Do you as an autistic person have a racial identity?

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Do you have a racial identity?
yes 38%  38%  [ 13 ]
no 38%  38%  [ 13 ]
not sure 18%  18%  [ 6 ]
other 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 34

starkid
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27 Jul 2020, 2:24 am

Since autistic people supposedly don't relate much to other people, I am curious about the extent to which autistic people develop racial identities, which require a person to relate to a racial group. Having a racial identity doesn't just mean realizing that other people see you as a member of a racial group; it means that you view yourself that way.

By "race" I mean this

Quote:
any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics.

Quote:
an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, especially formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.

Quote:
a socially constructed category of identification based on physical characteristics, ancestry,historical affiliation, or shared culture


I don't mean ethnicity, which is basically
Quote:
Of, relating to, or characteristic of a group of people sharing a common cultural or national heritage and often sharing a common language or religion.


Basically ethnicity is based on facts about heritage and race is more like assumptions, stereotypes, and value judgments about heritage. Racial classifications involve attaching social meaning to neutral differences and assuming that superficial differences are inborn. In some places, people are racially classified mostly according to different skin color and physical features, and in other parts of the world (where most everyone looks similar) it is based on different religion and language dialect.

So the questions are:
1) Do racial classifications exist where you live/have grown up/spent most of your life? 2) Are you considered to be part of the majority racial group in this place?
3) Is race a part of your personal identity?

It's not necessary to actually name your race or ethnicity (in fact I'd prefer that people didn't do that).



ezbzbfcg2
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27 Jul 2020, 2:57 am

If I robbed a bank without wearing a mask... If I held a loaded gun to the various patrons of said bank and terrified them... If I flee and the cops show up...

When asked for a description, these terrified people would be very apt to give a description (no time for political correctness). If asked what my race is, they'd all say WHITE...regardless of how they self-identify. Perhaps a "possibly Hispanic" would pop up, but I don't look mestizo by any means.

Oh, I'm not a blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan at all, but contemporary American society sees me as a white person, and that's how I self-identify.

When dealing with the NT majority, I've noticed my fellow whites instantly perceive me as being off. There's no "racial barrier" and they see me as a weirdo. I've noticed non-white NTs see me first and foremost as a "normal" white person, assuming I have and experience all of the privileges of white NTs without knowing anything about me or my situation. Many non-white NTs I've worked with are inevitably shocked when they see my fellow white people mistreating me. There's this expression of: "I don't get it, you're white. Your negative experience, which I'm now witnessing, shatters all of my beliefs about what it means to be white in America..."



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27 Jul 2020, 3:39 am

1. The entirety of my racial identity is vague itself. It's own category is even debated to this day. I'm not joking. :lol:
They're rather excel at blending through various races and even cultures themselves.
But yeah, racism is rampant here. :lol: To a point of ignorance, yet ironically very tolerant at another way.

2. I'm mainly bred, born and brought up with the known dominant group.

3. I grew up with NTs denying if not outright throwing away their heritage and culture on yearly basis for various reasons. :P
What does that even tell me as an autistic, let alone had I've been born an NT??


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funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2020, 4:09 am

I'm an Abenaki person, if that's what you mean. :|


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magz
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27 Jul 2020, 4:11 am

I have a phenotype that would be interpreted as a race in societes with a strong concept of race.
However, I identify ethnicity with language and culture, not ancestry.


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Romofan
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27 Jul 2020, 4:48 am

I have strong African features (parents were from the Caribbean), so I recognize that I will always be treated differently by some people. When I was younger I eagerly read "race stuff" like Malcolm X and Ralph Ellison. Over time, however I decided that my identity as a Westerner and American were far more important, and that sober class analysis is more valuable than race mysticism.


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Last edited by Romofan on 27 Jul 2020, 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

usagibryan
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27 Jul 2020, 6:58 am

My racial identity has always been fuzzy, and I've been told/thought different things about it. I'm Puerto Rican, I've always said I was Puerto Rican and Irish (which is true) but I feel like I'm supposed to downplay the Irish part for some reason. I also recall being told that I was Italian and Native American growing up but I don't know if that's true. I've always passed as white and been called white boy by black people, they assume I'm Italian, but among white people I'm not seen as white, they will assume I'm Middle Eastern or something. My mom, grandma and other relatives have much darker skin and have been treated differently for it, in a way that I haven't. I remember when the neighborhood kids saw my grandma and got confused, and thought I was adopted. I grew up not knowing my dad and found him through a DNA test, and it turns out I'm a lot "whiter" than I previously assumed, much more European DNA. Prisons are divided into racial tribes, which is backwards, but if I were to go to prison for some reason I wouldn't know what to do.


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27 Jul 2020, 7:20 am

I don’t really have any “identity,” I’m so different from others. Not race, not ethnicity, not sexuality, not gender, not religion, not political party... I do identify as being autistic, I guess, but I’m still so different from others I know who are also autistic that I don’t even feel like I belong in that group. Heck, I don’t even really identify myself as being human.


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28 Jul 2020, 7:54 am

I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?" And I thought, "I don't." It has never occurred to me to identify that way. Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.

If my identity is my own sense of who I am, it has nothing to do with any of the categories that I fit into. I find it a strange concept that my sense of self should be made up of categories, like race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc. I consider those to be external categories that don't carry a lot of meaning for me personally.



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28 Jul 2020, 8:18 am

bee33 wrote:
I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?" And I thought, "I don't." It has never occurred to me to identify that way. Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.


If you're white and live in a white majority society you likely don't need to think about your race much because you're unlikely to be defined by it, it will feel essentially neutral. People who are viewed as something other than neutral end up having to consider it more often.


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28 Jul 2020, 8:25 am

bee33 wrote:
I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?"  And I thought, "I don't."  It has never occurred to me to identify that way.  Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.
I hesitate to identify as white; mainly because all of the people who bullied me as a child were white, and identifying as one of them seems to somehow legitimize their atrocities.  So when I can, I identify as having Native American or First Nations ancestry, even though that may be less than 1/32 of my genetic makeup.

Of course, I could catch hell for that, too.


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funeralxempire
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28 Jul 2020, 8:27 am

Fnord wrote:
bee33 wrote:
I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?"  And I thought, "I don't."  It has never occurred to me to identify that way.  Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.
I hesitate to identify as white; mainly because all of the people who bullied me as a child were white, and identifying as one of them seems to somehow legitimize their atrocities.  So when I can, I identify as having Native American or First Nations ancestry, even though that may be less than 1/32 of my genetic makeup.

Of course, I could catch hell for that, too.


If you can trace your ancestry you could always see what the nation you're connected to has to say about it. Policies tend to vary.


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magz
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28 Jul 2020, 8:31 am

funeralxempire wrote:
bee33 wrote:
I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?" And I thought, "I don't." It has never occurred to me to identify that way. Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.

If you're white and live in a white majority society you likely don't need to think about your race much because you're unlikely to be defined by it, it will feel essentially neutral. People who are viewed as something other than neutral end up having to consider it more often.

I think you both have valid points:
1. Being in the majority feels neutral - even "obvious" - and this can lead to overlooking issues of minorities;
2. Race can be something imposed by others without any input from the person in question, sometimes even against their inner identity.


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28 Jul 2020, 8:36 am

I think of myself as Jewish culturally, and also as an American. I don’t really identify myself as a “white” person.

There are just too many “white” people who are different from me culturally and philosophically. And many “nonwhite” people who I identify with culturally and intellectually.



bee33
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28 Jul 2020, 9:00 am

funeralxempire wrote:
bee33 wrote:
I went to a lecture on race a few years ago, and the first thing the speaker said was, "Why do you identify as white?" And I thought, "I don't." It has never occurred to me to identify that way. Other people identify me as white, and I recognize that I am white, but it has nothing to do with my identity.


If you're white and live in a white majority society you likely don't need to think about your race much because you're unlikely to be defined by it, it will feel essentially neutral. People who are viewed as something other than neutral end up having to consider it more often.
I agree. White people don't have to think about race if they don't want to, but black and brown people are constantly confronted by how their race affects how they are treated and viewed.



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28 Jul 2020, 9:16 am

bee33 wrote:
I find it a strange concept that my sense of self should be made up of categories, like race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, etc. I consider those to be external categories that don't carry a lot of meaning for me personally.

Me too, unless perhaps it's some kind of an unconscious thing. The whole idea of "identifying with....." seems odd to me, the only exception I can think of being that I'm vaguely aware of identifying with the occasional character in some movie, TV show or other drama, so I guess I'm capable of identifying with an individual under certain circumstances, but not with an entire group - and the larger the group, the more meaningless to me it becomes. For a while when I was younger I suppose I felt a sense of identity with hippies, but as time went by I noticed that hippies weren't all the same, that for any individual hippie there'd be some characteristics I shared with them and some that I didn't, some I'd approve of and some not, and the idea that I was somehow the same as them ceased to have any great meaning.