Us getting upset when we hear about another aspie.....

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doing a crime like killing someone or a bunch of people.



I always found this lame to get upset over what another aspie did because we think the media is portraying us that way. To me it was always silly to think like that because it would be like normal people getting upset when they hear about another normal person doing a crime because they are thinking they are being portrayed that way to people with disabilities. Or people with schizophrenia getting upset when they hear about another schizo doing a crime or people with ADD getting upset when another ADD person does a crime. See what I'm saying?

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

I suppose in a way I can understand what they're thinking when they disapprove, because a good deal of people don't know what AS is; however, people generally don't remember what they hear in the media, at least in areas of funky terms (Asperger's counts as a funky term).

Then though, I don't really care about most AS people, famous or not. I don't care if Einstein had AS or not; the only thing that bothers me is that people are always harping on it. Everyone is unique; there's no set pattern for everyone. Just because one person was a genius definitely doesn't meant you (in general, not specifically you) will be, and if another is a criminal, it doesn't mean that you'll turn out like that.

not really. I mean, should I feel bad about having a copy of Catcher in the Rye, because most serial killers had a copy?

I really don't think the world identifies us as a separate group yet. Most people don't know we actually exist.

False analogy. "Normal" people don't have to worry about being judged by other people's actions--that's one of the main privileges people in the majority have. For people not in the majority, it's completely different. When you're in a minority, and especially when most people don't know much about your group, then these things can be upsetting. How often do you see "a neurotypical man killed someone"? Never, even though it happens all the time. How often do you see "a man with Asperger's Syndrome killed someone"? Many other minority groups feel this way, BTW. The Asian-American community feared that the Virginia Tech shootings would instigate prejudice against them. I'm Jewish, and it's not uncommon for some Jewish person or other to wonder if so-and-so "makes us look bad." Of course, people should only represent themselves, but the real world is more complicated than that.

That does annoy me. Another thing that annoys me is when I see news articles by authors who seem to know nothing about AS. Things like when they show a kid with really good art skills, or good math skills, or good spelling skills, or any other thing that aspies are known for excelling at, and they say something like "he overcame all the odds and painted this picture" or something to the tune of "he shouldn't be able to do that because of his debilitating disease, but he did it anyway, he's unbelievable".

AH, but the problem is people regard us as "mentally defective".
They regard Aspergers as being a psychological problem. It's actually a genetic mutation re-prioritizing neurological connections, but still...
In any case, stories such is this are not seen by normies as individual cases; but rather as a marker to identify all people with Aspergers. I'm still trying to convince people that I'm not bi-polar. That's what an alarmingly incremental number of people are thinking Aspergers is.

It only irritates me that they got caught.

I feel a certain sense of pride if they managed to kill some neurotypicals in the process, at least, so I can't hold it all against them.

I agree with some other posters here that news media focusing on the Autism aspect of some bad apples could be damaging to how we are perceived. Also Defense Attorneys using Aspie/Autie status as equaling lack of competency to plan and/or have intent as applied to mitigating factors in court is not good for the rest of us, in my opinion.