Reverse Discrimination

Recently, I read one black person mocking white claims of 'reverse racism'. She suggested that this is an accusation given in reaction to taking away white privilege.
When I was 12 years old, a Native girl told me I was 'too white to be a person'. Recently, I read someone mocking a white woman for being offended by the statement that 'white chicks' were untrustworthy. Malcolm X called us 'white devils'.
The same people who vehemently oppose similar statements towards other races are often willing to tolerate it towards white people. Racist jokes against white people are 'humorous' while against any other race they are intolerable.
This happens with other forms of discrimination. I've heard many women make sexist comments or jokes about men that would not be tolerated if they were made about women. Saying women aren't as smart as men is sexist, right? Then why do so many women seem fine with saying the opposite (for example, one joke states that God offered two gifts to the first man and women, saying they could chose to get either brains, or the ability to pee standing up)?
Regarding autistic rights, I see this so often in the suggestion that NTs are inherently stupid, manipulative, immoral liars, or that they are boring. Discrimination is treated as a distinctly NT behaviour, as are bullying and many other things. The same people who make claims like that are generally the autistics most prone to doing the exact things they accuse NTs of - the ones who are most prejudiced and bullying.
Now, some people claim reverse discrimination simply because they are losing the privileges they are unfairly given. This is certainly true. There are also some people who claim more traditional discrimination when they don't get what they want for very different reasons, as Joel Smith described recently. I remember someone on one listserv complaining that he was being denied some legal-type post because of his Asperger Syndrome diagnosis, but it transpired that he was in fact denied the job because he was a convicted sex offender. Now, personally, I think it's just fine to deny a legal job to someone who has shown a substantial disrespect for the law, in doing something as serious as what he'd done (I believe it was some kind of sexual assault).
But reverse discrimination does happen, and it hurts. Up until recently, I absolutely hated my skin color. White is beautiful, just as black is, but I couldn't see it. I felt personally responsible for all the wrongs that white people have done over history to other races. What I'd read never gave a hint that it wasn't just us who were racist, never discussed racism from other races. The Uyghur people, in western China, are discriminated against by the Mandarin majority. That's only one of many examples, which show that white people aren't the only racists. But non-white racists are invisible. As are many anti-male sexists, and anti-normal disabled people.
I used to think that victims of bullying were 'good guys', the bullies and bystanders were 'bad guys'. But being victimized does not make you morally superior. It says absolutely nothing about your morals. It only indicates anything about the ones who hurt you. And you should not judge an entire category of people based on the actions of some of them. It's wrong when it's done by those in power, and it's wrong when it's done back at them by the oppressed people. Revenge will not make it better, it only perpetuates the hurt.

Mommy, There's a Black Person!

This is a message I just sent to the Polskie Radio:

"Hi, I'm writing in from Canada. Last night, I was listening to Radio Poland on the overnight thing, where CBC presents news from other countries. I don't know Polish, so hopefully the people doing the English section will read this.
I'm writing about a story where one news person was discussing offensive ads. The first one she described, showing young women bungling various 'male' occupations, was clearly sexist.
The second one, however, was about a child saying 'look, mommy, there's a black person'. When she described that, I thought OK, now she'll get to the offensive bit. But apparently that was the part she found offensive - the child pointing out a black person.
I haven't seen the ad, but from what I've heard, it doesn't seem offensive at all. Noticing and commenting on differences in skin color is no more offensive than noticing and commenting on differences in hair color (which the news person did when discussing the first ad). The problem is making a value judgment about skin color, not merely noticing it.
I see no problem in calling myself white. I have several black friends, and I call them black and myself white in their presence without offending them. I have a good friend who is an immigrant from Zambia and she and I talk about race as freely as anything else.
In fact, ignoring race is frequently racist, because very often people will assume the person is white unless they know otherwise. Particularly on radio and other communication where you can't see the person described, this erases black people and other groups. Also, ignoring racial differences usually means ignoring cultural differences too, and expecting people to be like you when they really aren't is prejudiced too."

Starwalker Lyrics

I really like Buffy Sainte Marie's songs. What really annoyed me was that every online copy of the lyrics to her song Starwalker was incomplete. So, I'm posting a complete version.



Starwalker, he's a friend of mine
You've seen him looking fine
He's a straight talker, he's a starwalker
Don't drink no wine

Wolf Rider, she's a friend of yours
You've seen her opening doors
She's a history turner, she's a sweetgrass burner
And a - a dog soldier

Holy light, guard the night
Pray up your medicine song
Oh, straight dealer, you're a spirit-healer
Keep going on

Lightning woman, thunderchild,
Star soldiers one and all
Oh, sisters, brothers and all together
Aim straight, stand tall

Starwalker, he's a friend of mine
You've seen him looking fine
He's a - a straight talker, he's a - a starwalker
Don't drink no wine

NT children 'becoming human', unlike autistics

I just sent the following e-mail to CBC, regarding a radio interview on the same topic as this article.

"I was shocked this morning to hear a man on the radio, in discussing early diagnosis of autism, say that parents should watch for their child 'developing into a human being'. Why is such prejudiced language acceptable. Firstly, it is prejudiced towards children. You cannot become what you already are, so your guest speaker was basically saying children aren't human - they must become human. Secondly, he was saying that not only are autistic children not human, they, unlike normal chidren, will never become human. When David Aheniquew (sp?) said the Nazis were doing a good thing by trying to get rid of Jews, everyone was shocked and appalled - if I recall, he may even have been charged with hate crimes. Why are children and autistic people not afforded similar respect? Since most people think being human means being worthy of respect, calling any human being non-human is not only biologically innaccurate but prejudiced. Yet your guest speaker said that autistics and children aren't human, and the interviewer didn't even comment.On the subject of early diagnosis, ideally I'd support it but with the state of our society right now, I say just leave them be. I'm glad my own autism wasn't diagnosed until I was 15 - by then, I was able to self-advocate and no one could force me to try to become someone I'm not (that's what autism treatment is - like aversion therapy for gays)."

Disability Blindness

This is a post I've been planning to make for a long time, but only got around to it now.
I have a book called Lifting the White Veil, which is about racism and focuses on what it means to be white, and how whiteness is often 'invisible'.
One chapter discusses colorblindness, and the problems with that view. Now, most people don't seriously think you should ignore disability like colorblindness ignores race, but there's this idea that you should see the 'person first', pretend you don't notice the disability except in very circumscribed situations, and completely ignore some of the more important aspects of disability (particularly the interaction between disability and identity).
Here are some of the criticism of colorblindness made by that author, and my own comments about how they do, or don't, parallel the 'politically correct' view of disability.

Colorblindness denies that race makes a difference in people's lives.
This isn't that true of disability, but considering that he's not talking about different cultures but instead the effect of racism, an important parallel can be made. I've certainly seen a 'blindness' to disability discrimination. This article studies alexithymia and depression in autistics, and despite quoting one person who directly linked prejudice to her own depression, completely ignored the possibility that being treated as inferior and wrong and expected to act in ways totally different from who you really are might explain why autistics are so often depressed. The closest they came was to state that:

"Whereas the slow compensatory acquisition of an explicit theory-of-mind has made the awareness of inner states possible, at least to some extent, it has also led to an increased awareness of the failure to “fit in.” This indicates a cost of compensatory learning that has not
always been realized. Increased depression could therefore be seen as a secondary reaction to a theory-of-mind deficit, dependent on specific experiences in the recent past."

which isn't very close at all. In general, any kind of problem a disabled person has must be a) a part of their disability or b) a natural psychological reaction to awareness of their disability, not c) internal or external discrimination. Only in a few cases do mainstream people seem to recognize disability discrimination, and generally only (as with racism) in its older forms. Even when discrimination metaphorically bites them on the nose, they don't recognize it or name it for what it is.

Colorblindness enforces a taboo against talking about race.
Definately a problem for disability as well. I have to dance around finding out what syndrome the children I volunteer with have, even though it's relevant (for example, knowing one girl has Rett Syndrome, I'm on the lookout for signs of motor apraxia in her - there are plenty - and can use that framework to help understand and assist her). It's viewed as rude to even mention disability. I don't feel it so much with mentioning my own disability - if there is a taboo against saying you're disabled, I haven't noticed it - but certainly with mentioning other people's disabilities, especially in front of them. This is likely a big problem with many of the children I work with, because it makes it harder for them to get information about their own disability in a direct way so they can process it effectively.

Colorblindness believes color consciousness must be racist.
Being aware of disability may not be assumed to be discriminatory, but certainly treating disability like it actually might have relevance for a person's identity often is. And if you break 'the rules' about mentioning disability (eg a child asking about disability) that is treated badly, and though children may get away with it, an adult who doesn't seem disabled probably will be considered rude. In general, however, most people are often less aware of disability discrimination in any form than they are of racism.

Colorblindness sees other racial groups but is blind to mainstream whiteness.
I've certainly seen this with disability as well. I recently noticed that when people think of what it means to be, for example, a 7 year old, or a 12 year old, what they think of is a normal kid that age. If a kid doesn't fit that, then there is often some cognitive dissonance between knowledge of their age and awareness of what they're like, as if they are 'really' some other age. But if you see several kids with the same condition at various ages, you see that there is often commonality between kids of the same age as opposed to other ages. For example, I can sort of see a 'type' among late preschool/early school-age Down Syndrome kids - they are often about a certain height, with a certain build, talk in single words/short sentences with very unclear pronunciation and are playful, mischievious, sociable and caring. Not all DS kids of that age group fit this type, and those who do aren't all the same any more than normal kids around that age are, but just because they're disabled doesn't mean their age is irrelevant to what they are like. I also see this in many other circumstances. Some people have said things like 'humans are social beings' or 'we are all sexual beings', statements which exclude many autistics. It's assumed that 'generic human' is the normal people, disabled people are 'special'.

Colorblindness believes we will all assimilate into the mainstream.
Disability blindness assumes all disabled people want to be normal.

Colorblindness says we are only individuals.
He clarifies to say:
"Actually what colorblindness says is that 'we are all individuals,' which is true, but colorblindness acts as if 'we are only individuals,' which is false. We are all individuals. We are all the same (which colorblindness admits as well). In between being completely unique as individuals and completely identical as human beings, we are all members of social groupings, be it men, women, white, black, red, yellow, brown, mixed, gay, straight, middle class, upper class, lower class. Our social group status does not define us exclusively. Nor does our common humanity. Nor does our individualism. Each of these contributes to our experience and our nature. To single out one and hold it above all others is arbitrary and misguided."
I can't say it much better than he does. I'm a human being and have some things in common with every other human being. I also have some things in common with every other autistic person, besides what I have in common with all humans. Then there are some things, and the particular mix of things, which I don't have in common with anyone. I'm unique, I'm autistic (among other groupings, such as white, female, etc), and I'm a human being.

Colorblindness believes intent, not effects, are important.
Jerry Lewis has often said 'no one is against the disabled'. Many parents of disabled children act as if loving your child excuses any way your behavior harms that child. Caregivers of disabled people protest 'but I'm a good person!' when challenged on their misuse of power. Piles of people act as if the fact that you want to do good automatically means you're not discriminatory, when that's only one part of what you must do. In fact, in addition to having good intentions, you must also a) recognize your own faults, b) understand how society distorts people's view of disability and c) be willing to listen to disabled people, even (especially) when what they say is hard for you to accept. I've probably left stuff out, but if you have those, you're well on your way. Just having good intentions is nowhere near enough.
Besides, from the perspective of the target of all this, whether someone meant to hurt you matters much less than whether they did hurt you.

Recovering Racist

I've been rereading a book of mine, called White Girl. It's by Sylvia Olsen. In this book, a girl named Josie is living with her single mother. Both are white, and like many white people, don't think much about race. Then Josie's mother falls in love with Martin, an Indian (as he calls himself) from the nearby reservation. They get married and Josie and her mother move in with Martin. Josie, as the only white kid on the reservation, comes to understand a lot about race that she'd never thought about before.
One scene made me think. In this scene, Josie's Mom is talking to Josie's grandmother Mavis about her plans to marry Martin.

Mom had argued with Mavis about Indians on the phone, two weeks before the wedding. Mavis obviously had told Mom you couldn't mix oil and water. I imagined her voice: "It'll never work. And furthermore, you should think about Josie. The Indian reserve is no place for her."
"You're prejudiced," hollored Mom.
Of course Mavis must have denied it.
"What do you think?" Mom said in a controlled voice. "You think Indians are slinking around the corners of the reserve waiting to pounce on a little white girl?" (How was that for irony?)
I didn't hear Mavis's response, but it was what Mom said next that made me understand the trouble she was in now.
"Anyway, Mom," she had said, "Martin isn't wild and stupid and drunk like all the other Indians. He's different."

(The irony was that when Josie's new friend Rose asked Josie's Mom if they could go for a walk around the reserve, Josie's Mom was afraid of the same thing she accused Mavis of fearing.)
I thought about the irony of a racist calling another racist prejudiced. I realized that it's far more common for people to point out other people's prejudice than their own. Partly it may be that it's modeled more. It also may be that people simply don't realize they have a certain prejudiced view until they stop having it, that looking at your own prejudices makes them collapse.
I was thinking it would be good if people talked more about how to recognize when you are being discriminatory and change your own viewpoint and behavior. I once read about a group called Recovering Racists, who wear buttons announcing that they are Recovering Racists. Apparently this tends to get a lot of comments from non-white people.
Thinking about them, I decided to examine if I've been discriminatory towards disabled people recently. An example popped into my mind.
I volunteer with an activity program for disabled kids. It just ended for Christmas, but I'm planning to sign up again when it starts in spring. One boy in the program has severe CP, and can't sit up without help. He can't talk, but moans sometimes. I have repeatedly underestimated how much he understands, automatically slipping into viewing him as a 'vegetable'. I was surprised in the summer program when I overheard his mother saying he woke up really early on the first day because he knew this program was starting and was so excited, since I hadn't realized he enjoyed the program since he seemed unable to participate much. Just recently, on the last day of the fall program, he was moaning and the program coordinater commented that he was sad that it was ending. All the other kids were having fun, not thinking ahead to the fact that this was the last day, but this boy anticipated that he wouldn't be coming there next week and was upset. I need to learn to recognize that just because someone can't move much or talk doesn't mean they aren't aware.

Murder-Suicide with Autistic Kid

Kevin Leitch posted a blog entry about a woman who killed her disabled son, who is described as autistic by some and Fragile X by some. I wrote a response, but he'd closed the commenting, so I'm posting it here.

"To echo what Amanda has said, there have been reports (mercifully few) of mothers murdering their children – with and without the subsequent suicide of the mother – and the majority of them involve “typical” children."

"Yes, this was murder. Murder of a child, followed by the mother immediately imposing capital punishment on herself.
As a person on the autistic spectrum, a longtime sufferer from severe depression, and the mother of an autistic child, I have compassion for both mother and child here. Yes, she murdered her son. Yes, it was wrong to murder him because he was autistic.
But rather than pointing the finger at the mother, I see far more fault in a society that would leave her unsupported until she reached the breaking point which resulted in this terrible tragedy. I have been close to that point before, and I can tell you that- as a person with few financial and social resources- the support offered to me and my children has been woefully inadequate."

At one point in Half Breed, Maria Cambell (I think that's her name) described thinking about killing herself and her children. She changed her mind at the last minute. She felt like her life was intolerable, and since her children would only suffer the same sort of stuff she had, it would be better to spare them that.
I think most people reading that part view it as Maria Cambell being the target of discrimination to the point where she was very depressed, and her planning to kill her children as well as a twisted form of caring, considering her mental state.
But with disabled kids, it may be seen as perfectly reasonable, the discrimination aspect is usually ignored, and most people devalue the child(ren) killed.

"The nurse said, “you are getting better you are walking more each day” and the depressed person said, “No I’m not” The nurse said, “look, you walked all the way around the circuit…” the man replied, “Yeah, well you someone created (built) a shortcut through the middle of the center section we were walking around so that I was only walking half as much”"

When I get told I'm making progress, and given examples, I tend to say "that doesn't matter. It's this that matters." and point to something unchanged. For example, Mom says I've made progress because I have less meltdowns and the meltdowns are less severe. I respond that I haven't made progress because I feel just as trapped during meltdowns.