For my systemic injustice showcase, I chose to focus on an experience that I witnessed firsthand while working a clinical rotation for my major. This specific clinical rotation involves working at a high school in the Columbus area, advocating for the student’s health and well-being. While I have come to know several of these high schoolers and hear all about their overly dramatic lives, one student in particular stood out whose name is Adam. Adam is a cross country runner with shin splints who is absolutely an outstanding and kind young man, who also happens to be on the spectrum for Autism but is a highly functioning, smart, and a social individual. One day, Adam came into our office in tears after being exposed to bullying. According to his story, while he was in the bathroom stall, other classmates (who are typically in trouble) began pounding on the stall door, pouring water on his head, and filming Adam while on the toilet. After the entire event, Adam chose myself and my coworkers to share this story with and seek help and guidance.
Personally, I was extremely troubled by this story for Adam because I know that he did nothing to deserve this type of treatment, and nobody should experience that type of bullying. Systemically, bullying occurs throughout every school and social setting across the globe, it is just that plain and simple. While I do not know if the individuals who chose to commit this act to Adam were aware that Adam is on the spectrum for autism, there is no excuse for that kind of behavior. While I never really thought much about bullying as a teenager, something suddenly switched in my mind once that event occurred. Going forward, I think that it is obviously important to advocate for autism and special needs awareness and advocation to reduce events of bullying large or small. I will never really know how this event will carry on with Adam or the bullies in the future and that is the difficult aspect of observing abusive situations in the short term.
When relating this story to our class, I often think about De Beauvoir’s theory of “othering.” De Beauvoir describes her theory as a fundamental theory of mankind to think of yourself or others like yourselves as “the one,” while people who contrast as “the other.” There are several forms of othering that occur throughout the world such as racism, sexism, ageism, and social behaviors. I think this theory accurately represents the ways the bullies acted towards Adam, viewing him as an “other” and enhancing this viewpoint by making him feel even lower.
https://www.autismspeaks.org/
https://www.stopbullying.gov/
I absolutely loved this! And you are right, this is definitely injustice. I also sympathize with this because I have a step brother with autism, and he has also experienced bullying at school. I also thought that Adam was being “othered” while reading this, so great job mentioning that!
Hello, I think this is a big issue. I really enjoyed reading this and I think it opened my mind up a little bit. I liked that you included the De Beauvoir’s theory and tied it in with your showcase. I think this really proves a point that this is an injustice in something that should be fixed. No one should be discriminated for any disabilities, race, gender, and ethnicities.
Hello!
This is an incredible post! Thank you so much for sharing this story! This is absolutely an example of injustice, but maybe not in the way in which many of us, myself included. I think it’s a great correlation between your personal life experiences as well as our class material. Great post! I enjoyed reading it very much!