What is prejudice…and what ain’t
April 28th, 2008Autistic people face tremendous prejudice in the world. We might not be hired by an employer, simply because we disclose we are autistic. We are bullied in school. We have to fight for our right to eat, if we dare negotiate the world of social services (our other option is often starvation). We are subject to forced, involuntary confinement – and a world that understands that, “of course”, locking more people up in institutions is a good thing (and refuses to understand that there are other ways of meeting the needs of people and society). We aren’t believed when we tell others about our problems. We are even sometimes murdered, simply for the crime of being different.
So, I don’t mean to dismiss these things – they are real examples of prejudice in the world, and these are some of the main things we must fight against. Any reader of this blog knows I talk about them all the time.
But we also need to be careful. Sometimes an autistic doesn’t get something they want not because of prejudice towards autistics (or disabled people) but for another reason. Sure, it still might not be a good reason, but that doesn’t make it prejudice automatically, either.
I’ll give some hypothetical examples, based on things I’ve seen in real life.
We’ll call a man Mr. Aspie. Mr. Aspie is 24 years old, and just recently received a degree in Computer Science from the university. He did well in his academic studies, and participated in a couple open source software projects over the internet, adding useful blocks of code to the projects. Now, having graduated, he is looking for a job, and applies where I work, for a programmer position. The position asks for several years of work experience.
Chances are, I wouldn’t consider Mr. Aspie – he probably doesn’t have the experience I’m looking for in this position. Sure, he has some volunteer, open-source experience, and I value that greatly. But at the end of the day, I am probably looking for corporate experience. Is that good or bad? Well, it could be either. But the reality is that when I don’t hire him, it isn’t that he is an autistic. I wouldn’t have hired a neurotypical with identical experience, either. It has nothing to do with his social skills, his eye contact, or his perseverations. It’s not a sensory issue. In fact, it’s nothing to do with anything related to autism – it is simply that his resume doesn’t include the things I’m wanting on it.
Yet, I can see frustration and anger when Mr. Aspie finds he didn’t receive the position. In fact, many people – neurotypical and autistic – are upset when they don’t get a job. But having a protected disability doesn’t guarantee employment anymore than being neurotypical does. And there just may be reasons other than prjeudice for my choice.
The problem is that autistic people face prejudice in many, many areas of their lives. Like others that experience tons of prejudice, we begin to assume that outcomes we don’t like are always a result of the prejudices we fight all too often. 95% of the time prejudice is the cause, so we start assuming that “almost always” and “always” are the same thing – so we treat 100% of bad outcomes as if they are caused by prejudice.
Unfortunately, that 5% of the time is a different cause. And when we assume it is prejudice, and respond as if it is prejudice, we harm ourselves the other 95% of the time. We turn people who held no prejudice against us into people who are now seen by us as the enemy – and that causes them to have at least some sympathy for the other people we claim are prejudiced against us, the ones that truly are. We lose the 5% (and many others) as allies when we wrongly accuse people of prejudice.
We need to tred softly in determining the motivations for other people’s behavior so long as another possibility exists, and also recognize that there are often motivations that we may not have even considered as a possibility. Yes, much, even most, of the time it may actually be prejudice. But before we label it as such, we should be sure. We can’t afford to lose the battle against true prejudice.
Joel, does this apply to other groups as well who have suffered under historical discrimination such as black people? In other words, when institutions are set up and have historically discriminated against groups of people, does society have an obligation to future generations of those people to give them an “extra” chance? Or do we assume that because someone who is autistic has equal opportunities to succeed as neurotypical people?
I don’t believe I was arguing on either side of the affirmative action debate. That’s a separate issue.
I realize this is beside the point, but contributing to open source projects demonstrates a kind of initiative that you probably won’t find in most coders with corporate experience. I’d prefer someone who has founded open source projects, but still.
IF you did not ask Mr. Aspie why he had no corporate experience, you may have contributed to the prejudice. If he had told you he had been interviewed many times but never got past the first interview along with you appraisal of the conversation, you may understand why his resume is blank.
Just food for thought.
“Chances are, I wouldn’t consider Mr. Aspie – he probably doesn’t have the experience I’m looking for in this position. Sure, he has some volunteer, open-source experience, and I value that greatly. But at the end of the day, I am probably looking for corporate experience. Is that good or bad? Well, it could be either. But the reality is that when I don’t hire him, it isn’t that he is an autistic. I wouldn’t have hired a neurotypical with identical experience, either. It has nothing to do with his social skills, his eye contact, or his perseverations. It’s not a sensory issue. In fact, it’s nothing to do with anything related to autism – it is simply that his resume doesn’t include the things I’m wanting on it.”
Joel, this is why there is a need for things like affirmative action, which should be applied to autistics as well (and why I brought it up). Employers shouldn’t presume a level playing field when looking at applicants. I’ve hired lots of folks. I don’t always hire based on where the “applicant” is but how they got there and what types of obstacles did they overcome and can they be successful, even though they came to the interview without the typical “background” of everyone else.
“Joel, this is why there is a need for things like affirmative action, which should be applied to autistics as well (and why I brought it up). Employers shouldn’t presume a level playing field when looking at applicants. I’ve hired lots of folks. I don’t always hire based on where the “applicant” is but how they got there and what types of obstacles did they overcome and can they be successful, even though they came to the interview without the typical “background” of everyone else.”
That’s as may be, but not doing that is not being prejudiced. That would be attempting to compensate for other people’s prejudice. Either that, or you feel having overcome hurdles makes them more qualified, like this one LD surgeon was told when he was hired right after graduating (they felt that because he’d struggled so much, he’d have more empathy for the struggles of his patients, especially since he was a neurosurgeon).
The problem i have when looking for work is that almost EVERY job advert in many areas of work says experience required”. Which leads me to the question which seems unanswerable to me (maybe i am missing something that most NTs would get?) – how does someone get their first job in that area? If *every* job advert requires experience… where do you start getting that experience, if you need to already have it to get it? It reminds me of a lot of social services type stuff, where disability-related needs are assessed on a basis of “you need to be already able to do X for us to assist you with it”.
The only conclusion I can come to is that most NTs lie about their “experience” in their first job interview, and that this is considered (by all parties) to be “acceptable” as long as the lying isn’t *too* blatant. As an Aspie who CANNOT lie convincingly (hell, i often even can’t tell the truth convincingly – i am very often assumed by NTs to be lying simply because my facial expressions aren’t “normal”, when i am actually trying my very hardest to be as truthful and accurate as possible), if this theory is true then I am therefore at a disadvantage because I lack that privilege.
I don’t actually know if this theory is true, however – it’s just the only thing i can think of…
shiva – although some may lie at interviews early in their career (though we shouldn’t conclude that it is only NTs), there may be another explanation. Many employers advertise their *ideal* requirements but will settle for less if they have to, or are convinced to. I’ve been hired more than once with no degree and little experience even though the advert I responded to “required” both. I didn’t lie in the interview, I just made the case for what I could offer in other ways. Honesty, in fact, is much more effective. In Joel’s example, if the employer gets no other applicants, he may be willing to give Mr. No-Corporate-Experience a try. The point I’m trying to make is, don’t be discouraged by adverts or attitudes that might *appear* to exclude you – go for it anyway; fortune favors the bold; most of the time there’s nothing to lose and lots to be gained in terms of interviewing experience and becoming comfortable in the “employment environment”. One thing for certain is you’ll never get a job that you don’t apply for; that’s just you discriminating against yourself. If you see an advert that describes a job you *know* you can do, all you have to do is be honest with the employer about *why* you can do it, even though you don’t have the experience. Maybe negotiate on salary, take less money pending a probationary period – a chance to prove your value since they are taking a risk hiring you. Be creative, but be honest!
With some careers, you can also get experience by volunteering. Since they’re not paid, there are much less requirements for volunteers to have any credentials.
That’s one big thing I’ve been doing to get a job helping disabled children. Generally when volunteering with children the only credentials they ask for is a statement that you haven’t been convicted of any crimes.
I know a woman, self-diagnosed with Asperger’s, who’s convinced that she couldn’t get an engineering job in her youth because she wore the wrong color shoes. Her suit was blue and she wore black shoes with it, and she’s sure that’s why she never worked as an electrical engineer.
I’m skeptical.
“Corporate experience”?
Joel, have you actually USED most Proprietary (closed-source) corporate software? You’ve just confirmed that you’re “part of the problem” – not simply as relates to “autistics”, but in regard to “the real world” also. How did you do that? By blindly parroting the (false) dogma that “corporate” (proprietary and closed-source) coders are somehow “better” than their open-source brethren. So lemme bet this straight: something is by definition “better” if the person has been PAID for it?
Explain the shitty quality of most “corporate” manufacturing.
Explain the shitty quality of most “corporate” services.
And lastly, explain the vastly superior stability of ANY Linux distro as compared to Micro$oft “products”.
If proprietary, closed-source coders were “better” (in the way that you seem to be implying by “stacking the deck” in favor of THAT sort of “experience”), then Vista should be a masterpiece.
NT’s may be “weird”, but at least we’re not mindless corporate shills.
I never said whether or not “pay” software is better. I write open source software, and have also written commercial software. To be frank, most of both is garbage (Example: I had to modify my Linux distribution to put the route for ::/96 into the right place in the IPv6 stuff to allow 4to6 tunneling to work, due to a bug; Another example: Same OS had a bug when I tried to use > 4GB of RAM – the kernel mostly supported it, except for the SCSI driver I use which couldn’t cope).
I can say plenty of similar things about closed source applications (the free, but closed source, ones being among the worst – why should an IM client “take over” my computer the way MSN IM does?).
It’s not about what is “better”. It’s about what I would want if I worked in the corporate world – I’d want someone who had worked doing that type of coding, which you acknowledge as different. For reference, the coding I’ve done has, almost exclusively, been modifying open-source software for interanal company use (for instance, writing LAMP consoles for a custom accounting system). That coding is, for good or bad, different than the coding needed for writing kernel modifications (which I’ve also done – you’re using some of my code now if you are running Linux).
One hint about open source advocacy, though: Calling anyone who doesn’t use 100% open source software a “mindless corporate shill” is likely not going to encourage people to try open source. Insulting people doesn’t typically change their views.