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StarTrekker
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09 Jul 2013, 8:32 pm

I've been doing some research on the Deaf community recently mostly out of curiosity (I'm not actually deaf) and have come across a common consensus throughout the articles I've read and the forums very stylistically similar to this one that I've visited. It seems that many in the Deaf community have an outright dislike of "hearies" (their equivalent of NTs) because they assume we're all ignorant bullies who want to force them to accept the hearing world while rejecting their culture. I have a problem with being rejected off the cuff just because I can hear. Most hearies do not fit the stereotype the Deaf are portraying, and yet they continue to use their generalizations to distance themselves from us. My question is, do you believe that we, as members of the autistic culture, do that to NTs? I try hard not to continually make distinctions between aspies/auties and NTs, and I try not to make negative generalizations about their population just because of a few negative occurrences with a few historically significant NTs. What do you think, are we as a culture overly prejudiced against NTs?


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conundrum
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09 Jul 2013, 8:43 pm

As a whole, I couldn't say. Do some Aspies do this? Yes (just browse the forums for a bit).

Sometimes, it's easy to fall back on such stereotypes and "hating" of an entire group when we ourselves have been treated poorly by certain members of said group. Others prefer to take individuals as just that--individuals--and judge them on a case-by-case basis.

I'd like to say that I do the latter. Realistically, I *try* to, most of the time....


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09 Jul 2013, 8:48 pm

Definitely. Once people know you're autistic, they speak louder like your deaf or slower like you don't know what they're saying. The way that autism is treated as is like a little kid who doesn't know what he/she is doing.

Only a few of my friends know I'm autistic, but I tell them when it comes to where I know I can trust them.


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redrobin62
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09 Jul 2013, 8:56 pm

I guess this is similar to the race issue. Some black people, for instance, despise white people and wish them harm. Or the religion issue. Some Muslims despise Jews and wish them harm. There will always be that few that despise their counterparts because they feel, for whatever reason, they're being looked down on prejudiced against.



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09 Jul 2013, 9:36 pm

Autistic folks are a small minority, unlike a racial or ethnic one. Whereas most folks share the racial or cultural heritage of their families, autistics, like LGBT ppl, are often the only one within their families. But unlike Greenwich Village, the Castro or Spanish Harlem, we don't really have that many Autistic Villages or Neurodiverse Villages yet.

We can't afford to discriminate - against our families, against our friends, against our neighbors. Personally my partner is non-autistic, and as far as I know there are only 2 other autistic people on my block - and only one other one at my job. So, logically, it wouldn't be a good idea for me to harbor such bigotries.

Even the privilege of not having to make every moment a teaching moment is lost. It's like Spock is the odd man out on the spaceship and constantly has to explain stuff about his culture. It's a wack part of the kyriarchy but it is what it is. What can we do about it, we have to live in an NT world as a tiny group.



benh72
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09 Jul 2013, 9:48 pm

Do we discriminate against NT's - in many cases yes.
Should we - probably not.
Do they discriminate against us - definitely.
Why? Because we are a minority, and minorities are always discriminated against - regardless of any legislation, human rights agendas, equality movements, or what have you.
It is human nature to treat those that are different from us as less than worthy, or as not our equals.
Our sense of social justice and moral compass set us apart, along with other differences, but can be used to try to avoid any deliberate discrimination, but I suspect it will be a long time before NT's and those of us on the spectrum will live in peace and harmony; we can only do our bit to try to bridge the gap, but NT's have to do their part too.
Just treat each individual you meet as a individual and value them for their attributes, rather than try to stick them into some labelled box.
Aspie or NT, we're all individual valuable members of society and deserve to be treated that way.



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09 Jul 2013, 10:38 pm

As someone who knows many other people with ASD in person and as someone who is fascinated with human behavior, I see this very rarely among people on the spectrum. Outright biases against NTs seem to be very rare, and those who make them seem to have a negative sense of self and depression/mental health issues.


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1401b
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09 Jul 2013, 10:43 pm

Who cares what deaf people think!
They're all a buncha NTs anyway!




(just kidding, in case anyone didn't notice)


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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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10 Jul 2013, 12:09 am

Are NTs prejudiced against us? Yes, they are, for all kinds of reasons, often just ignorance.

Do we want to be prejudiced against persons who are NT? No, we don't. And at times this will be easy, and at times this will take the best thinking of both Christianity and Buddhism. And I say this as a good agnostic! I mean, these are not easy issues. I have faced a fair amount of social exclusion, as I'm sure many persons reading this have.



chlov
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10 Jul 2013, 3:28 am

I can't speak on behalf of other people with Asperger's, because that would be arrogant, since I don't know what they think. I can speak only on my behalf.

I am not prejudiced against NTs. For me, it's not about being NT or being a person with Asperger's. For me is just about being a person.
For me an NT is just as bad and as good as someone with AS. I know NTs that are very kind and good and didn't have any sort of prejudice against me when I told them I had AS. I don't dislike people only because they're different from me, and I don't tend to think NTs will all, always, absolutely, dislike me.

I think I have this neutral vision of the world just because I don't feel as a member of any community: neither the neurotypical one, nor the autistic/non-neurotypical one. I don't feel as part of any group, because I don't need a group and I'm just ok by myself. I have no idea of what the NT culture and the autistic culture are.

I don't see the world divided in NTs and non-NTs, I just see people.
I don't care about all the labels they'll put on me, I'll be a person. The adjectives will come after that.



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10 Jul 2013, 3:40 am

I do think to an extent many of us are prejudice against NTs. I perfer to take things by a case by case basis but I will blame NTs on the whole in my head but I am not prejudice towards NTs in my actions. I think everyone at some point with grumble in fustration about particular social group of people.



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10 Jul 2013, 4:34 am

I feel ok with most NTs. In fact, I have more ''problems'' with several autistics I know.

By interacting with both NT's and autistics in real life and online I learned that NT's AND autistics can be pretty awful.



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10 Jul 2013, 6:03 am

There are many prejudiced people around it seems, both NT and ND.

In a recent TV program hidden cameras were set up in a bar. A blind man was in center of the room, at a table with his guide dog. A woman actor is set up to fill up her glass from his bottle of wine and steal food from his plate. The actions become increasingly more obvious to prompt a reaction from the people in the bar. When they finally challenged her to stop her behaviour she put on a very arrogant act and most backed down. This was repeated a number of times and not one person spoke to the blind 'victim' to tell him what was happening.



Heidi80
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10 Jul 2013, 8:10 am

I'm the first to admit that I have problems with NTs. Maybe it's because my partner and nearly all our friends are aspies. I feel that my biological family doesn't really understand me and have created my own social family. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I just get the feeling that many NTs (especially middle aged NT women, for some reason) just don't respect me and that makes me not respect them. It's probably because I speak my mind and don't act in a typical "female" way



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10 Jul 2013, 10:00 am

neilson_wheels wrote:
There are many prejudiced people around it seems, both NT and ND.

In a recent TV program hidden cameras were set up in a bar. A blind man was in center of the room, at a table with his guide dog. A woman actor is set up to fill up her glass from his bottle of wine and steal food from his plate. The actions become increasingly more obvious to prompt a reaction from the people in the bar. When they finally challenged her to stop her behaviour she put on a very arrogant act and most backed down. This was repeated a number of times and not one person spoke to the blind 'victim' to tell him what was happening.


Unless the blind person was also deaf, they'd have very likely noticed that stuff going on. It's not like someone walking up and lifting glass/ceramic objects off of your table doesn't make a noise, just like a room with the door open has a different sound than one with the door closed. It's absurd to assume that this blind guy would be able to make his way, alone, to this bar (meaning he has decent enough mobility skills - it takes a good deal to even get a guide dog, which the handler must be trained to own and use properly), go about his business there, and not notice someone making noise (and very specific drink-and-food-stealing noise) without him noticing it.

I know several blind people, and they generally dislike how sighted people often think that blind people are totally unable to observe what is going on around them.



neilson_wheels
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10 Jul 2013, 10:24 am

The blind man and the thief were both part of the 'experiment'.

The blind man was blind, the thief was an actor.

The object was to observe the reactions of others.

Do you have a prejudice against me?