I wish we could have a card like minorities do..

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Ever wonder how minorities with lower scores get into college/grad school with lower qualifications than whites? I wish having Asperger's and ADHD (diagnosed by a doctor) would qualify me for those same benefits.

Today it doesn't. And that's what I hate about liberal society. Hypocritically bending over backwards to minorities and still spitting on disabled people. They shout "Stop using autism as an excuse to live the best" and then tell blacks "If anyone doesn't give you preference in job interviews, they're racist".

A week ago, I had a great conversation with a Russian-Israeli young woman at college. We discussed the Palestinian conflict and anti-semitism. Then I was surprised that we agreed on so many social issues in the U.S. She told me that the gender wage gap is a myth and said, "young childless women make slightly more than young childless men".

"Even if sexism is a problem in this country, I bet the Syrian women would cut their limb to come here and escape their hellish treatment in Arab lands. And yet feminists make a huge deal here and blame white men out of hysteria." -Her words

In addition, I found on Facebook she is a supporter of autism rights and criticized a Norwegian theatre for boycotting an Israeli film on disabled kids. I wish there were more people like her in this hypocritical "civil rights" society.

The bottom line: If minorities are given slack in society to hoot and cry injustice, so should autistic people. Minorities have their hearts on their shoulders when they have race riots and protest, but autistic people are supposedly "lazy" and "faking a disability" when they explain why they have a 2.5 GPA without extra help.

The next time I hear a black guy calling a white girl racist for not wanting to date him, I'd go up and say "Gee, I wish I could replace racist with ableist, but NOOOOO. Society thinks disabled people should work up to par with everyone else, and give you all the slack".

I don't. A lot of people assume the black employee in thier office is probably less qualified and only has the job because of affirmative action or political correctness. That may or may not be be true and the number of blacks not getting jobs because of racism is probably more then whites not getting jobs because of reverse racism, but in the cases where it is true a person did get the job over a more deserving candidate.

Unless employers change there mind about social skills bieng the most important qualifications for jobs at thier company a quota system for autistics will be a band aid.

If that happened...

Yeah I'd say kiss about a solid 10% of sysadmins, QAers & devs goodbye. We'd be hanging out in Iceland or Singapore or Akihabara or some such where and nobody stateside would ever hear from us again. You try getting quality code written while somebody's aunt drones on about diagnostic testing and clinical trial this, risperdal that!

I don't consider myself disabled. I do NOT want special treatment.

That's the problem with the world. The only thing preventing you from speaking your own mind is your own hang-ups.

You're afraid that people won't like you? So what! The right people will still like you. The right people care more about the content of your character than anything else.

Every word in the reply I read here raises my anger level by 1%.

NT blacks can say "My ansectors were slaves" and get into college and jobs easier, but having Asperger's and LIVING WITH THIS HARDSHIP YOUR WHOLE LIFE doesn't work. In many cases, it hurts your chances.

I wish people stay on their phones and iPads more and more and more. Social skills need to be eradicated because our society is addicted to charm, confidence and popularity; instead of qualities like IQ, GPA and looks.

When it comes to life improvement, I only work on my physique and intelligence. I hope every day that the socially awkward geek with a six-pack is chosen over the fat popular chatterbox because social skills have always been my #1 weakness that can't be solved.

So... what about socially inept chatterboxes with 6 packs?

I get what you're saying but you may be a bit late - yeah I think a lot of people recently relinquished their social skills to deceitful internet marketing thought patterns but what if we 'geeks' can re-gift them a deeper, more fun set of social skills?

My son is not white, but they did not issue him with this card I keep hearing about. It sounds like it could be really useful. Do you think "they" are withholding the card from him because he is an Aspie?

Or is this card just another stupid metaphor that some people confuse with reality?

Also, is there some way that it's useful to play off one minority against another?

Is it a zero sum game where dark skinned people only get their civil rights at the expense of women and the disabled and disabled people only get the accommodations they need by limiting the rights of women and minorities? It's all so confusing and depressing.

Not really a zero sum but we all collectively work our fingers to the bone so we can live in peace...

Hmmmm. I don't understand how this relates to what came before.

We all work together?

Well, I sometimes work collaboratively with several other people on my team and sometimes with people from other teams with different specialties... but I do most of my work alone. I think many others also work alone. And some don't work at all either because they can't or because there is no opportunity for them. So I don't know about that.

Collectively?

I don't get this. What collective is this? I do not work on a Kolkhoz or similar... I think this is some sort of very high level figure of speech, but the intended meaning has escaped me completely.


To the bone?

I work long enough hours at my desk job that I have very particular, well developed calluses from using the keyboard, mouse and other specialized input devices. But I never do the kind of "to the bone" work that manual laborers do. Stephen Hawking works, but not to the bone.... Again, I suspect this is hyperbole in a figure of speech or metaphor that I am not understanding.

So we can live in peace?

I watched a video from VICE the other day about the Islamic State chaps toiling diligently away in their new territories, they seemed to working very hard, but not for peace. This was emphasized when one fellow asked a young lad, "which do you want to be: a jihadi fighter or a suicide bomber?" Peace was not an objective.

I work, mostly alone, to try to keep the bills paid.

I don't see what this has to do with this card I keep hearing about--the one that racial minorities are supposed to be able to use to their advantage.

I don't see how some group arranging to be less discriminated against somehow hurts other groups who are discriminated against, but I often see people make this kind of "how come they get that? Why don't we get that?" as if the problem was with the other groups who are subject to discrimination.

There seem to be a lot of autistic people on this forum who instead of trying to empathise with other marginalised groups over what we share that might help us understand one another instead seem to resent those other marginalised groups for some reason, and further isolate themselves in their ignorance by doing so. It makes me very sad, but it also makes me want to come here less because of all the miserable people who refuse to try to empathise with others and instead want to just complain about how unfair and awful it is to be autistic, how being autistic (and usually male) is SO MUCH WORSE than any other reason one might be discriminated against (like being black, or a woman, or gay). It's so "my pain is worse than everyone else's pain!" and it's just gross and sad.

All I meant was that anybody who deviates from the norm has to work harder.

Simmer down! You're not gross or sad & neither is anybody here in & of themselves. I'm a programmer & I've been sweating blood working as a mechanic lately because let's face it, lots of people hold contempt for aspies - I said NOTHING about race. Moreover I just wanted to help us look beyond that.

If you hate our thinking that much it's your prerogative to ignore it. That's on you.

If you hate my writing stop reading it. If you put words in my mouth, well that's a surefire way to get ignored yourself.

Sorry you misunderstood. I think the zero sum you're describing isn't necessarily demographically bound, although it absolutely still can be... Earlier this year I felt really sorry for a girl who clearly seemed anxious having interviewed for a job right before me - she may have been on the spectrum too. I ended up getting that job in her place though and it was completely nuts; they paid very poorly in light of their funding, the hours were long and the senior manager was a fraud. That manager fired the only other girl in my whole group so I guess in the end I can hope I saved the girl from the interviews some trouble by taking said trouble for myself. If that's not a zero sum I don't know what is, but at least it was *somewhat* strictly contingent on ability, although my boss was a sexist/ableist moron.

Ultimately I think some of this is like Wilburforce's absent theory of mind, assuming the worst of everyone different. Everyone's in the minority somewhere...

I bet plenty of blacks wish they had that special "race card," too. The truth is, blacks hardly have it easier, despite affirmative action. That's the same as saying poor people on federal assistance - or yes, the disabled on disability payments - have it easier than everyone else. Just because people belonging to one or another of these groups get some form of hand up, doesn't mean their lives aren't still disadvantaged.

I think governments are pretty powerless in this regard - for example I haven't a clue why islamophobia is downplayed in favor of "reverse racism" constantly in the U.S., even by our dear social justice warriors, when half our senators & congresspeople speak ill of Muslims as if they've never read the U.S. Constitution's first amendment. It's at the point where partisans in America are so paranoid & hateful towards Islam that they'll ignore the definition of the very word and feign understanding of the whole ideology on that basis just so they can vilify it, thus engendering enough moral turbidity to drop tactical nukes on Iraq & lie to their own constituency about it.

Yeah I'm a big fan of the Geneva convention...

I'm with you. It's the reason I barely post in WP anymore. As an Aspie and a racial minority, I deal with discrimination on the basis of both my neurobiology and my skin colour. Society continues to dismiss both neurobiological and racial discrimination as a problem, so I don't get to use either of them as a trump card. And then there are other Aspies who dismiss our difficulties as members of other minorities. With a name like Lifeissohard, it's no wonder the OP has such a self-pitying attitude.

I also see that the OP is suggesting we should have less face-to-face interactions and rely more on electronics. Seriously? The last thing we need to do is isolate ourselves and sit on our asses all day. Nothing screams self-pity like comfortable middle class solutions to these types of problems. I've struggled with social anxiety for as long as I remember and I didn't have the luxury of seeking help when I was younger. Once I made a habit out of constantly interacting with the outside world instead of holing up in my room and avoiding everyone I've made tremendous progress slowly but surely. I still continue to struggle with it but I have it down to a manageable level and it is no longer overwhelming or paralyzing like it used to be.

I'm not even one to make the biggest issue out of every single incident of racism. But it just shows that Aspies can be just as out of touch with racism as NTs. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that being a member of one minority doesn't automatically mean you can understand or empathize with being a member of another minority. What we need to realize is that even among ourselves we are divided by race, class, sex, etc. and that we have find our own niche within a niche instead of expecting everyone else to cater to us.

It's one thing to support one another; it's another thing to enable dysfunction and create a toxic environment for ourselves.