detecting dehumanization – Real Social Skills

This dynamic happens a lot with autistic or otherwise socially-marginalized people:

You’re not treated as fully real, for your whole life
And you don’t even realize it, because it’s pervasive. You don’t know that it’s possible to be treated as real. You don’t know this isn’t normal.

And then you discover a group of people who seem to approve of you

They’re an ideological group, and they approve of anyone who shares their ideology
And their ideology seems plausible, or valuable, or good
And it has some concepts that allow you to understand things you never understood before
And you adopt the ideology
You’re accepted into the group. In a way you’ve never been accepted before.
And they treat you more like a real person than anyone else has before
And you yourself *feel* more real than you ever felt before

And so you throw yourself into the ideology

Passionately, completely, and sincerely
And you care deeply about understanding it, and using the concepts, and doing good and right
And so you work really hard
And then, eventually, this pulls you away from the ideology
Because you learn something, or notice something, that the ideology doesn’t cover
And that makes you a heretic
And you lose your standing in the group

And then they stop treating you as real. And then you wonder if you are real, if maybe you’re just not good enough for anything. And then maybe you find another ideological group, and it repeats over and over and over. Because you think the problem is that you just haven’t found the right ideology, and that if you find the right one, it won’t fall apart.

Until you realize that, actually, you were real the whole time. And that groups that only think their members are real people are never going to solve the problem. And that when they treat anyone as non-real, it’s a threat to you, too. Because you have to think everyone is real, because everyone *is* real. And seeing people as unpeople is always destructive.

And then you realize that the world is both better and worse than you thought it was. Worse, because there’s no ideological group that will solve everything, but the awful things the ideological groups notice are often true. Better, because everyone is already real, and genuine respect between people is already possible. Because you don’t have to wait for a revolution to be a person, and neither does anyone else.

I’m really good at telling when people don’t quite think I’m a person, but I’m not quite sure *how* I detect this. I’m trying to figure it out.

A good part of what’s in this post is probably wrong, because this is really hard to get a handle on. And *some* of these things are sometimes the result of other things, like communication problems.

But here’s a draft list of things I think that I detect as signs that someone doesn’t see me as a person:

There’s kind of more of a pause than usual, and then what they responded to wasn’t really in reaction to what you said. They’re reacting to some imaginary person.
They don’t seem to understand what you’re saying, but they don’t ask any clarifying questions.
They don’t answer your clarifying questions.
They look at each other a lot, but not you.
They try to insist on talking about your feelings rather than the problem or concrete thing you want to talk about.
They tell you in authoritative tones what you are thinking or feeling or need or want, and they’re not open to corrections.
They completely ignore you when you say things that don’t fit their agenda, to the extent that you start doubting that you actually said it.
They go on and on about how smart you are, but they don’t seem to want to discuss anything else with you.
They expect effusive gratitude for mundane acts like getting something down from a shelf they can reach that you can’t.
Their body language shifts dramatically when they’re interacting with you; it’s really different than how it looks when they’re interacting with others.
They have a voice they use with adults, and a voice they use with young children, and they use their little-kid-voice with you.

Thoughts, anyone? Which of these things am I wrong (or right) about? What other signs are there?

I think a good percentage of y’all know exactly what I am talking about, but it’s really hard to pin down.