So There’s A Dynamic That Is At Least True In My Life And Might Be Part Of A Much Broader Trend. I

so there’s a dynamic that is at least true in my life and might be part of a much broader trend. I don’t know for sure whether this is widely applicable but I wanna throw it out there in case it is, or in case it just makes sense to others in some way that is useful.

the dynamic is this:

when I’m in spaces of predominately disabled people, and/or spaces in which accessibility is at the forefront of people’s minds, there is a default assumption that everyone is doing their best to be kind, and that our interpretation of others body language, manner of communication, etc. should always err on the side of assuming they are being genuine and engaged to the best of their ability, that there is nothing malicious going on.

In contrast, when i am in more general settings (esp places that do not forefront disability and accessibility) there is a default assumption that any atypical way of behaving or communicating indicates some level of negative emotion or underlying social/interpersonal tension.

I got thinking about this after I saw that post where a HoH person was mentioning someone immediately getting angry and defensive towards them for not hearing them and then immediately becoming apologetic when they were informed the person was deaf in one ear. And in the notes someone was defending the initial reaction of anger by saying that the person probably assumed they were being deliberately ignored.

It got me thinking about other things like this. I remember in middle school getting a quiz that was a blank seating chart and we needed to write down the full names of everyone in our class and where they sat. I stayed after class and asked if I could have extra credit to make it up because I have a very bad memory and do not remember names easily. The teacher told me that not remembering people’s names meant I did not respect them and that I needed to care about other people. I burst into tears having this stated so plainly that my inability was interpreted as cruelty.

I was thinking about how my wife is autistic and for her it takes conscious effort to make facial expressions and prefers to use as few words as possible to conserve that specific kind of energy. And I was thinking about how many stories she has of people assuming she didn’t want to be someone’s friend or was being passive aggressive or something just because she didn’t overly emote or because she used few words or texted K instead of “okay!! ☺️” or whatever.

I was thinking about how often physical inability to do things is cast as “laziness” and laziness carries the implication of feeling entitled to others’ work. I think about visibly physically disabled people who (for example) complain about service workers discriminating against them (e.g. a driver refusing to provide service when someone has a service dog or wheelchair) where people readily assume the disabled person holds a feeling of superiority and entitlement towards workers.

I was thinking about how the inability to pronounce things or to do certain tasks is immediately assumed to mean “not caring about” those things. The idea that if someone cancels last second due to a pain flare up or a mental illness trigger that they are enacting a deliberate cruelty towards the friend they cancelled on.

And then I was thinking about how…

disabled people who are not adept at the way that able society functions with a default assumption of malice are often bullied or made fun of specifically because they assume good faith from other people by default.

Someone asks them out and they assume the person is being honest because their default is to assume good faith. Someone asks them what they mean when they say a common word and they give an in-depth explanation about what it means and everyone laughs because “obviously we know what it means, we were just fucking with you.” Someone asks a question and they assume they want to know the answer to the question, and then find out it was a trick question or a social test and there was already a “right answer” and “wrong answer.” Someone doesn’t respond to them so they repeat their question over again, or write it down and give it to them, or try to find alternate means to communicate, and then the person says “I dont want to talk to you, take the hint!”

Like there just seems to be this dynamic at play where broad accessibility really does require an effort to assume good faith and default to kindness, but functioning in the rest of the world requires constant suspicion and always looking for ways in which people might be trying to be mean for some reason.

And I do think that in scenarios like the HoH person described in that post, where the only information someone has is that they said something and the other person didn’t respond—of course after a lifetime of people being mean we might suspect someone being mean, but like if we have to choose one default or the other with a stranger—why can’t the default be assuming good faith? Like can’t we please be kind as our default? I feel like adapting to a default of assuming unkindness and social tricks should not be expected of disabled people. This is something where rest of the culture needs to make an effort adapt to defaulting to kindness and patience.

Sure maybe someone is being an asshole, but you don’t have to be. if you assume someone just didn’t hear you and repeat yourself or write it down and someone is mean to you about it, you didn’t do anything wrong! The person being an asshole (about you simply trying to communicate and assuming kindness) is clearly the one messing up that social interaction. We should all give each other grace.