Autistic boy beaten up at Wal-Mart

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Has anyone seen this? The story I'm talking about is at the end of this post:

http://www.disabilityandrepresentation. ... -shooting/

This is getting really scary. I don't want to leave the house, although realistically as an adult woman I'm a less likely target for this kind of scapegoating. What can we do against all this hate and dehumanization, especially when by definition we're bad at winning people over and "selling" ourselves?

Why does this not surprise me. It seems the population at large has little understanding of most things. Why most people don't take the time to research the facts before passing judgement I'll never know or understand. Sad situation. This is the reason I keep to myself and watch for trolls!

I went shopping at Wal-Mart once. I was spending some money I got for my birthday and I saw at least five videogames I wanted but I knew I couldn't have all five. I was lucky to go home with two. As I was browsing to decide which ones I wanted the most, I often forget my surroundings and emit strange behavior that often helps me think. A security took notice. He looked like he had post Connecticut shooting paranoia. I don't blame him. He tried to arrest me for "suspicious activity." I reasoned with him. I told him "It's not our fault some kid went crazy and shot a bunch of people. I'm not like that guy. You're reading too much internet bigotry. All I want to do is buy some games, go home, and prepare for the family Christmas party." He let me off the hook and I said "I'll let this go for now but don't let it happen again, ok?." Afterwards, my brother came with an employee to unlock the glass case so I could get the games I wanted. If I could experience something like that in a store, I can't imagine facing the new college semester in January.

Last edited by Aspiegaming on 28 Dec 2012, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I like to think I'm a fairly calm person. There are very few things in life that can make me legitimately angry. This is one of them. "50 likes and we'll set an autistic kid on fire." What the f**k is wrong with these people? Violence, threats against autistics over what one person did, and we're the ones who don't have empathy? That's not how it f*****g works.

Part of the problem is that once an error is printed in the news, sometimes that's the last story someone reads on the subject, and if they see more stories about it they don't bother reading, so the error stays with them. This was irresponsible journalism, because every news source wanted to get in on the news storm that day and too many weren't very careful about what they said. Now that the opportunity for sensationalism is over, they print corrections. Too late!

Add to that plain old-fashioned fear.

Misinformation and fear. It's a perfect recipe for craziness in public opinion.

There have been occasions where men who I'm quite sure were store detectives have followed me through a store and watched me intently presumably in case I tried to shoplift something. I've never shoplifted anything in my life and can't imagine doing so, but something about me made them think that I was up to no good. I really don't know why they thought that.

I think that a great many people tend to believe the first thing they hear even if that is the most unreliable.

On Christmas Eve, a local high school kid went to a party in town and got drunk. Two kids he knew drove him back to where he lived and dropped him off at the front gate a half mile or so from the house. His parents grew increasingly concerned and called the sheriff's office at sometime between 2 and 3 am that morning and a search began by the sheriff's department and with a number of cowboys helping. About 8 am, someone spotted him face down in the ditch not far from his house. He was, of course, dead.

There are now so many rumors going around town that it is ridiculous. Some people say that he froze to death, others that he choked on his own vomit, and others that he was beaten to death. Some people are convinced that someone has been arrested in the death.

There are also rumors that the kids who took him home were emptying out their bank accounts like they were ready to flee. That makes hardly any sense at all because kids of local farm and ranch hands are usually quite lucky to have more than $10 or $20 to their name at all.

But one thing seems clear to me from talking to several people -- that a great many of these people believe the first rumor that they heard and write off all the other rumors as being untrue.

What I'm particularly curious about is whether they will arrest the adults who supplied the kids with the alcohol. The couple who own/rent the home where they were partying are well known for throwing wild parties. I jokingly asked someone who lives a block away from the couple why we aren't invited to those parties and he replied that it is because we are neither drug addicts nor alcoholics and because we are not underage. If I was a local parent of kids in junior high or high school, I'd be quite insistent that the two be arrested.

In all fairness, I think a cite is required for the alleged Wal-Mart incident. That's a pretty serious accusation to make of 18 people, 6 of them trained security, tackling a 14-year old. Of course, If such a thing happened, it's deplorable.

The body language that is looked for in most loss prevention training programs....yields a high false positive rate with those on the spectrum. Young Male and alone.....even more so.

I have had similar expirences in middle school getting my arm broken for carrying a pencil in my hand.

Does this make anyone more interested in forming an Aspie union?

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt218284.html

People rarely need a reason to behave in a stupid and irrational manner, so when given a reason to legitimately take something seriously (such as security in our schools) its really no surprise they turn into a herd of panicked cattle. I saw it happen in my hometown when there was a school shooting there. Suddenly everyone who was different, or liked to read more than talk, or whatever they deemed as "wrong" was suddenly suspect. In one particular incident, i threw a book in my locker on top of my purse which contained an old walkman I had built to keep out the noise on the school bus. The book hit the play button, it had played to the end of the tape, and was clicking trying to go off. When I was called to my locker, they had the bomb squad there and first thing they did was put me in handcuffs. the cops opened my locker, pulled out my purse and dropped it on the floor with a baton (not sure how smart an idea that would have been had there been a bomb) and asked if I had ever seen it before. Apparently "Of course I have, its my purse..." was me being a smartass. After it was over, only a huge battle from my dad and an agreement to use a new walkman rather than the one I built kept me from being banned from using it on the bus.

So yeah... the expanse of stupidity of the human race really doesn't surprise me...

A few thoughts:

I now want to make a comment about the type of people who shop at Walmart but maybe I shouldn't stereotype if I don't want others to do it. I'm not sad not to spend my money there, and having grown up in Tennessee and being forced to go there as a child with my parents I can remember seeing lots of people that made me not surprised at the title of this thread.

Anyway, there is always some group throughout history who has to put up with an ignorant public. And, we are dealing with an ignorant, gun-loving public. I happen to work at a prestigious university and couldn't help but shake my head at a comment in the attached link where a woman said she had a degree from an Ivy league university and really thought this of us. Lots of faculty have Asperger's, so she has had to deal with many autistic people she probably didn't know were autistic and who she admired.

Also,sadly, some other groups in history have had it even worse than we have. Think of other races and homosexuals and what has happened to them simply for being "different". They are gaining acceptance, but we and people with mental illnesses still have some work to do before we will. This is one of the reasons I am disclosing my condition to people. They look at me in bewilderment, as though they don't think someone like me can even be autistic. More people like me need to come out and disclose the condition so people can see what contributions we make and that we are not as different as they make us out to be. Too many people allow themselves to live in fear, both people who don't want to think deeply about things and who would rather stereotype people as well as people who won't disclose their condition for fear of being stereotyped. We need to stand up for ourselves wherever and whenever we can.

Finally, I would love to create an "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario for all of the ignorant people in this world, where they can see what the world would look like if in fact we did not exist. But, I have a feeling they would suddenly find that world bereft of many amazing things, and then suddenly they would realize how truly wrong they were to wish us out of existence.

What I detest is the gun hating ignorant public.

It must take more intelligence than many have to understand that the problems with people shooting others is a people problem, not a gun problem. It seems idiotic to me to blame it on the guns instead of the people.

Being autistic, I cannot tell if your comment is directed at me. If it is, then be more specific in pointing out where I am blaming this on guns. Otherwise, I will assume you are using my quote in an unexpected way, and I hope you wouldn't call me an idiot because you completely misread my comments. That would be all-too Aspergian.

I'm aware that we need to provide resources to people so they don't pick up and misuse guns. Anyone who really wants to get their hands on a gun will likely do so unless they are in a padded and locked room. I'm more concerned about the people who would put someone like me who is fully functioning in a padded room simply because of a diagnosis, even if I am higher functioning than many NTs. I'm also concerned about the people who play keep-away with resources and who think this will be solved by either withholding or mis-directing resources.

That "paranoid" lady is lucky I wasn't there or I would've punched her in her face for saying such stupid things about Aspergers...no hesitation.

I swear to God, this is slowly becoming Muslim persecution Post-9/11. It's been more than ten years and even that hasn't come close to ending.

Adds: Though now I feel I have to add that I do wonder about some of the guns that are out there, and whether people really need to keep guns that fire off so many rounds of ammo at once. I can understand if you really feel the need to defend your life and home from an intruder, but cannot understand the logic of the average citizen keeping some of these assault rifles, and I think the less that are available the better. It doesn't mean in the short-term that someone may not illegally get their hands on one, but in the long-run that should be less likely if at all likely.