Problematic perceptions of folks with autism or Asperger's

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foodeater
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28 May 2014, 2:41 am

EsotericResearch wrote:
Hey everybody,

I've noticed some weird things about the public perceptions of folks with autism. Notwithstanding people using the terms like sperg, etc as an insult, but just the perception of how autistic or Asperger's adults are like.

Like libertarian, privileged, far-right wing, spoiled, rich, lily-white, uniformly male. Even the stereotypes of our interests are tinged with privilege - like computer culture / Silicon Valley, which is coded as wealthy, instead of working class interests which the majority of us are into most likely. It's like in the public perception, women of color or poor people, who have to work hard aren't supposed to be autistic. Social problems that the media alleges result from autism, are suburban school shootings and bad Wall Street trades leading to the financial crash - which are coded as being done by privileged perps.

It's almost like the subtext is saying that autism results from being spoiled and privileged. That autism is a first world problem, the disability version of being a hipster. I'm really uncomfortable with this and not just because it ignores that women / minorities / profoundly affected / poor adults with autism exist, but because it's being coded with this idea of 1%ers during a down economy when the phrase 1% vs. 99% is very significant.

I'm really uncomfortable with this idea of autistic people being viewed as 1%ers, as expensive and privileged. And I don't know if this is a carefully crafted media image to throw autistics under the bus. There seems to be a bit of a parallel here with the middleman minority trope, such as the Korean Americans of California in the 1980s or Jewish people in old Europe. That "look, these people might seem discriminated, but in actuality they're doing much better than you. So let's build resentment between different groups."

Which resulted, in the widespread oppression of Jewish people in old Europe, as well as the media pitting Black and Asian communities against each other in California in the '90s. Anyone here with me? I don't know who autistics are being pitted against, but the effect is to drive mass opinion against us by saying look, this minority group is doing much better. And in a down economy, it can lead to scapegoating and widespread discrimination while the authorities look the other way.

Or am I just being paranoid? Your thoughts, please.


i think it could be the opposite - minorities are being discouraged from seeking benefits they (imo) deserve because they "couldn't" have the "potentially useful for making money (for the) white man disease" because it doesn't present in that way. it does seem to me that minorities get blamed for so called moral problems to a greater degree.

but then again i'm also of the opinion that stuff like adhd is also at least partially on the spectrum and again it's less linked to money making potential and more things like music, physical labor jobs, handy people, crafts workers, cleaners, data entry and so on.

so the reason i suspect you don't see a lot of media representations is how often do you hear about people that don't work glamorous jobs? aren't white? and aren't male? pretty under represented as a whole. and then if you are any of these things you might not want to make it about your autism, which it probably would become if it was known.

and rich white men are in the safest position to admit to having autism too because they have job security. and then they are held up as an example of what "anyone" should be able to do unfortunately.



seanblack
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28 May 2014, 8:00 am

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
If anything, the number of aspies with rich parents is proportionate to the number of NTs with rich parents. This is saying nothing about aspies or NTs who live on their own and support themselves, because when you get to that point there's a huge disparity between the number of NTs and aspies who are merely employed, let alone rich or poor.


exactly.



seanblack
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28 May 2014, 8:03 am

o0iella wrote:
I think a lot of Silicon Valley types are held up as positive examples for the community. This means that in the public eye, people are on the spectrum are either rich white computer nerds that live in Silicon Valley, or completely incapable and incommunicative. People don't seem to see anything in between.


Yeah i think the common folk who don't know much about autism tend to think aspies and auties are really stupid or really smart, depending on the person, who themselves could be really dumb or really stupid.



Here
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21 Jul 2014, 3:05 pm

seanblack wrote:
o0iella wrote:
I think a lot of Silicon Valley types are held up as positive examples for the community. This means that in the public eye, people are on the spectrum are either rich white computer nerds that live in Silicon Valley, or completely incapable and incommunicative. People don't seem to see anything in between.


Yeah i think the common folk who don't know much about autism tend to think aspies and auties are really stupid or really smart, depending on the person, who themselves could be really dumb or really stupid.


Let's not become overly concerned with the prejudices, and ignorance (in my experience, it's mainly ignorance) of neurotypicals (NTs).

From personal experience, Aspergers can be "that never-never land of sorts - of not being disabled enough, yet, not being able enough." Many NTs can also see 'High Functioning Autism' as that "never-never land of sorts...." and naturally choose to remain ignorant. Over the last couple of years, Aspergers has received slight (mostly thoughtful) mentions in popular culture; which is "better than nothing" in raising awareness.



Jaden
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22 Jul 2014, 3:20 am

@OP:
I don't know why people think those with AS/Autism are remotely better off financially. I came from a family that was so poor that we couldn't even afford christmas gifts one year (yeah, that bad). To this day, I still have to live off of less than $20,000/yr because my issues keep me from holding down a stable job. The assertion that those of us on the spectrum are only this way due to being 'privileged' is so far off the mark that I don't even know how anyone could believe it (society is f'ing stupid).


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brackets
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22 Jul 2014, 5:11 am

The problem is partially that most of the research done on ASDs is done on cishet white males. This means that the diagnostic criteria favour those kinds of people. This means that the stereotype is that only that kind of person can have autism.

The second part of the problem is that to get an official diagnosis you have to have the money to see a psychologist/psychiatrist/whoever and get the testing done, which means that people who are lower-class and/or don't have insurance would have a harder time getting diagnosed in the first place. (This is why I'm usually willing to believe people who have self-diagnosed, because there's a decent chance they can't afford to get tested.)

And of course, cishet white men are more likely to be better off, which means they can afford the testing, which means that everything kind of goes in a circle.



eloralouistra
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22 Jul 2014, 7:40 pm

Yes, I think that we're likely to be stereotyped as straight cis middle class white men, but then that's because they're seen as the "default" of a person. And for some reason, people find it hard to imagine someone who isn't several of those things. (I once saw a tumblr post say people imagine not being straight, white male etc like "spending character points" in a game.) So someone who's autistic but also a woman of colour or whatever is almost impossible for them to comprehend. :roll: So that's an issue with society in general, but the fact that so little attention is paid to neauroatypicals and we're not really represented anywhere makes it even worse. I don't remember hearing the spoiled rich kid stereotype before, but I wouldn't be surprised if it exists.



Agrestic
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23 Jul 2014, 8:27 pm

Widget wrote:
Maybe it's related to anti-Intellectualism and the elitist connotations that come with it.

from Yahoo Answers:

"
What exactly is Asperger's aside from being a shy, introverted, insecure young intellectual?
My point is: (a) its very existence as a diagnostic entity seems to reflect not a concrete, discrete disease but a societal bias against loners, passive men, and a general anti-intellectualism.

(b) While you can point to "harder" symptoms such as "stimming" and sensory issues, about 60% of the symptoms seem to be little more than unpopular personality traits.

(c) It seems nearly all its sufferers are white, upper middle class males, introducing the possibility that some of what we call "Asperger's" is actually behaviors learned from particular subcultures, such as the white, suburban, professional culture in America. You rarely see any black or Hispanic "Aspies" which makes me think that their cultural values generally prevent their kids from becoming nerds and sissies."


Yahoo Answers is the public cesspool of the Internet. Take a look at some additional samples of general Yahoo ineptitude here: http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/photos/2 ... -questions.

It is rather unfortunate that this particular answerer feels this way about a legitimate condition. However, I think it points to the larger elephant in the room- mental health in general. A lot of folks don't understand conditions that they can't see on your physical person. I mean, I'm willing to concede that I'm by no means a mental health professional. There's a lot of people out there who don't think it's an issue, or that a mental health issue is less serious than a physical one.



the-comander
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25 Jul 2014, 9:29 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Widget wrote:
Maybe via nerdiness it's related to anti-Intellectualism and the elitist connotations that come with it.

http://files.combinatori.at/univie/ps_p ... elhart.pdf

And this from (all places) Yahoo Answers:

"
What exactly is Asperger's aside from being a shy, introverted, insecure young intellectual?
My point is: (a) its very existence as a diagnostic entity seems to reflect not a concrete, discrete disease but a societal bias against loners, passive men, and a general anti-intellectualism.

(b) While you can point to "harder" symptoms such as "stimming" and sensory issues, about 60% of the symptoms seem to be little more than unpopular personality traits.

(c) It seems nearly all its sufferers are white, upper middle class males, introducing the possibility that some of what we call "Asperger's" is actually behaviors learned from particular subcultures, such as the white, suburban, professional culture in America. You rarely see any black or Hispanic "Aspies" which makes me think that their cultural values generally prevent their kids from becoming nerds and sissies."


I see non-white aspies all the time at my support group meetings

The paper did not delve into the beautiful women scientists/investigators that are the norm in procedurals. While sexually active relationships goes poorly for these characters. I do agree with the comparison between freak shows and nerds on TV. Although to be fair nerds are not stereotyped anymore then other groups on TV

i think who gets diagnosed may have to do with cultural values and economics.



the-comander
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25 Jul 2014, 9:55 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Widget wrote:
Maybe via nerdiness it's related to anti-Intellectualism and the elitist connotations that come with it.

http://files.combinatori.at/univie/ps_p ... elhart.pdf

And this from (all places) Yahoo Answers:

"
What exactly is Asperger's aside from being a shy, introverted, insecure young intellectual?
My point is: (a) its very existence as a diagnostic entity seems to reflect not a concrete, discrete disease but a societal bias against loners, passive men, and a general anti-intellectualism.

(b) While you can point to "harder" symptoms such as "stimming" and sensory issues, about 60% of the symptoms seem to be little more than unpopular personality traits.

(c) It seems nearly all its sufferers are white, upper middle class males, introducing the possibility that some of what we call "Asperger's" is actually behaviors learned from particular subcultures, such as the white, suburban, professional culture in America. You rarely see any black or Hispanic "Aspies" which makes me think that their cultural values generally prevent their kids from becoming nerds and sissies."


I see non-white aspies all the time at my support group meetings

The paper did not delve into the beautiful women scientists/investigators that are the norm in procedurals. While sexually active relationships goes poorly for these characters. I do agree with the comparison between freak shows and nerds on TV. Although to be fair nerds are not stereotyped anymore then other groups on TV

i think that there is a pressure for guys to be hyper masculine and girls to be objects or some way of proving yourself. i think that this also applies more strongly to some groups then others.