8:41am August 17, 2013

➸ Webmuskie: Why Wesleyan University needs a little visit from the disability community

I like to learn, and and so I’ve been hanging out on moocs. For several months I’ve been eagerly awaiting the start of a class on Coursera, from Wesleyan University, titled “Social Psychology”. I’m a big fan of the field of social psychology, because it is of immediate, practical, survival value…

Large chunks of your thread including all of your posts and the post of your supporter have been deleted.

All of the remaining posts that I saw attack you.

Now there’s someone there claiming they wish it hadn’t been deleted because it would’ve been “interesting”.

I think what I’m hating the most at the moment is that several people actually think that if you don’t say you’re disabled nobody will discriminate against you. WTF. Most of them are seriously judging you for among other things your communication style.

It brings to mind times I’ve had people discriminate against me for my (autistic) communication style while either denying I’m autistic, or telling me I’m an eloquent communicator who has no communication problems. (Or my favorite, calling my bluntness abusive while simultaneously telling me that I’m eloquent and never blunt and that I hate people who are blunt, but that’s a long story.)

People who think disability, class, culture, educational level, and ethnicity never show up on the internet are badly confused.

The drastic misassessment of your general character, personality, and motivations only prove that yes they would discriminate. While saying they don’t.

You’re not the only person to complain on the message boards about this either. I’ve found other people complaining about this assignment and getting condescending responses.

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