I was pointed to this blog post by a friend, and it resonated deeply with me because I have a lot of friends inhabiting the fringes of society. There is a difference between people like my friends and the people spoken of in this blog post, though.
Let's look at how they are different.
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"Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there's a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings. But it's okay because we all just remember to jump over it."
Some people are like that missing stair.
This resonated with me because I have friends with varying degrees of the autism spectrum, and geek/nerd friends who aren't mainstream sociable, and friends with varying disabilities. All of us, to some degree, are that missing step and our friends, they know about it and remember to incorporate its presence in our lives so much so that until an outsider trips or falls, it's invisible to us.
We know where the broken step is, and we've put up lights and set hand grips or guards, so while the step itself remains broken and unfixable (to use the blogger's image), we've done the best we can and work around it with minimal fuss.
We generally don't need "fixing", and that missing step, for some of us, will always be there. We're kind of comfortable with it and it makes us happy that our friends remember it's there and jump over it so matter-of-factly. Sometimes, we forget we are a missing step, they leap so smoothly. And we leap with them for those of our friends who have different steps missing. It's a real slalom course at times, but we navigate it so smoothly it hardly slows us down.
This is the good side to the missing step syndrome. It helps to know that missing step is there and that we've done all we can to make it easier for the "missing step" and those around it to carry on.
But there's a bad side to this missing step syndrome, as the blogger I linked to points out: the broken step syndrome.
What if the missing stair everyone is jumping over and not seeing is an abuser, a sexual harasser, a person with a mean temper, an asshole for whom you are constantly apologizing behind his/her back, someone you have to routinely walk on eggshells around or you'll "set them off", someone who slacks off so you have to work around them and do their job in order to get yours done? What if the person being accommodated and sheltered and "worked around" is worse even than that?
The blogger used a rapist as an example: everyone in the community took care to make sure the problem person was taken care of - that s/he had a babysitter at parties and group functions, and people generally made sure newcomers were aware of this person's past and current behavior issues. Essentially, they were protecting a bad person at the expense of the entire community.
I'm guessing the blogger's example was from a church; this is where I've most often seen this sort of behavior in groups where there are group parties and functions, although remove the "parties" and it could just as easily be a workplace or a school.
The blogger suggests that, instead of working around the person and the issue, the community consider fixing it. In the case of the bad side, this means talking bluntly to the person everyone's been "working around", giving them specific rules to follow, or letting them know they need to control their own behavior or they'll face the consequences of that behavior. No more making excuses for assholes and unrepentant criminals, sheltering them, and accommodating them, and no more victim-blaming.
When you jump over a broken step in the dark, with no guard rails or hand holds, and "work around" the issue and ignore it to the best of your ability, you're sending the message that it's OK to be an asshole and any damage incurred is the fault of the person who didn't do the work-arounds well enough - victim blaming.
As the blogger said,
I know not all these people can be fixed, and sometimes they can't be escaped either. But the least you can do is recognize them, and that they are the problem. Stop thinking that your inability to accommodate them is the problem.
If the response is "It's just the way things are" and people are either discouraged from questioning it or don't bother to question it, then they are jumping over broken steps that could be fixed.
I want to repeat the last sentence:
Stop thinking that your inability to accommodate them is the problem.
That's victim thinking. If the problem is someone being an asshole, or being rude, or a bully, or a rapist, or an abuser, and you're thinking it's your fault because you aren't accommodating them well enough, that's the broken step that needs fixing. These people need to be called on their behavior, talked to, maybe helped to get fixed. Certainly they need to learn there are consequences for behaving as they do.
We need to stop accommodating the assholes, bullies, rapists, abusers, and so on. We need to fix those bad broken steps one way or another. Unlike many of the people in my various communities, those are the people that can be fixed, one way or another. Sometimes the fix is just pointing out to them how they are the broken step. Sometimes it's getting out the tools: classes and counseling, rules, reparations, education. And sometimes, it means getting rid of the step and rebuilding the stairs so there isn't a broken step anymore.
Mind you, there are still assholes, bullies, abusers, rapists, and so on in the communities I live among. Being a nerd or a geek or disabled doesn't absolve you of being human. If you've gone from being a missing step we need to accommodate to being a broken step, well, we'll just need to fix that, won't we?
TOP COMMENTS
June 25, 2012
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when you find that proficient comment.
From vcmvo2:
Dr. Erich Bloodaxe RN To those who voted 'No', the juvenile brain (up until the early 20s) is still undergoing dramatic developmental changes, as are their endocrine systems, with wild hormonal changes. It truly is unfair to claim that these children are the same people that they'll be even a decade later in life, and they simply shouldn't be treated as we would fully-developed adults. We wouldn't necessarily call them 'insane' or 'incompetent', but they simply don't have the full capacity to judge their actions as regular adults do, which is why so many adults look back upon their actions and teens and shake their heads in amazement at the things they did, the people they were.
This comment was added to the diary "No Life w/o parole for juveniles" by GoGoGoEverton
I just wanted to make sure more people see the perfect underpinnings of anatomy & Physiology in that comment.
From edcnyc:
In a reply to my funny photo, the serious phrase "lifelong unpaid labor" that ended: This is what the pro-lifers should be doing by Sirenus, opened my eyes to a new way of viewing the pro life movement.
From BornAgainLiberal:
Articulate discussion of hypothetical appropriate response from Penn State--with Gandalf reference!
From me:
Dartagnon made a logical fallacy funny, but then the diarist changed the title and the fallacy went away. It was funny while it lasted. You had to be there.
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TOP PHOTOS
June 24, 2012
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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