She had interviewed and met both remotely and in person, this guy was merely an HR drone confirming her documentation. I was a little bent when she told me he had asked her to remove her blur filter “to have a look at her working environment, make sure it’s not cluttered” (something along those lines). No one else at this company requested such. Was he way out of line?
I should note, this is my PC in our living room and not where she will be working from. And this guy wants a look around our home?! Told my wife to bring this up once she’s settled in, ask HR if this is policy. She started today!
She thinks it’s a racism thing. I’m not so sure, but I don’t have any other explanation.
I have a birthmark that reads ‘VAGINA’ on my face.
Some people treat me differently from the moment I meet them.
I say, “I think that those people are reacting to my birthmark.”
You ask: “Why assume they react to your VAGINA birthmark in particular?”
Now, apply this to OP’s wife. OP says this about her:
I’m heavily autistic. I’ve figured this all out logically, as a person who has experience discrimination myself. It wasn’t easy, because I don’t grasp social cues natively. I thought I’d been doing something wrong for a long long time when people initially appraised me as ‘other’, but it turned out they were just being judgemental assholes. If you’re not heavily autistic, I believe it should be easier for you to figure all this out, right?
…you have a birthmark in the shape of legible english characters, not just one, but a full sequence which spell a word?..
It was a metaphor, lol
The irony of the autistic person using a metaphor, and someone else taking it too literally. You have to laugh!
It was a dumb metaphor that made no sense.
So, a visible difference that some other people react to with prejudice is not like racism. Got it.
I’m sure you can comprehend why removing the controversial topic of ethnic differences [controversial because e.g. some people want to claim racism is does not happen any longer, or is not of any importance when it does because ‘it’s illegal to discriminate’] to replace it with another visible difference made it a suitable metaphor. I’m sure that you knew this, in fact, when you called it ‘dumb’.
Your annoyance is, therefore, possibly more at me saying that a woman is allowed to believe she is being targeted for racist reasons, and that such a woman should be listened to fairly. Feel free to clarify on that, if you wish. As for me, I logically believe that racism exists, as I have seen it. And that people can intuit when it is happening, as I have seen it. And that other people can disagree with it, because they profit from racism being ignored, as I have seen it.
Well if you aren’t willing to engage in any sort of introspection all metaphor is stupid probably.
Or maybe the problem is with you?
I think it made sense to most other people who read it
I’m autistic also and I understood it just fine.
It’s about as likely as someone starting and ending all of their writing with ellipses, with some of those ellipses being incomplete.