If you are thinking of leaving the forum ...

i have seen racism spouted here in the past. When i first became a member here this forum had about ten members who all agreed with each other.  All of them seemed to think that their right wing views were somehow aligned to and a part  their autism.  And that they were great intellects and only they were capable of seeing the truth.

I'm glad that those people are now being contested.   But i do wish they.would leave instead of trying to capture an Autism forum for their ideology.

Great post Peter, although I'm no quite sure what it is doing on this particular thread. It deserves to have it's own thread were we can discuss, debate, share, disagree, etc.

I'm no expert on what is going on in the Middle East right now. I have my perceived ideas, of which there may be a lot of ignorance (not prejudice) and am more than happy to be educated on. 

You know when I was a student in my local universe there was a Jewish society and an Islamic society. And every now and again the Islamic society would try to use the student union’s referendum system to pass a resolution condemning the ‘occupation’ of Israel. And the Jewish society would in response try to use the referendum system to pass a resolution condemning Islamic terrorism in Israel. At one point there were protests and counter protests facing each other outside of the student union building. This was over 10 years ago now. 

ANd of course the student union response was to bury their head in the sand and try to make it all go away. they tweaked the referendum system so that they could veto these referendums before they got started. They clampdown on any kind of controversial public speaking by these particular societies. Now look outside your window and what do we have. Extremists marching down the streets praising terrorist groups in the name of freeing Palestine. And to be evenhanded a disturbing lack of criticism of Israeli military policy. Suppressing debate normalises  extremist views within cliques until some dramatic event brings it to the for and suddenly you realise but there are quite a lot of extremists because they’ve never had their views challenged in public debate. Because our approach to controversy has been to try and sideline it rather than addressing it.

T said:

To see that kind of thing posted without being removed is enough of a punch in the stomach; to see the rest of this new community not even challenging it would be horrifying. 

Yes, I agree, and this particular circumstance, along with the others you mention, I remember well.

GPK26 said:

If you are insinuating that someone has been racist when they clearly have not been, then that is also a serious legal matter.

Please tell me @Tris, are you saying that I have posted racist content on here? Do you think that people (me?) have been openly prejudiced against who you are?

Do I really need to pursue a cease and desist order against you?

Why on earth have you turned this around to be about you, as you do so often?

T said:

FYI, I specifically picked racism because it's been a while since I've seen overt racism here and thought it would be less confrontational as I would clearly not be referring to anything you've said. 

Just so you are aware, I've been following GPK26's comments that have been directed at you.

They are unfair and inflammatory and I know that everything you have said has taken place on this forum, has.

FYI, I specifically picked racism because it's been a while since I've seen overt racism here and thought it would be less confrontational as I would clearly not be referring to anything you've said. 

GPK26 said:

Do I really need to pursue a cease and desist order against you?

Could you please stop this.

It's absolutely unnecessary.

You have several times turned others' comments around (as you are doing here) and then attacked them for it.

T is quite correct.

I guess twitter is one of the few places where toxicity is actively encouraged, so it's fairly unavoidable there. But here there are rules that just aren't enforced in any meaningful way. 

Seeing the kind of posts that seem to violate the rules but are never punished is not great, but losing friendly and kind users is what makes me sad. The deleted user in this thread left because of it and I don't want to think how many have left without saying anything. 

If there are indeed racist views being expressed, then that is 100% a serious legal issue and the parties responsible should be held accountable.

I'm not aware of any racist views being posted on this community - whether on THAT thread or elsewhere.
If you are insinuating that someone has been racist when they clearly have not been, then that is also a serious legal matter.

Please tell me @Tris, are you saying that I have posted racist content on here? Do you think that people (me?) have been openly prejudiced against who you are?

Do I really need to pursue a cease and desist order against you?

I understand. I suppose my view is coloured by my experience on twitter, which is that the internet is full of unpleasant people who will never be reasonable or nice or debate factually. Engaging with such people is not only completely pointless it’s actively bad for my wellbeing. So I see ignoring them as the only sensible approach. If they don’t get the attention they want, they’ll move on to some other forum.

But I really am sorry it’s made you so unhappy. This place is supposed to make you feel supported and understood

But if (for example) someone is expressing racist views and all the non-racists just walk out of that thread, it just basically frees up the floor entirely for any racist members to share their thoughts and has even more chance to spill over. 

And a lot of people would feel less comfortable about coming to a place where racist views can be freely expressed without criticism. Imagine you're a person just coming to the site for the first time, looking for a community and the 4th thread you see has people being openly prejudiced against who you are with no consequence. Would you come back? To see that kind of thing posted without being removed is enough of a punch in the stomach; to see the rest of this new community not even challenging it would be horrifying. 

This is all very disappointing. I came here because I hoped to find people who were more accepting, tolerant and kind and almost without exception I have found that to be the case here. So I’m very disappointed that anyone would feel so unhappy that they would want to leave.

I will simply not participate in any threads that don’t align with my interests or beliefs. There are plenty of other threads which do

People thinking of leaving because someone disagrees with them.  How mature

As people are once again thinking of leaving, I'm just bumping this.

I am also on other forums and it often also falls into having a row there too, and I honestly think this is the usual whenever any non-apathetic folks meet online but the flavour/type of row speaks volumes between them. On the other forums it rarely goes above the level of "does pineapple belong on pizza" for example, rarely do the disagreements cause active harm to the members on those other sites.

I appreciate your last couple of posts Debbie. I had hoped to sort of contribute to the last one to reassure people of what this space can be for people in their autistic times of need. 

I have disappeared a few times, but keep coming back. I thinks it’s important for people to remember that this is a place that can be stepped away from if it doesn’t feel great. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the outside world. 

Hopefully balance is found again soon.

Shardovan said:

I don't actually lock anyone in rooms! 

I'm relieved to  hear that.

I wondered what you got up to in your spare time.

Great advice Debbie. Always harder to make yourself unlock a locked door than pop your head back round one lightly left ajar and containing at least some people you've been missing. This is a clumsy analogy, I don't actually lock anyone in rooms!