I joked before about having a slower processing speed because I’m trying to translate my words into a neurotypical format. While this may take extra time, the real reason is that I don’t form the same neurological shortcuts when examining new situations which is why I process slower and need to clarify a lot more things that others just naturally understand. I ask questions because I don’t take our ability to extrapolate information from indirect communication for granted like neurotypicals might. In neurotypical culture, the idea of “questioning someone” usually implies doubt as if questions are only asked when you don’t believe what they are trying to say. However, autistic people are the kryptonite to this allistic superpower which can fall apart when communicating with an autistic person who might not communicate in the same way. This is where the tendency to ask questions will come in handy for you as much as it does for me. I mentioned in the last post that I can leave statements open in hopes that someone will ask a question and start a conversation but, alas, that doesn’t always work because there are some who would rather assume what I mean rather than ask a clarifying question. Ableism, much like other forms of prejudice, is, at heart, an assumption. It can be an assumption of maliciousness, ignorance, ineptitude, lack of morality, or general inferiority. In my experience, ableism against autistic people is often an assumption of ignorance, that, based on what the allistic person has observed in regards to the autistic person’s personality, operates under the belief that the autistic person is less experienced, less knowledgeable, and less capable of intellectual discussion than the allistic person. We are so rarely given the benefit of the doubt that I almost named this post “benefit of the doubt” because it’s such an allistic phrase. Even if someone says they’re providing the benefit of the doubt, that tends to only be in reference to maliciousness but not intelligence. Someone can be an expert on a subject and word something absolutely perfectly and it can still come across wrong because the other person jumps at the first grammatical mistake or even mistakes one word for another and enters into the conversation with the expectation of correcting and lecturing rather than listening and understanding. Much like other prejudices, it is necessary to listen to the marginalized experience and believe them when they say you’re not understanding their marginalization or pain that they’re trying to explain to you. Too often, autistic people are left out of that because people will listen to a queer person about heterosexism or a woman or nonbinary person about sexism but when it comes to autistic people with ableism, that bias that tells them that the autistic person is not as experienced or intelligent as they are prevents them from fully listening to understand.
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