Hey y'all, this is me failing the challenge coming from a place of love and respect for every member of our community, but I want to prioritize the safety and inclusion of racialized autists above all else. I am white, but I started asking those questions over a decade ago, and it seems like some additional perspective could be useful from someone with the energy to spare.
Remember that study that couldn't be done on distinguishing trauma vs autism, because they couldn't find an un-traumatized control group? Posited to be because NT society at-present is inherently hostile and traumatizing to NDs? Being a person of color in a "white society" is kind of like that. So the majority of people on here who can answer your questions about racism are going to be exhausted, traumatized, and have already answered the question before, yet will be asked to do it again and again after this, too. It's never "how are you doing, as a multiply marginalized, autistic Black person?" and always "how do I stop being racist? answer me quickly"
Being asked to bare the most blatantly abused part of your soul for someone else's surface level curiosity is not a fun thing as it is, so any response that feels flippant or dismissive is reliably going to come across as a slap in the face. As autistic people, we should understand this experience well.
IF YOU MUST ASK, CONSIDER COMPENSATION. Always consider your responses carefully - this topic is much more emotionally charged for the person you are asking than it is for you. Seek out Black perspectives, seek out content made by POC instead of about POC, and then when you're ready to hear from the experts, live? PAY THEM. Don't ask for uncompensated emotional labor on the grounds that you need help understanding. If someone's gonna do that for you, it should be because it's their job and they've agreed it's a fair deal. People choosing to teach you for free online is a bonus, not a guaranteed.
POC don't owe you unpaid labor and they certainly don't owe you friendliness if they do choose to provide it. "I'm not mad don't worry" they're allowed to be mad. You're still okay, even if they're mad. They're still doing you a favor. Please don't put anyone on a pedestal and please don't police their behavior while they help you - which, to be clear, explaining their anger absolutely still is: helping you. Part of asking questions about another group is being corrected on your terminology and approach as it's perceived by that group. Taking this in stride is essential: it may not be what you asked but it is necessary information for you to have.
As Bo Burnham said, of all people.... "why do you rich fucking white people insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization?" There's bigger issues at hand than whether or not you're racist. Hate to break it to ya, but you are. Grab a shovel and get digging but don't think you can pawn the labor off onto anyone else. We need to do better than that.
This space must be inclusive to all (evil) autists and that means extra effort is needed from white members to be anti-racist, to be welcoming and supportive, not just to show that we're trying but to do better and be better and hold each other accountable.
We are learning and growing together. Sorry if I sounded like a self-righteous prick. I'm not better than anyone else in here, I know I have racism to unlearn yet, but I am begging y'all to put in some legwork in private before you go "how is that racist thođđđ"
Love ya, take care, and be well.
I think what a lot of people would benefit from would be taking a step back and realizing their own internalized prejudice isn't inherently them, its the result of growing up in a racist society. If I learn to read using books that only have incorrect spelling in them, when I grow up it's not my fault I am spelling 'cat' with a 'k' but it is my responsibility to examine how I intend to unlearn what was incorrect or, in this case, actively harmful.
Very true. It's only when we fail to correct our learned behaviors that they can begin to subsume us - but double down and go on the defensive enough times, and that will absolutely become who you are. Don't try to justify what you were taught when someone tells you it's hateful, apologize and reflect - lest you start to believe those justifications yourself.
Very true. I think this sort of âwhite ego involvementâ in not being racist needs to be discussed more
As a trans person I think all minorities should ban together and start demanding money for answers to questions we don't wanna answer. Like if you wanna know if I'm on hrt that's going to cost you $20
Straight up. I'm only 10% kidding. Think the price is too high? Well it reflects the amount of labor you're asking for, and we think so too. That's why we have to charge.
For $100 you can ask about my genitals
Too low!
Its the asking price! The answering price is where ya get em
Bold of you to assume Iâd actually give an answer đ
Id never assume so! Take their asking money and run!!
Hell, take the answering money up front and bail!
Oh god, yes. I cringe every time I hear the phrase "Can I ask you a question?" I am so ready to say "Sure bro, that was your one free question. Next one is $20, and answers are not guaranteed."
Dâyou still have your⌠<< ⌠>> yâknow⌠uuuummmâŚ
/jk
Welp, ya heard em, 100 bucks and I'll tell ya 𫴠/j
Tonsils?
Agreed completely, i know the queer community gets asked such incredibly personal questions like as though because we're queer its just okay to invalidate our personhood and boundaries and just see us as "Ask Me Anything"'s. As an ace nb sapphic who has been asked about how i have sex... sure I'll answer that for 2 hundo and no less And i think POC should charge even more for the shit they have to go through and the questions they get bombarded with
For every marginalized group you are a part of, you get to add $100 to the question cost
I mean I will start answering every question about my HRT, my Genitals my cancer and my AuDHD if I get a lifetime secure income in return. Because I actually don't mind answering questions. It is labour and it is exhausting but I would do that over like 99% of all jobs
saw a tiktok that has profoundly impacted me and brought an awareness to how i am perceived by poc in public.
"we can't tell the difference between salt and sugar from a distance."
Oh shit. That's an amazing analogy
This is something I've struggled with learning in recent years- I have a pathological urge to smooth things over and prove I meant no harm, and I have to wrestle with myself to just shut up and listen. You're so right here
Same!! It's very frequently a trauma response from being unheard, which makes sense for us, but it isn't helpful. You'll do more good if you just listen and apologize when you actually do something.
Exactly! It's difficult work, but worth it
Okay, but hear me out here, what if everything actually is about me personally? Has anyone considered that?
It can't be about you because it's about me, the protagonist of reality.Â
Right, you're all NPC's, how dare people not acknowledge me as the protagonist hm? /[sarcasm]
I fucking love this group
Well saidÂ
I work on a team of 7 people where everyone is a different ethnicity, and I never even noticed until a couple of months ago. We got chatting about the cultures we grew up in, and then it hit me that we're all from different places and we all "look" different.
I thought it was really cool that this has just never been a big deal. Nobody's hiding themselves, we celebrate different festivals and whatnot, it's just chill. I would like that same experience for other people.
Yeahh, its nice to have things stay quiet, but lack of acknowledgment isn't the utopia people make it out to be. Racism is the icky thing, not "race" or culture itself. There is more that is beautiful and worth sharing in every culture than there is reason for division. Trying to avoid division by ignoring culture only empowers racists who seek to divide.
tbf, they did say the, still celebrate different festivals. I think they're thinking more of a quiet acknowledgement of different cultures, without really thinking about it much, if that makes sense?
Yeah like its not weird, its normal and its fun to talk about when it does come up
I don't think anything is being ignored here? We acknowledge and respect our differences when they matter (and show interest in learning about them). The main thing is that within my team there's no dominant ethnicity or cultural background, and it just never mattered: we accept each other as individuals.
The thing which made this nice for me is that I never noticed or cared that I was the "only one" of my race, because there's no reason for it to define me.
That's the thing worth striving for: race can be part of identity, but it doesn't need to define us. Things are better when we aren't forced to define ourselves based on it. And under the right circumstances, that can happen naturally.
I think it might be relevant that I don't live in America or Europe?
Please read about colorblind racism.
I would say thats different though, as the commenter states they acknowledged their differences and celebrated them
âI never even noticed their ethnicities until they brought it up!â
If you have any tiny inkling of understanding of anti-oppression work, right when you meet someone youâre considering the ways in which you have privileges they donât and vice versa as well as what values and biases they are likely to bring based on their life experiences. If you arenât doing this, then youâre treating everyone white/straight/cis/male/Christian/abled/middle-class/etc. If you âdidnât even noticeâ that Iâm different from you, you arenât actually seeing me. Youâre seeing you.
I understand that, didnât notice until you pointed it out! I would say that would be preferable to be noticed sooner, especially in the work place. I was thinking of it as though they eventually overcame not noticing which led to them celebrating their differences. And yeah haha Im a POC which has led to me look into this stuff before.
You've misunderstood.
To rephrase: everyone on my team is of a different ethnicity. No two people have the same background. That's the fact which I never noticed.
Like I said, we observe, talk about and enjoy our differences when we they arise. But we don't define or group each other by ethnicity, which is why I never noticed this. I don't think that's a form of racism.
I want to be polite here, but it's pretty rude to put this in quotes as if I said it. Please don't do that.
I just look up videos, testimonies, articles, and threads online so I don't have to bother friends or whatever about sensitive topics, whether about race, gender, pluralism, etc. I'm trans and don't mind answering most questions as long as they're respectful, but granted, I don't have enough social interactions for it to become exhausting, and the people I hang with know to not ask too many questions. However, what I do find exhausting is having to boil down what my gender identity is to people who aren't well versed in the terminology, either removing nuance and not telling the full story, or confusing them. There is absolutely labor involved in answering the question "what is a demigirl?" Especially answering with both the rigid definition and my personal relationship with it.
Even better than following content creators: Read books from black activists. Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, and any members of the Black Panther Party are a good place to start.Â
Everything we see online about social justice has to first go through an algorithm made up of wealthy people, who are also mostly white men. This means that even well intentioned content creators are eventually going to have to make rage bait and/or avoid real discussions of systemic change that the powers that be will never want us to see. The result almost always end up turning into a content mill of angry response videos and going after powerless people instead of calling on changing or dismantling systems of oppression. It's also led to the proliferation of bad actors who don't believe what they're saying, but want to make a quick dollar from it.Â
100% correct, excellent take - thank you! I think I was going more for accessibility, to a group I assume skews younger (the people asking and asking), but honestly fuck that. Read Audre Lorde
A lot of these posts are discussing the problem in a vacuum, without really addressing the scenario of I just said/did something unwittingly racist. Someone called me out about it. What should I do next?
Like, educating yourself is great, but you won't know what you still need to learn until after you fuck up. Which for some people, is why they are asking "why is this racist" in the first place. They want to know what they did wrong, so they can educate themselves.
I think it would be really helpful if someone could provide tools for these sorts of situations so that users know how best to respond and proceed when it happens. Because simply telling people to do better is not enough to go on.
Who do you think should provide the tools?Â
I ask because as a Black, queer, autist -- it will no longer be me. I did so for most of life with white people. Not anymore. Part of "doing better" in these situations is the process of seeking the tools do better and then utilizing them.
It could be me, but I'm not the most qualified for the job, so I can't guarantee I'll do it as well as someone else might.
My playbook goes:
Apologise
Acknowledge harm
Accept responsibility
Pledge to improveDescribe how you will improve.
What action/s to do you take to improve?Â
I ask because I think this where a lot of the disconnect happens. A lot of people will "pledge to improve" but leave it at that and then it just becomes performative.Â
Or their pledge to improve is to actually put the onus of the emotional labor and work on the person/community they harm by asking them to "provide the tools." Is the one harmed the "most qualified for the job?"
Thank you, I'll add that. I think the most qualified for the job is someone who has the expertise and training to create these sorts of materials in an informed way. So scholars, well-informed activists, etc...
I have the technical skills to make that kind of stuff, as evidenced by my post earlier, but I don't know if it would be appropriate for me to speak on behalf of other minority groups to which I don't belong.
Thank you for the edit and clarification. I'm still not sure who you think should provide the tools as I asked in my first response to your initial comment. Scholars, well-informed activists, etc are already out there (and have been for decades) doing the work. The tools are already out there. So, I ask again, whose responsibility is it to provide the person being racist the tools to do better?
I'm grateful to those activists, and I support them to the best of my ability on the platforms I use, but I really don't have an answer to your question. I cannot compel others to do that labour, and I am only one person, so I can only do what is within my capacity.
I am not American, and my political power can only extend to issues that exist in my community, which does include anti-racism, and LGBTQ+ education, but it also means that my country's brand of anti-racism is curated for the types of racism that exist here, as well as the history of civil rights in my country.
edit: To elaborate, I'm saying that there IS anti-black racism in my country, but that using American history to teach people about racism in a country that is not America does not do justice to the civil rights activists who fought here.
Interesting reply considering your initial comment and the original context of this post.Â
Which one, pardon?
This will be my final response as I've already given enough emotional labor and hope that you and others can learn from this. I suggest you "do better" by accessing the abundance of tools that have been created, refined, and evolved over decades that are accessible to you. This may help you learn when that you choose to engage in a topic about anti-Blackness and chose to say, "I'm not American so there isn't much I can do" when confronted with biases showcased in your initial response, that you have a lot to learn about the international nature of anti-Blackness. Good luck and I hope you choose to inform yourself beyond what you have shown in this thread.
I'm in Australia, and the worst racism here is directed towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The resources we have available for people wanting to educate themselves include free cultural sensitivity training from public broadcasting channels, especially NITV (National Indigenous Television).
There is also the AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) website.
Other resources include authors and academics who focus on civil rights and advocacy.
Reading about noteworthy people such as William Cooper, Eddie Mabo and Charles Perkins, is another way of understanding how structural racism, greed and disinformation restricts human rights, knowledge and progress.
Seeking more information about pivotal events, such as the Freedom Ride, Native Title and the fight for voting rights for Aboriginal People can help allies understand what's at stake and what actions are required to best support each other.
If you can't find similar resources where you are, seek out articles from a diverse range of investigative journalists, preferably those who are from the community they're reporting on or at least make a serious effort to interview and understand the people affected.
+1
Something striking to me about racism in my own back yard is the fact that some of the groups who had to fight for their civil rights, are also the occasional instigators of systemic racism. Learning about the ugly side of your own history is important so you can recognise those same injustices when they happen again.
Not to mention anti-indigenous racism in Canada, which is alive and well.
(For context for anybody not familiar, Canada's french population had to fight for political self-determination during the quiet revolution, but now use the same secularist laws that empowered them to prevent visible minorities from participating in government. Whether or not the laws are intended to be racist is debatable, but their effect is undeniably racist.)
getting your hands/brains on works about decolonization is an amazing first step. honestly, though, there are a lot of artistd who have done the emotional labor and displayed it/published it and we can seek their works out.
will never be qualified for the job, but keeps on applying anyway
I'd rather be an imperfect ally than a perfect bystander any day.
I think this has been what Iâve done in the past if Iâve messed up, usually I figure it out right after doing it though
This!!! The whole point is that weâre tired of this. And sometimes it can be genuinely further traumatizing to have to explain why something is inherently harmful to us. If someone is called out for their bigotry and they didnât intend to be a bigot, they can firstly apologize and address how they b didnât mean it that way. THEN they can google/ask a different subreddit or trusted friend/browse a book on the matter, or whatever.
We need to stop putting the work on the person who is constantly having to defend why things other people do is actively harmful to them.
There are often official online sites that are curated by representatives of specific groups with well researched and up to date statements and articles.
That's usually the best place to check first before posting to avoid putting the burden on the broader community.
The tools exist. Thereâs a shitton of media of Black folks and other people of color talking about their experiences. There is a ton of anti-racism material by POC. It isnât anyoneâs job to hold your hand here.
I think a big problem is that people have different theories of racism. Racism in most serious activist / academic contexts isnât just tribalism and âbeing mean to a person of another raceâ, itâs a framework that looks at racism as a system of oppression that leads to systemic social and economic discrimination. I saw someone in the other thread complain about how theyâre not âthe enemyâ, but in this case, yes, white people are the enemy! Theyâre the oppressors. Itâs the same reason itâs worthless to go ânot all menâ when talking about feminist ideas about structural oppression. Youâre not working within the same framework and youâre adding nothing to the discourse.
As an aside, I find it funny when people on this and other autism subreddits go âI donât even know what racism is! I donât even see color!â. To me, finding a system where you can tell others your in-group is better / smarter / more organized than other out-groups seems to me like manna from heaven for autistic people.
Very good. The thing I'm seeing so many white people miss in these discussions is: Yes, it's going to be hard. We need to face that difficulty and do it anyway! We are going to say and do racist things, and it's hard not to ask for clarification. It can be difficult to look these things up, especially if one is neurodivergent. People might be angry with you, and you don't know why, and that's scary. The point is, it's definitely worse for the POC we are talking to than for us. We have to make a conscious decision that their hardship matters more in this context, and that they are allowed to be angry. It's okay to be confused and to ask for help, but not from the person (or group of people) you are actively hurting. They did enough heavy lifting just calling you out on whatever you said.
op you're right and you should keep talking about this because people of color are very tired saying this same thing and immediately having everyone jump us for it.
I'll get jumped for u whenever I can. When they attack me they're attacking my ideas, not my personhood. doesn't always feel the same when POC speak up. So I'm trying to use my privilege. Take it easy<3
As a poc autist sincerely sincerely THANK YOU for putting this to words I was having an aneurysm reading some of the posts here lately and you said everything I did not have the energy or words to articulate
in that case give me compensation for all the questions i answered under the original post yesterday 50$ asap!!!
Gonna get downvoted but Iâm not a fan of this take. Sometimes ND people genuinely donât understand and ask for advice on the internet for help. Itâs not the same as asking an individual personally that they donât know, and while I get that it can be exhausting to try to explain to people, the beauty of it being an internet post is that YOU DONT HAVE TO RESPOND. Feel free to ignore it if you are drained and donât want to bother.
I sometimes have men ask me questions about how to approach a woman/feminist about a certain issue, and while I donât always want to answer, it doesnât make that man in automatic sexist, and in fact it is a good thing that he would want to learn. Why would I expect him to pay me to answer that, especially if itâs on an online forum where people go to learn things. Not everyone is well enough to afford to pay a bunch of creators/books every time they want to learn how to be more inclusive and respectful, and that actually would severely limit neurodivergent people, especially those with little money or restrictive households.
What you suggest I argue is ableist, because it assumes that neurodivergent folks with fewer social skills who genuinely want to be better and learn things to not hurt people are automatically racist because we phrase things the same way bad actors do. We donât do it on purpose, thatâs just how we are? It is a very privileged take to assume that we are draining you for asking an innocent question that you are not obligated to respond to, and that we should pay you?
I think we should have a middle ground where autists can have a safe space to ask genuine questions without being slandered because you make assumptions about the way they ask questions, while also making sure minorities are respected and not mocked.
i am a fan of op's take because im a non-white autist and i think it's extremely fucking stupid that we now have people responding to them with "akshully you're ableist bc expecting white autistic people to look shit up is difficult : ( you should be able to give answers to hard questions for free whenever a white person asks you bc they don't know any better! you might be just as disabled as them but that doesn't matter!" like?????? are you serious. there are also major differences in asking another person a question in good faith or out of genuine ignorance or because you simply don't want to seek put knowledge for yourself and expect an easy answer and then probably dismiss the answers you don't like. i will gladly answer people who ask me things when i know they genuinely just need help understanding things bc that is what i hope other people to do with me and also it is the kind thing to do. but it makes me mad when i know that the person asking has the ability to research things and learn about different perspectives but simply chooses not to because it's "too hard". if i have to navigate the world dealing with ableism just like you do PLUS i have to deal with racism PLUS i have to deal with misogyny PLUS i have to deal with homophobia PLUS i have deal with transphobia and you just don't give a shit about the nuance of anything when you have the proven ability to choose to do so or even learn to do so, then i don't think it's ableist to get upset about it. i am entitled to getting upset about a white person who can do better expecting extra emotional and mental labor from me. white people in american society have a tendency to expect to be coddled at every turn. no more; if you have the ability to look shit up on your own, you will be doing it. if you genuinely are stumped and you need help and you're telling me you just do not understand something and you'd really appreciate some help, i have no problem at all going through the hard stuff together. but i need you to make it very clear that you are serious about not knowing something. you can make it clear by telling me how and where you grew up, what your parents taught you, etc. treat me with respect and i will treat you with respect.
Yes exactly and thank you đđžđđžđđž I feel like the âthis is ableist to expect me to do more research into understanding racismâ completely overlooks the experience of poc autists, we have no choice but to experience first hand the harms of racism including often being overlooked for proper diagnosis and access to support. There are already extremely detailed scholarly work that really lays out how racism has existed and continues to exist in our society, I mean all of this started because someone decided to ask and have their racism explained to them on a subreddit for black people. The entitlement to emotional labor and teaching is inherently the core issue, not the needing help in itself. We live in a racist society, therefore we all inherit racist ideology until we examine ourselves and deliberately chose to be anti-racist. Itâs not because youâre a bad person per se, the world we live in is fucked up and it does require some work. And I think the dualistic nature of our society doesnât help either, itâs like youâre either a pure good person or an evil racist bigot but the thing is all of us exist somewhere in the middle and thatâs okay. We all have qualities of light and dark and until we accept that it will be really hard to even begin self examining ourselves.
Do you think cis people should have to pay me to explain gender shit to them? I was with you up until that point, not every white person can afford to pay to stop being racist.
It's one thing if they have the disposable income, it's a whole other thing to require it as a rule
i think op could have worded that more flexibly than strictly monetary. the conversations around this will be more nuanced. in my own experience, i asked a coworker some pretty specific questions about their lived experiences and i picked up a couple of their work chores to offset the tax their body/brain may or may not experience in reliving/answering my questions.
That's fair, there could be non-monetary ways of compensation. I hadn't considered that
I do think that, actually. Articulating the experience of systemic oppression is a big ask that deserves compensation of some form in my opinion - and yes, that includes non-monetary. It is emotionally arduous labor. We should try to lighten the load more than we add to it, I think.
Thatâs a big reach. Yes, trans people are also oppressed and should not have to justify why we shouldnât be oppressed, in a similar way.
Compensation is just one example. As OP said, If you have to ask. But there are countless resources available for free. Even if you reeeeally canât be bothered to do anything, talk to white people who donât have this level of trauma about it. Look for the ones whoâve actually bothered.
What Iâm saying is there are so many ways to educate yourself for free or paid, and it feels like youâve gone straight for the myopic lens of self actualisation just like OP was talking about.
This isnât about us as trans people, it is specifically about race right now and it is not ok to try and force the conversation back to us.
Picture this, your comment couldâve read something like: âthis is the experience of all marginalised communities to some degree, so if you can afford compensation for peoples time you should definitely consider it for all the communities that needâ.
I think you might be misinterpreting my comment, that last paragraph that you said I could have wrote was what I said with fancier words. Like I said I agree with everything OP said, it was the fact that they framed compensation as required to stop being racist that I took issue with, because in that case not everyone can afford to not be racist
The only reason I brought up being trans is because it all made sense...until I applied the same logic to cis people, and realized trans liberation would never be achieved if I thought that way
Maybe and apologies if so - but imo it wasnât being mandated at all, suggested as âif you have to askâ.
From that level I agree - class/income/financial stability is another layer of privilege and marginalisation.
I wasnât trying to use fancy words, just avoid specific scenarios by being vague. I actually read further up another trans person saying it more eloquently, Iâve lost it amid the comments but in retrospect Iâd just link to them.
FTR I was just coming back and edit to please read in fairly gentle voice as I often worry I come across all angry/aggy in text.
Thatâs not what they said, at all. They said if you are going to ask black people to do emotional labor for you then to compensate them. There are plenty of other resources for you to learn about racism that donât involve asking oppressed people to work for you for free.
I simply don't see advocating for myself as emotional labor, it's just something I have to do.
âSomething I have to doâ is emotional labour. You can be ok with doing it or even enjoy it - the point is you shouldnât have to, and Black people & POC shouldnât have to.
People shouldnât be put in positions where they feel they have to, and the general point is we can find out that info without coercing people into giving us emotional labour. Compensating or offering to can at least go towards equalising the transaction of labour if someone really must do that, and there are people willing to do this as their paid work, but there are plenty of free resources.
Then you feel entitled to black peopleâs labor for your own comfort. Thatâs the whole problem.
I'm not talking about black people
Edit to add: Racism is a social construct just like tribalism and all the other isms out there. Autistic people are naturally inquisitive and really bad at understanding social issues and you're telling us to not ask a question about something we have issues understanding. Do you understand how asinine that is?
That's a very capitalist take. Not everyone can afford paying somone to ask a question.
If you're really that put out by someone asking a question maybe you should analyize why and not take your issues out on others.
You're basically saying to someone "Don't ask me I dont want to help you. And no I don't care how innocent you or your questions are, your hurting me so much by asking a question I'm going to refuse to help you where you went wrong. You're out on your own now figure it out or go away I don't care."
In effect stating that you don't care they are trying to better themselves therefore making it pointless to even try. You're effectively pushing someone that wants to be good and not racist away thus loosing a potential ally.
Sometimes people have to ask a question to even figure out where to start. They can't help themaelves in a vacuum they have no idea what they did wrong and thus have nowhere to even start to begin to fix whatever they did.
But you got hurt. by a question so they can just be damned.
Go ahead and downvote me. I dont care. I'm being an evil autist and this is truly how I feel about this especially after being attacked for asking questions.
If you attack some one for trying to better themselves you're no better than the person you claimed is racist.
[removed]
[removed]
Removed: Discrimination
Please don't generalise large groups of people or call anyone existing slurs. This results in a ban without warning.
Do not use ableist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other bigoted language. This will also result in a ban.
They told me too die. Are you kidding me?
Should I report this sub for violating the rules by blocking me and not them?
Lmaooo nah bud I said fix your heart or die. That's, first off, a quote; and secondly it is not any threat or incitement of violence. It is open to interpretation but the original post is commonly understood to mean something like "I was trying to help you but I realize now your problems are much deeper than I'm equipped to handle, and I've made my peace with that"
Threatening to report the whole sub is some real "my father will be hearing about this" level snotnosed slimeballery tho. I'm impressed! You sound like a pompous little asshat, yet you can't even pick the right version of "to." What are they even sending you to this
preparatory schoolautism subreddit for, then?I mean yeah, if someone won't tell you what thing you did is racist or at least say why it hurts, how would you better yourself? If you don't think you did anything wrong how would you go about fixing it?
đđśââď¸đđś
I send this in earnest
When listening to to people, that includes their political leaning ? I see a lot of black conservatives telling white liberal women to butt out and stop trying to be a hero . As well as them laughing and hating leftists who donât. Like MAGA
A trans allegory comes to mind: Don't misgender someone just because you're mad at them.
I like racing cars
As long as you treat everyone the same based on gender/religion/ethnicity/nationality then youâre fine.
Lots of morons are bigots against a lot of groups.
See, the thing is that correlation is not causation. So even if you meet a lot of shitty people in a single group, itâs not because they are that group.
Essentially, just swap ethnicities around mentally when you think about race. If it sounds racist, then it is.
Hereâs proof: that âbear or manâ question. What if I rephrased it to âBear or black man?â. (Or Asian man. Whatever you want.)
I suspect lots of people would answer man, simply because the group was suddenly One of the Good Ones. When in reality it doesnât make a difference.
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the Romani people called me to tell you, ignorant ass take
edited my language down
Argue the point, dont insult.
Where was I ignorant? Slav is the root word for Slave.
Comes from the Arab slave trade.
they traded blacks. No blacks in Arab world left - why?
Whites didjt castrate the blacks.
do you mind expanding on those last two points?
We're talking about racism. Eastern Europe is DEFINITELY racist, and if you grew up in the US and you're Polish, you have also been taught racism and whiteness. You can do mental gymnastics to make yourself not seem like a part of the problem, but doing that also makes you part of the problem.
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Other racial minorities do often need to be educated on competence with other cultures, specifically anti-Blackness which is extremely prevalent around the world. The fact that you don't think so is showing your victim complex.
Omg Im just imagining you going over to China with this attitude holy crap.
reddit is American centric. Believe it or not, progressive Americans thinking their defintions of racism should be imposed on Chinse is fucking imperialistic as hell.
Again, in the US. When people emigrate from somewhere they're in the racial majority they bring preconceptions that reflect that. China is an incredibly anti-Black country and many people moving from Eastern Asian countries do bring rather vicious anti-Black racism with them when they move here - somewhere they will actually encounter Black people semi-regularly. If I went over to China I wouldn't tell them shit because I'd be on their turf. But since we're talking about the US, I do feel confident saying that someone's nationality doesn't excuse their racism and letting racist comments pass by without comment is not cultural competence, it's complacency.
What will you use to deflect next? đ
So, you just admit asian Americans are racist. OP, why target white people in your post title?
I think... HMMMM... That says a lot about your bias.
Your comments are all super gross and you are one of the racist entitled people we are talking about.
Ok cool, resort to name calling.
Itâs not name calling if itâs what your comments are doing. Take some personal ownership over your behavior.
Entitlement and racism are choices you've made, and those are the accurate terms for the behavior in question. If you don't want to be called that, then stop acting entitled and saying racist bullshit.
Because WHO is making those posts dude? White people, who say so. You're clearly arguing in bad faith, grasping for every moral indictment that might offend the sensibilities you assume I have. Maybe process your own issues about Slavic history and being called white, if that's such an insurmountable stumbling block for you in this conversation. Otherwise, get bent
How would you like to be addressed, as someone who doesn't think they're part of the problem? Is there a world where you'd hear it?
Um, just like Black people want to be addressed - first name maybe? Hi im Nate.
Can toss in "the Great" for yucks.
Romani people were enslaved in Romania for 500 years. Not just a WASP problem
So? Koreans also enslaved Koreans.
Im saying literally the English word "slave" derives from the word "Slav."
Do you not know what Romani people are? Romani â Romanian. Maybe youâre just used to calling them g*psies. Also, you said that slavery was just a WASP thing and that Eastern Europe is different, so I pointed out that there were also chattel slaves in Eastern Europe.
I was implying American slavery was a wasp thing.
not gonna continue this is absurd.
"No one is going to listen to someone that talks like this" sounds like a skill issue for anyone reading anything on arr slash evil autism. Who exactly was I insulting towards? Racists?đĽ´
You also sound very "I am feel uncomfortable when we are not talk about me" and are re-centering the conversation to your personal issues with Black people - I'm not going to listen to anyone who can't hold back from demonizing Black people for 5 fucking seconds so we can talk about people taking their labor for granted. See slavery as whatever you want, ig, we're talking about the 21st century and this subreddit specifically.
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Again "just annoying" do you know where you are? You're gonna want to get over that. We dgaf.
im latina and if anything i stay out of race conversations because, to white people, we're not white and should just allow ourselves to be jailed by ICE and deserve death if we protest, and to some armchair liberals we're all racists and some of us are white passing and therefore never experience trauma. i do try to just listen to POC when these conversations come up, and have somehow avoided ever being directly accused of racism (never say never i suppose, im not worried about it but that's because im always willing to course correct and learn)
this seems to be a case of "being a minority doesn't make you immune to criticism, but what if the thing you're being criticized for is directly related to you being that minority?"
POC have generations of trauma and part of that is having to explain why things are racist. autistic people have years of trauma at people assuming they feel no emotions and attributing malice due to the way we process things differently, we've been a target of genocide before and there's even myths about things like changelings that may have come from autistic children (if you want to keep faith in humanity, don't look up how they dealt with suspected changelings). learning about racism or ableism isn't easy, it's not as simple as "look it up". there's a lot of misinformation, straight up disinformation, and simply irrelevant information out there. this is HARD for most people to sift through, and it gets HARDER if there's no one in your life to help make sense of it. i understand and sympathize with that, i got lucky that i dated my ex who as a POC but i also never pushed for answers, i just observed and listened when she spoke.
we have good science that proves that social consciousness comes from conversation, and healthy exchanges. And this research also points to the idea that simply talking calmy about things that upset you to someone who's genuinely trying to listen can be incredibly helpful towards addressing trauma - if it's happening organically and not forced. that's psychology.
but i really want to emphasize three words in my earlier statement: calmy, genuine, and (not) forced. if someone was just triggered? bad time. if you're asking to absolve yourself and not out of a genuine to help the other person, bad idea. and definitely don't play the "but im autistic" card because that can come across as forceful or manipulative even if it's not the intention.
it can be emotionally laborious, but it doesn't have to be. putting the emphasis on not having the conversations at all, because they're hard is going to do more harm than good in the long run. and im sorry but that's just reality. we can't fix the world by just hating each other in silence and hoping the other person comes around some day. it is not anyones individual responsibility however, and we're gonna need to be extremely mindful how, when, and why you ask questions.
finally, and this will ruffle feathers: something ive also witnessed a lot, is people with one brand of autism extremely underestimating how much autism can truly disrupt someone else's ability to guage these circumstances appropriately. stating that it's something that can be done through sheer force of will IS ableism. full stop. and so is assuming malice every time someone explains they're autistic when asking questions that are uncomfortable/impolite. sorry if that's hard to hear i guess, but it's true. it's extremely harmful since it perpetuates this idea that autism isn't actually disabling and because you're not listening when someone who's a minority is telling you, often very politely, what they struggle with. if you can't handle that then i agree, you shouldn't answer those questions - because you've got plenty of learning to do yourself and aren't approaching the situation with empathy or genuine good will.
When a news article is locked behind a paywall, what do you typically do? I tend to skip over the article and find another source.
that's the point. find another source dont demand that someone give up labour for free
Got it, no demands. Never did. Just highly curious about the âpay me moneyâ stuff, because thatâs not something Iâd do.
Mhm which helps you remember not to burden POC with your inane questioning and instead... find another source, like one that someone already published - they consented, provided the labor, were compensated already, and all you have to do is Google it. Crazy world out there stay safe
Can assure you Iâve never done this âinane questioningâ you speak of. Never found a reason to.
I'm incapable of hate. In fact, all my friends are racist.
This sub reads like mid-2010s Tumblr lately