astr-hal

thank you cohost

  • he/him but anything works honestly

21 🇵🇭 🇹🇼 bi tme transmasc
i like drawing ocs

18+


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NireBryce
@NireBryce

(or you have problems with 'social norms' which is the other excuse I've seen.)

I though this was obvious but like, yr neurodivergence isn't an excuse for doubling down on something once someone points out it's kinda racist (or any of your other bigotries). that's a thing you should have been working on for decades -- deferred maintenance on your part.

sure, while you're getting there you might fuck up from time to time, but that's for you to own, not for you to throw up your hands and go 'oh this was inevitable woe is all'.

same with RSD -- it is not other people's problem that you had a reaction that made you push into them, it's a thing you have to actually work on instead of shrugging your arms and saying it's inevitable. People will get that you're trying to change and learn, but I've seen RSD in general, across multiple platforms, used as excuses for like, tearing into people for pointing out yr racist and that's like... you're still being racist, and you're still being an asshole at best even if there might, somehow, be nuance that's relevant.

the thing about actions and words is you have to actually do both of them but a whole lot of people have this wild-ass learned helplessness that's like, basically a billboard saying fixing the bigotries and ignorance you hold is a lower priority than like, hanging out with friends. A priority that has been held low for over a decade at this point.

apologize and actually change when people point things out instead of escalating out of defensiveness-adrenaline-shame-whatever that white people who haven't worked on it get when people point out something. It's easier for everyone, and also like... don't tell me you don't have the skills or knowledge to figure this out, I've seen people who otherwise devour game wikis or who can recite rocketry wikipedia from memory whine about how hard it is to learn and change.

and while we're at it, touch less grass. It's clearly not helping.

If you think this post is about you: it totally is.


numberonebug
@numberonebug

The framing I've heard for this kind of idea is basically "this isn't your fault but it is your responsibility"


pieartsy
@pieartsy

An essay I wrote in 2020

A sincere guide by me, marginalized neurodivergent person.

Oh no! You were trying to ask a genuine question of someone, or sincerely compliment them, or ask for clarification on something confusing, or simply making a statement, and they told you that you were being bigoted!

They may be wondering how you missed such an obvious fact, why you ignored such blatant signs that it was shitty to say, why you thought it was ok to say such a thing, or what the heck is wrong with you. Or maybe you're worried that they're thinking that.

But you missed the obvious fact because you don't pick up on things as fast as others do, or have a poor memory! Or you weren't ignoring signs, you just have trouble reading tone over text, or body language! Or you didn't actually think it was ok, but your mouth moved faster than your brain because of your poor impulse control, or activated state, or what have you! There's nothing wrong with you because of that, you're just neurodivergent!

What do you do? Oftentimes scripts for these situations are genuinely hard, and being told the same generic advice as neurotypical people can have you feeling lost or ignored.

Here's my take:

DO:

  • Apologize. You may not think you did anything wrong, or that they misunderstood your intent, but impact means more than intent in cases where people say they're hurt. Especially if you have difficulties in regards to perception, such as reading tone of voice or facial expressions, your perception of events is likely very different to theirs, and as they're the hurt party, their perception should be respected.

cohostminorityfeed
@cohostminorityfeed
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in reply to @NireBryce's post:

i'm thinking about the summer of 2020 when a prominent leftist furry twitterer sicced their following on an indigenous artist because the indigenous artist was like "it is not okay to describe an ad for converse shoes that had furries in it as cultural appropriaton as someone who has gone througn life affected by it for real" and they just would not back down and eventually blamed autism

they set this person's career back and lost them a few opportunities over it, like they were going to be in a furry media thing (a documentary i think?)

it drove moo mad because i tried to say some of this stuff to them as an autism when they blamed their behavior on it, after the damage was done and they were on damage control

there was a weird negative overreaction when bland, benign Codes of Conduct became a common practice for contributing to software projects, i half suspected at the time it was people not wanting to no longer be able to say they didn't know what the expected social norms were

in reply to @numberonebug's post:

I know you don't mean it full-throatedly, but the fault is on them when it gets this far, but even before that. There's so many counterexamples of people with every possible combination of ND stuff and background having worked on it.

it's the whole "your rights end at your fist before it hits my face" thing. The first time is like, sure, they might not have known. the nth time, in their 20s?

if they're lashing out for people calling them racist for being racist, and then doubling down when people point it out, that's on them. It's deferred maintenance with 'hanging out with friends' and 'playing video games' instead of realizing that like, even with things that may have them have stronger reactions or misread a sitch, they were racist and do need to work on it, instead of like. tearing into people.

there's this weird thing I see that's the opposite though, that the OP is partially about, where some ND people on my timelines are, not infrequently, basically acting as if they can't have free will because of their neurodivergence, just, in more words.

I hear that, thank you. That was just a pithy phase that was invaluable at helping me to stop using my mental illness as a hall pass for harmful behavior so I thought it might be a helpful addition.

I am confused because we are agreeing with one another, I am saying that if people want to blame harmful behavior on illness or neurotype then that does not absolve them of guilt but rather indicates a responsibility they have to put the work into mitigating those issues or symptoms. Someone can't just say "well I have bipolar disorder so I act impulsively" and call it a day. It's on them to do the work. That seems to be what your message is too.

"this isn't your fault but it is your responsibility" 100%. you don't control your emotions, but you can choose the way you interact with the people around you. i (turing) Literally have npd, and that can make accepting criticism Legitimately difficult. but it's something i have to at least Outwardly be able to do so that people feel comfortable discussing their boundaries with me. i can untangle my internal reaction in private

yeah, I guess what I meant with my original critique in this post's comments is that a lot of people seem to parse "not your fault but your responsibility" as:

(the general "you", I'm not talking about you here to be clear)

"[your racist actions caused by not working on this, that happened partially because of your ND] aren't your fault"

instead of "you doing this actually is on you because of the deferred maintenance, and the reactivity is something you need to account for in yourself when dealing with others, but the base ND part isn't your fault"

with "this" being the defensive escallations etc described above that cause people to memory hole it instead of working on it.

in reply to @pieartsy's post:

I agree with the sentiment of this comment.

Except for this bit here.

you have demonstrated that you have failed as a person and need to spend the rest of your life atoning for that.

This isn't a very helpful mindset for anyone to be in. It both makes people afraid to make a single mistake about anything ever, and also perpetuates the unhealthy culture of zero-tolerance/one strike cancellation. We want people to be able grow and learn from their mistakes.

I don't remember the first paragraph, but the second one (that I quoted part of) was something like "don't forgive yourself until the community deems you forgivable. You have to atone for being a failure of a person for the rest of your life"