The subject of bullying crops up on this forum quite a lot. Most people's perception of bullying is something that happened in school. It usually involved bigger kids picking on younger kids, and the solution was always, if you toughened up, and stood up to the bullies, they would leave you alone.
This perception is accurate in one respect: bullies target those weaker than themselves. But they also target those who are not supported by an infrastructure - that is to say not supported by a group of friends able to stand up for them, or that if they bully a person who has protection of some kind, that's riskier. Victims of bullying usually don't have someone else to turn to - they aren't respected by others. No-one is going to intercede to stop the bullying.
In the context of autism, most of the NAS website seems to be about the conventional image of school bullying, and confined to the context of school.
But the weakness where autism is concerned is more likely to be about the disability itself - poor coordination, difficulty getting the meaning of conversation such as misunderstanding humour, and difficulty expressing things, difficulty mixing socially and appearing socially naive, being oversensitive or reacting adversely to everyday environments, sensory overload.
Added to which no-one seems to properly understand autism. Autism behaviours are perceived as self-inflicted disadvantage, wilful, attention seeking, or people on the spectrum are perceived as simpletons, retards etc. And because this is not readily identified as disability, often they aren't taken seriously, and therefore lack the supporting infrastructure - no back up to prevent bullying.
It surprises me how little understanding of bullying NAS seems to demonstrate, as bullying or disability hate crime is common to most disabilities. Well you might say no-one would steer a wheelchair user onto a flight of steps or push them into the path of an oncoming car, would they?? No-one would try to trip up a blind person, would they?
Blindness is probably the best illustration of the problem. Its a sensory issue, which applies less obviously to autism. If blind people get bullied, it is all the more probable that people with autism will get bullied.
Blind organisations and charities are fully aware of the extent of bullying, harrassment and hate crime against the blind. Why is there so little understanding of this in autism? Why isn't NAS pro-active on this? Why do we get the perennial response if you toughen up and think positively and stand up to them, the bullies will leave people on the autistic spectrum alone?
www.bbc.co.uk/.../uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-27323114 In May this year Siobhan Meade in Stevenage - a blind person assisted by a blind dog - people would deliberately steer her into lamp-posts to see how she reacted.
The above is one of many websites about Molly Burke, a North Carolina teenager who developed progressive blindness and therefore did not appear to fit the usual expectations. Schoolfriends took her into some woods, smashed up her sticks, mocked her and then left her.
A few streets away from me there's a blind man. Local kids put his wheelie bin in front of his front door, ring the bell, and watch him stumble out and collide with the bin. They put bottles and cans on his path, again to see him stumble. This keeps happening. No-one roundabout intervenes.
All the disability organisations and charities know about bullying and the disabled. That is except one - autism organisations. Why?
