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How we stigmatise groups.
Suppose I said to you, "This is a questionnaire about people with blue eyes. Have you ever been attacked by someone with blue eyes?
Please list out all the ways you have been attacked..."/
Suppose I said to you, "This is a questionnaire about people with blue eyes. Have you ever been attacked by someone with blue eyes?
Please list out all the ways you have been attacked..."/
Have you been hit
Bitten
Grabbed
Kicked
Scratched?
Have you been shown how to use restraints with someone with blue eyes?/
Bitten
Grabbed
Kicked
Scratched?
Have you been shown how to use restraints with someone with blue eyes?/
"Thank you for completing this survey of your experiences of people with blue eyes">
That's how it's done.
That's one way that stigma happens.
People pick a group, & they start talking about them as if they are all Dangerous, in need of Locking Up.
And people start to fear them.
That's how it's done.
That's one way that stigma happens.
People pick a group, & they start talking about them as if they are all Dangerous, in need of Locking Up.
And people start to fear them.
What story do they tell, of people who aren't just like them?
How many ways do they lead you to hate, to fear, to want the person punished, removed, disadvantaged, made poor?
How many ways do they encourage you to think the person deserves whatever happens to them?/
How many ways do they lead you to hate, to fear, to want the person punished, removed, disadvantaged, made poor?
How many ways do they encourage you to think the person deserves whatever happens to them?/
I see it with our own lovely autistic people.
Survey after survey, book after book, paper after paper.
Each building on the fearmongering of the last.
And absolutely none of them talking about the fabulous, gentle, kind, empathetic people who form of the majority of our kind.
Survey after survey, book after book, paper after paper.
Each building on the fearmongering of the last.
And absolutely none of them talking about the fabulous, gentle, kind, empathetic people who form of the majority of our kind.
I start with respect.
With trust.
With safe-relationship-building.
With joy.
With cherishing what is important for that person.
And when we use that narrative, we find more and more good things happen.
With trust.
With safe-relationship-building.
With joy.
With cherishing what is important for that person.
And when we use that narrative, we find more and more good things happen.
Look at the story you tell.
Read it out, and think how it would sound if you applied it to any other group.
Your own children.
People from a different country to you.
People from a different street to you.
Does it start to sound like fearmongering?
Breathe, relax, learn love.
Read it out, and think how it would sound if you applied it to any other group.
Your own children.
People from a different country to you.
People from a different street to you.
Does it start to sound like fearmongering?
Breathe, relax, learn love.
