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1:00am October 18, 2014

I know there’s been some kind of big fight in the autistic community again.

And yet again, I was not there for it. I heard about it second or third hand from a friend, and then from posts on tumblr.

Please, nobody try to drag me into it or get me to take sides. It’s like the Autreat thing; I wasn’t there and I don’t feel comfortable taking a side when I have no idea what actually went down.

Which means, among other things, that I might continue to associate with people who were on both sides (or however many sides there are) to this fight, and that’s because I wasn’t there and I don’t have a dog in this fight. So I don’t see the point of deciding who my friends are based on a fight I wasn’t present for.

Plus even if I was present, I’m not always good at taking sides and holding grudges. Often my response to “what side are you on?” is the LoTR quote from Treebeard, “I’m on nobody’s side, because nobody is on my side.” (I am so totally an Ent in so many ways.)

And my failure to take sides isn’t because I believe neutrality is a virtue. It’s not. It’s because if I don’t understand what happened, and I wasn’t there, then I don’t think it’s fair to anyone, for me to take a side just based on what I think I know of the participants. (Whether their individual personalities, what type of oppression they face, or something else.) Neutrality can be a way of siding with the oppressors, but it can also mean “IDK WTF happened and I’m not going to condescend to or insult anyone by pretending to know. And if I picked a side with limited knowledge, and picked wrong, I could really hurt people.’

So that is why I’m staying out of this fight I recently heard about. Please respect my reasons and don’t try to drag me into it. I’ll understand if you’re a friend and need someone to vent to (no matter what side you were on), but it doesn’t mean i’m going to take sides on the matter. I wasn’t there, I would feel silly taking a side. (Plus, as usual, I bet there are more than two sides to this story. There nearly always are, but people like to stop counting at two when it comes to conflict.)