain the waitresses face when taking your order.

I don't really know any Americans personally, but when watching American people on reality TV they feel like aliens to me. When in distress they often stand there going "oh my God! Oh my God!" That is why I avoid watching US Supernanny or US Jeremy Kyle (or Jerry Springer or whoever does that over there now). It's not the same as the UK chavs. And on Youtube videos of families filming their toddlers, they're always asking rhetorical questions to the kids. Like a kid is going down a slide and the parent holds the camera and says, "are you going down the slide? You're gonna go down the slide?" and the kid just calmly stares at the camera. When watching UK families on Youtube, there seems to be a more variety of interaction going on, coming from everyone, and you don't know what's going to happen next. Although Americans seem more jolly, at the same time they are calm as well, so I don't feel the full effect from their emotions as I do British people. I am not running you American people down. It's just the way you do things is subtly different from us Brits. You probably feel the same way about us Brits too.

One thing though, and I will be blunt, is the American humour (sitcoms) compared to British humour is just rubbish to me. You really can't beat British humour; Only Fools And Horses, French And Saunders, The Young Ones, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, Bottom, Keeping Up Appearences, the list goes on. And I am REALLY into the newer British comedies, like Outnumbered and The Inbetweeners. Just brilliant stuff.
But, again, that is only from a British person's point of view.

BUT, American movies and cartoons are great. I love watching The Simpsons, South Park, Tom And Jerry, and Arthur.

Most people, anywhere, can't really tell if you're "autistic."

Autism, to most people, is a condition where people are nonverbal, spin objects, stand off in a corner, and make funny noises.

I'm thinking maybe the African-American waitress was having a hard day.

Joe: you haven't met too many Americans. Most Americans are not like the people you see on reality TV.

Brits may be more polite in general than Americans.

I don't know how the two populations compare in treating autistics. Dont know if either country has more "autism awareness" than the other. Very few folks in either country have an attitude towards autistics per se because very few folks anywhere on the planet ever think about autistic people enough to even have an attitude about them. Autistics arent the center of universe anywhere.

But folks do tend to be hostile to folks who act different or act in unexpected ways that are less than socially acceptable. And autistics often dont act normal so they get hostility. Thats probably equally true in both countries. You get grief because you act wierd, not because the person somehow knows that you're autistic and cops an attitude toward you because they know you're autistic. In fact folks with Down's syndrome probably get a free pass that autistics dont get precisely because Down syndrome folks look markedly different than normal folks so normal folks give them slack that they dont give autistics because autistics tend to look normal (thus folks expect normal behavior from them).

...SURFACE polite??? hehehe


quote="naturalplastic"]Brits may be more polite in general than Americans.

I don't know how the two populations compare in treating autistics. Dont know if either country has more "autism awareness" than the other. Very few folks in either country have an attitude towards autistics per se because very few folks anywhere on the planet ever think about autistic people enough to even have an attitude about them. Autistics arent the center of universe anywhere. But folks do tend to be hostile to folks who act different or act in unexpected ways that are less than socially acceptable. An autistics often dont act normal so they get hostility. Thats probably equally true in both countries. You get grief because you act wierd, not because the person somehow knows that you're autistic and cops an attitude toward you because they know you're autistic. In fact folks with Down's syndrome probably get a free pass that autistics dont get precisely because Down syndrome folks look markedly different than normal folks so normal folks give them slack that they dont give autistics because autistics tend to look normal (thus folks expect normal behavior from them).[/quote]

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I think that most everyone claims to have some health condition, cultural concern, or need for a special accommodation.

We have gone from being triumphalists, to a Ship of Fools, to everyone worrying about their own problems.

Many of us are standoffish and on-guard.

I've spent a total of about a year as an Englishman in the USA, and already I've come to the opinion that it's neither possible nor useful to draw any hard and fast conclusions about Americans as a whole. I've seen various common traits in a few small places, but I still view it as unsafe to pre-judge anything about any particular Yank, it's much better to inspect him / her for oneself. Even the homogenous communities of old are beginning to diversify.

I've noticed a lot of generosity (a cultural stereotype often levelled at them) from many North Americans, i.e. they've mailed me a surprisingly large number of gifts over the years - one guy spontaneously sent Dad a whole salmon packed in ice - all of which tempts me to believe that Americans are generally like that. But it's likely down to my relatively small number of observations not being statistically significant, plus my own grievous tendency to forget to give people material goods as prezzies.

Americans are certainly, as a whole, no worse then anyone else. We are the mixed bag of jellybeans. We have numerous subcultures, partially the result of allowing more immigrants in each year then the rest of the world combined, and thats just counting the legal entries. As a large country we also have minor to moderate regional differences. Like everyone else we have generational differences. Not so much a melting pot, as a stew thats always having new ingredients added.

We are in many ways the sum of the rest of you.

My autism isnt necessarily invisible but it also doesnt scream.

Ive been told by family members that i dont look "all there" and been straight out told that its hard to go out in public with me because they can feel the staring and judgment.

This is mostly due to my loud voice, obscene behaviours I'm not aware of, tendency to wear one outfit for months, not brush my hair, and on a bad day, wear my sonic costume out in public (off topic but can anyone relate to when people say "stop doing that!" Without specifying what your doing wrong?)

But as for my autism, other than peers and taunting in school; i never got prejudice, people just understand and try to accommodate me.

The colour of my skin, my last name, where i live and my race is a WHOLE other thing. I wouldn't say prejudice is the biggest problem, just ignorance. Racism is still alive and strong but id say i only get racist comments directly to me like every 3 months, depending on how much i leave the house.

People in the UK don't have to share a border that refers to us as as "America Jr." We are not their little brother. We're not even little, Canada is a BIG country. Sometimes I think we should just dig a nice, long, deep trench above the American border and physically separate Canada from the US. Of course, they'll tell us why that's not a good idea. Because they are always telling us what to do. Americans are like horoscopes, they're always telling us what to do, and they're usually wrong.

When my mom went to NYC she said people were quite friendly to her there, although she and my aunt did get chased by a big burly waiter because she supposedly didn't tip him enough money.

Anyway, like everyone else here has said, most people can't tell if you're autistic although they will certainly misjudge you if you avoid eye contact or forget to say please. The latter is a bit surprising because for years I've heard "please" and "thank you", which I say all the time, are like a forgotten language to Americans.