Neurotypical Privilege

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Yes, this is probably true, but what does it mean to you? See below:



It seems you are suggesting that there should be special rooms in call centers for people who cannot take the noise and general pandemonium. I would say this idea is flawed.

littlebee

No, she's saying you should acknowledge the problem exists. People can have their own opinions about what should be done about the problem, but it doesn't change that it exists, and to deny it, and say that people just need to work harder is flawed.

To say that people just need to work harder to do the same amount is the idea behind privilege. People need to deal with more to do the same amount. Or they can't get the same amount no matter how much they deal with. People are treated as uneven by society.

Autistic people are treated as lesser humans. Other disabled people are also treated as lesser. This might be explicit, or implicit. It might be jobs not being built for us, or it might be the expectation to not handflap and being stared down upon doing so, or it might be people questioning us if we use disabled bus passes, or it might be people firing people for not socializing normally in the hallways of jobs.

What you do about these things is a question. Whether you say we should get government funding, whether you say we should get therapy to look more normal, whether you say we should get special places to work where autistic people work, whether you say we should just have to cope and learn how to deal with it ourselves and if we can't then we just aren't good enough, that's all a question that people can have their own answer to.

But what it starts with is simple: We need to put in more effort to get the same things, if we even can.

If you say that's fine, then you can say that. But admit that fact in the first place.

Neurotypical privilege, as much as it sounds like a weird concept with a bad name, makes sense. It's more of a blanket concept, that anything communicative/social is much harder for us. And this is coming from the mouth of an Aspie who studied communication in college!

BTW, this is my 1000th post on WP!

Off topic, but that now means you can create a custom subheading under your name.

Tuttle, you have written a wonderful message, so I am going to try to go slow. This subject is hard to talk about because in my oprinion people are blurring certain distinctions by approaching from an emotional angle, and yet I am not saying that people's feelings do not count..

To me she is implying that there should be a separate room. The way she has phrased the situation leads me to draw that (kind of) conclusion. So you are saying that some people should not need to work harder to achieve certain results and that "society" has the responsibility to equalize the situation so as to make an equal playing field? I can see buses being required to have wheelchair lifts etc., but I cannot see the workplace being particularly accommodating to people with personality disorders, as I mentioned previously. And no, I am not saying that all aspies have personality disorders, but imo many of them do...I surely do (or did)..



I get what you are trying to say here, especially from an emotional perspective, but to me this makes no sense from the perspective of how things logically work. Some people do need to work harder to get the same thing. This is not to deny that sometimes other people can make it even harder.



This is probably true, but what is the main point you are getting at? In other words what is the practical function of making such an observation? Do you want people here to acknowledge and even make a consensus that disabled people in this regard have a hard time? I think that everyone already acknowledges this. I think you are saying that other people do not have compassion and that you want them to have more. Well this seems to translate (at least to me) as a gripe, and even a valid gripe, but the question is how to translate it into a deed of functional value that will help disabled people. Hope this makes sense.[i]

Certainly some people have to work harder to get the same result as others who don't have to work as hard.

Some students don't have to work as hard in school to get A, but other students have to work harder for same result, and some do, and they get A, but others don't, and they get B, C, etc etc etc.

NT privilege: The ability to walk down the street, into the store, or into a social gathering-- or pick up the telephone to make a business call-- without carefully rehearsing everything you are to do and/or say, going over the list of what you must not do/say, and going through the encounter with white knuckles, constantly monitoring every aspect of your behavior, only to spend the rest of the day going over and over and over it again, looking for any possible error that could give someone you encountered cause to mistreat you in the future.

NT privilege: Not feeling as if you get out of bed each morning and must, much more than other people, earn your right to exist once again today.

NT privilege: Looking in the mirror, and seeing a person (not a diseased, broken, defective, substandard, second-class person) looking back at you.

NT privilege: Being acutely severely ill, and being able to go to a hospital emergency room without fear of how (and if) you will be treated.

NT privilege: Being safe and comfortable being yourself.

Yes, NT privilege is real.

No, it is not a nice paycheck, a nice house, a nice car, and nice things. NT privilege makes it easier to earn those things, but it isn't those things. It's not avoiding the burden of seeing other people be better at some things than you are (a la Harrison Bergeron) either. It's being a person with equal personhood-- benefitting from the Golden Rule, instead of finding out that others can do unto you things they would not dream of doing unto others-- regardless of your strengths and weaknesses, day in and day out.

It's real, and it isn't going to go away. In this society, we are second-class scum. We will work three times as hard, for one-third as much. We are the new untermenschen.

It is human nature to create a class of untermenschen. EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY ON EARTH DOES IT.

Get used to it. Because it can get worse.

Many NTs have these problems too, being uncomfortable being themselves, looking in mirror and seeing something lesser than others, being anxious during social interaction, these are signs of anxiety and low self-esteem, not specific to autism or NT, since NT and autistic people can have these problems.

It might be called chicken supreme

I did not imply anything. I stated what it was like to work in a call center. You extrapolated from that explanation to a specific action to be taken that I had not actually proposed.

However, if you think workplaces should not have to accommodate autistic people*, what do you think autistic people should do for work?

You are also reading emotions that are not present. While this is an emotional issue (and rightly so) such emotions are not particularly relevant to the reality of the situation. Nor do such emotions contradict or muddy the factual nature of the situation or the logic of said situation.

It is, in fact, a common deflection technique to tell people who are discussing such issues that can be quite personal and important to them that they are being too emotional to be rational about the subject. Someone wrote a snarky page about such things:

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/dera ... g-emotion/

* Americans with disabilities act (link)

Although, to be fair, I think that providing a more private, quiet room for an autistic employee is not out of line at all. And the personality disorder comment is completely out of left field, as that's not specifically the topic.

Part of the whole NT privilege thing is the reaction that actually accommodating autistic needs is somehow beyond the pale, asking too much, and overly entitled behavior.

Last edited by Verdandi on 08 Aug 2013, 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wish I didn't disagree, but I do. There are so many people who deny disabilities ("you're just making that up so you can get out of ______") even when there's a legitimate diagnosis. That's part of the difficulty with invisible disabilities. And there are others who realize disabled people have a harder time with certain things, but don't understand the disability enough to realize the extent of those struggles - or, on the other side, don't understand the comparative privilege that they have, whether it's when they're getting a job, going shopping in busy mall, or getting an education.

My sister has been reading out loud some of the ones from the list of neurotypical privileges she likes best and here are some of her favorites:
- I will not be asked to leave a space, or to change where I live, because people are uncomfortable with my neurotypical behaviors.
- I am no one's badge of honor, just because they live with me. I am not a trial sent by God, a punishment, a blessing in disguise, a saint, or a devil. I'm just here, like anybody else. My family takes this as a given.
- If I am past the age of 18, treating me in a manner consistent with common treatment of a young child is considered degrading, not necessary.
- People do not use my neurology to claim I can never become an adult.
- When I am with a friend or my partner that is not neurotypical, people will not address them instead of me when they want to know something about me, or speak to them after I ask them a question, etc.
- Nobody tries to one-up me by implying that their family member is more NT than I am and I must thus be incapable of understanding any of said family member's situation.
- If I need mental health care (eg for depression etc) I will not be turned down for treatments that would be given to others with the same needs on the basis of my neurology.
- I am not treated as a young child after disclosing my neurology, nor am I considered to be incapable of speaking for myself.

You'll note that a lot of these are about societal attitudes... Again, the privilege here is that NT people really don't have to worry about most of these things and are therefore comparatively privileged in these ways. Also, I don't see privilege as something that means the people with it need to be brought down, resented, etc. (You'll note that I'm mostly NT myself, or can at least almost fully blend in as such, so I actually have all these privileges myself.) I see it as being something that others need to be aware of and a paradigm shift which can help educate NTs about some of the struggles people on the spectrum deal with.

Also, don't remember who said this, but yes, the "resources" I offered up are just personal blogs - I didn't have any better resources, so they were the only things I had to explain the concept. The lack of better resources is the reason that my very first post was asking...

Should speak for itself.

Although I would like to add that this very thread has been a great resource in of itself, especially for understanding different points of view, common misconceptions, etc.

I am so sorry to hear that so many of you had also had the rock throwing experiences. People, especially kids, can be extremely actively cruel. Oddly enough, no one messed with my sister when I was around, though. I say oddly because I am neither physically nor verbally intimidating and if my sister hadn't been around as the target, I don't think it's a stretch to say I would have been bullied in such a way myself (as I was prior to her joining my school, after which point there was a weaker, 'weirder' target for bullies to pick on). I think the reason is that people are afraid to see their own cruelty reflected in the eyes of others, which is why even a single witness who speaks up or shows disapproval can have such a powerful impact. And there have been many such witnesses, including peers, over the years who acted to protect rather than harm - there is good in the world. There are good people (including NTs, because I know some of you might be skeptical) out there, and I hope you have met or at least will meet them, too. Just my thoughts.

Also, congrats to Northeastern292!! !

Hi. Thanks. I am sincerely speaking from my own understanding, and also I am on the spectrum myself and have had all kinds of problems and struggles and horrible suffering because of it. I was talking about people here on this website. I do not think people here are denying that autistic people are disabled..Yes, if the disability is invisible that would make it harder for the people to understand. However, regarding understanding the nature of these disabilities, I do not even think that most of people who have them understand them, generally speaking. I draw this conclusion from what I have read on WP plus a lot of people on the spectrum I have known. Moreover, I do not think a diagnosis is worth jack sh*t, generally speaking, as a lot of these therapists are really quite ignorant, in my opinion, and more a part of the problem than the solution.

And I know this is not going to be a popular comment, but I do think a lot of autistic people are making these disabilities up so they can get out of doing something (that is too emotionally painful in the sense of having to cope), and that these people who do this are surely disabled, as no person who is not disabled would do it. However, it is possible for a person to be kind of making something up about himself without consciously knowing he is doing it. With autism this is how encapsulation works, and I understand it is all very real to the person who is doing it and that he is having genuine difficulty in functioning, no question about that. And I do think other people who are not disabled in this way should help other people who are.

I understand that you sincerely with the most heartfelt love and affection want to help your sister, and this in inspirational and beautiful, but I suggest a different tactic that will possibly help her more than anything else, and this is to begin to understand how genetics plays into the environment and visa versa to create encapsulation in a person on the spectrum, as ultimately the way in is also the way out. Looking outside at society and how other people are more privileged or whatever, as very well meaning as it is, may serve to reinforce your sister's autism rather then help her begin to discover new ways of interacting and thinking which could begin to set her free..

This is not to suggest that people should not advocate to help autistic people and to educate society about this disorder, but I think this may be a difficult endeavor if people do not understand it themselves.

A quote from your website:

If you care to share exactly what you mean by disorder, I would be interested, as I may not be using this term in the way you are..

What is encapsulation?

No Fnord, those things are not what she meant by neurotypical privelige. If you read her example, it is things like not being stared at (because they don't stim, have normal social behaviour, etc), aren't treated like children or as if they were mentally deficient just because of a label, aren't automatically assumed to be dangerous because of over used stereotypes on TV, things like that, basic human rights that, usually unintentionally, NTs often deny those of us on the spectrum. We shouldn't be stared at just because our methods of self-regulation are different, we shouldn't be treated as lesser people just because we have a label that claims "disorder" and we shouldn't all be accused of being violent just because of the bad rap a few of us get on TV. That is what is meant by neurotypical privelige.

Thanks for asking as in my opinion this is the single most important thing to understand about autistic brain function. There is little about this on the internet. Here is what I wrote very recently on another thread: You were writing on the same page on that thread so you probably already read this. I admit it does not explain much, and much more explanation is called for. I think I will soon start a thread on it, though, as the subject is so important. :



I do not have much time to write now, but I found this psychoanalytical journal in a free box at a book stores and it took me months to begin to digest the material. Eventually it began to bring back very early childhood memories, I would say from the pre-verbal or just barely verbal stage, and it was extremely emotionally painful.

My budding interest in psychoanalytical object relations theory is also related to this topic, but long before I found this journal or began to study object relations theory I was already for several years very interested in how the mind in accordance with brain function frames information into sets and how it organizes these sets, the result being thought/feeling and ultimately action.. I think on this thread here someone, Verandi, wrote recently about leaving emotions out of a logical discourse (about how autistics are perceived by society). Now this seems to make sense but to me it is only on a very superficial level, as emotions are one of the main factors of how a human being organizes material, and probably the key to the transformation of the human mind, so maybe when I respond to that message, if I am even capable of doing so, as it is kind of difficult to verbalize for me, I will begin to explain encapsulation, and eventually will start a hard core thread to study how it works. Basically the brain probably works by this principle in that the the right brain takes big generalized bites and the left brain breaks down information into smaller bits. Not much time today. Love, littlebee