Anyone who has ever been online has probably seen their share of online toxicity in the forms of trolls, racists, and narrow minded bigots. It is too be expected. Today when I woke up I checked my phone and saw that someone left a comment on my sensory processing disorder video saying that I had it all wrong. I immediately became annoyed because I spent a good deal of time researching that video, but then concerned because I’m human and I may have said something incorrect.
I went to my PC and pulled the comments to see if there was any more information to discover that this person left 4 comments on this video, and 2 of them got flagged by YouTube. The first one said something along the lines of “I have autism, you have it all wrong. go back to Africa”, followed by one that called me a “goat ****er”, another that called me gay, and then finally the one that said “You have got it all wrong”.
The 4th comment left me concerned… I was indifferent about the 3rd comment… But I was totally confused about the first 2 comments… Then I realized what shirt I was wearing. It was my coke shirt from Israel written in Arabic. A gift from a good friend of mine who went there for several months. Then I realized that all 4 comments came from that one persons prejudice towards people from the middle east, and seeing a shirt in Arabic turned them to be hateful towards me. I not longer felt worried or offended. Instead I felt concerned for society as a whole.
Incidents like this are very sad because people like that cause unnecessary division and many people take it to heart when they should simply ignore it. This person became angry with the thought of me being from the middle east even though I’m from the United States and my family came here from Spain 4 generations previous and my genetics are now a mix of Spanish, Irish, Welch, German, Native American and who knows what else. I’m a mutt, but that is beside the point because even if I was from the middle east it should not matter what my heritage, genetics, or sexuality are because we are all human. People should be judged by their character because its the only thing they can control and everything else was decided for them.
Furthermore this person claimed to have autism. I know this is one person, but I just want to put this out there because if there is one there is most likely more… If you want to be accepted (this is autism awareness month where we work towards acceptance after all…) you must learn to accept others as well. equality and understanding is a two way street. It cannot be obtained without effort from everyone.
AspieLife 