Why Hate Difference?

This is a question Ive spent alot of time exploring. I wont say that it hasnt been more difficult to understand such things when I was really hurt. However, my experience has taught me alot about this since when I began exploring the subject (which BTW must have been the day I was born).

Choosing to dominate a person because of your advantage....Yes, people are going to do that. Its not a wise choice but its going to happen.

Catagories and labels for people for convenience sake....Again, its going to happen. However, why hate difference?

I think that people have difficulty when they dont feel they have alot of understanding about how they feel about something or someone.

Exploring something or someone new is difficult for some people. Indecision can lead to doubt and doubt can lead to negative emotions. Unfortunately, joy isnt something they have alot of practice at so they choose the emotions that are convenient and comfortable to them. They make quick decisions that they feel will protect and preserve them rather than wise decisions that will make them and everyone around them happier as well as making the world a better place.

For those who are brave and patient enough to find the joy in exploring....for those who will seek better ways of responding to difference and practice the positive emotions that result....there are answers. Better still, there is comfort in the journey toward seeking answers.

Valuable Records

I tried to record
Every important event
I tried to hold on to all my thoughts
As each one came and went

My values were so established
And held firmly in my brain
But there was so many new things to see....
Must change require pain?

Somewhere along my path
I began to try fewer things
I lost sight of the moments that couldnt be recorded
And the joy that each one brings

WAKE UP! I yelled to myself
As I noticed it was getting late
There is so much new for me to see
and I 've got better things to do with my time than sit here and come up with a word that rhymes with late.... fate, rate, create, wait....

My Place

I am required to appreciate what I have
As if somehow I did not
The comparisons that others define me by
Remind me that I have alot

I own my thoughts
Though Im expected to stay quiet
Courage is seen as never anti-social
And society defines me as too poor to riot

Each day is mine
To do with what I will
I trade using what I feel I can afford
and for the air I breathe, I receive a bill

I must remember my place
And remember it isnt mine at all
Views that are seen as valid
Must be coming from people who can afford to fall

Isolation

When you identify a type of learning style in someone and then create the environment that will best help them learn, its good. If you take that person out of an environment where others are seen as having learning problems that are catagorized by "junk labels" or where other people are seen as retarded (or where they whisper the term MR) these 3 harms may be done.

1. The students who remain get sent a message about values that devalues them.
2. The student who moves forward (so to speak) sees a value system that can ultimately only serve them until they themself get left back somewhere else later on. How they valued the others when they were left back is how they will value themself when it happens to them.
3. All of society ultimately suffers as everyone who supports such programs, as well as every student in it, has the potential of taking the values that are taught here and applying them to other situations.

If instead you dont identify people as being different and encourage that difference (which includes the acceptance of how they may appear weak by standards that glorify the current standards of strength) you create temporary inclusion that will again ultimately exclude....EVERYONE! (Claiming you are expecting universal standards and saying that you just dont want to patronize people may have nothing to do with lifting someone one else up. It may just be another exclusionary method that provides the person imposing the standards a fleeting and false sense of empowerment.)

Also in and of itself the autism label may not include the need for medical treatments. People with autism do get sick and need medical treatment, but calling autism a medical problem and allowing for people to treat that label has caused terrible treatments as well as abortions. Isolate what needs to be treated. Isolating and identifying the autistic gene will only be used to eliminate the autistic with it.

Autistics can have the same difficulties that psych patients have and there cant and wont be special treatments for autistics without identifying EVERYONES differences and specific needs. Ive known many people who have been terribly hurt by the psychiatric system whose main purpose of existence seems to be to serve and protect the public from the psych patient (whether there is any evidence that the public needs to be protected from someone or not). I dont see how such a screwed up system can be fixed until alot of peoples attitudes about such things change. However....

However, too often liberation for some comes at the cost of oppression for others. This ultimately serves no one and isolates everyone to one degree or another. The attitude needs to be either we all move forward together or we all stay where we are.

Why Might Some People Act the Way they Do?

This is a post about why some individuals may act the way they do. Im saying maybe, possibly, a reasonable guess, and some individuals; all in an effort to qualify as someone who can make reasonable guesses within such wide boundaries. As someone who believes very strongly in the things that Im advocating for, Im learning to be more responsible in how I do that....And where am I learning that? From people who are the kind of advocates that I want to become, of course.

Now I never learned much of anything from being blamed. Not that blame doesnt have its place, its just that blame was always taught to me in the context of shame. And shame just teaches me what I cant do. It never does much for helping me understand what I can.

When an autistic kid went to school years ago and was labeled a geek with high intellectual abilities, they may not have had their unconventional behavior seen as simply a neurodiversity that could be accepted and included, just another variation. They may not have even taken a class in neurodiversity.

When an autistic kid went to school years ago and was labeled as mentally retarded, they may not have had a teacher who knew how to encourage confidence and self esteem in them. There may have even been a hierarchy within these classrooms that supported the idea that each kids' worth was directly related to how conventional they acted and how much they achieved scholastically. This may have ultimately created heirachial views in alot of students that in turn lead some of them to view each other based on how conventional they acted or how much they achieved within conventional standards. Many may have been taught to take their place in society.... a society where these values are reinforced again and again.

Some autistics may have even been raised by autistics (who were born neurologically different....that is important to remember when discussing these things in such a context), had been taught to be ashamed of who they were and knew not much more than the kind of teaching that would pass this shame on. Some parents may have been diverse in any number of ways and maybe....

The idea that autistics are the way they are because of refrigerator mothers or fathers doesnt seem like it would ultimately encourage parents.(Its been proven to be wrong.) Then when kids (or adults) are blamed for pathological problems that society treats with dangerous behavioral treatments and drugs....What is solved by that?

If instead autism is seen as being a disease and even an epidemic (which it is neither of) that must be subjected to whatever it takes to get autistics up to speed or to act as conventional as possible at all cost.... and the shame of looking at autism this way ultimately prevents more autistics from being born....what is the ultimate cost to our society that must include diversity to survive?

Responsibility? Im learning alot more about responsiblity these days. Mainly Im learning it on the internet from other responsible autism advocates who also learned alot from other autism advocates that are learning more about responsibility, etc.

To those who I am learning so much from and are so encouraging to me, I sincerely thank you for all that you are doing to encourage and teach us all.