Malini Boorgu of The Neuro writes in her article “How AI is Improving Accessibility” about how our society continues to grow to accept people who fall out of the neurotypical norm. Boorgu covers accessibility improvements in several different avenues, including education, therapy, and hiring. These changes hope to improve the quality of life for neurodivergent people in society. This idea is continued in IBM’s “Neurodiversity: the power of new perspectives”, which tells stories of neurodivergent IBM employees succeeding in the workforce. However, in doing so, this movement creates a divide between neurotypical and neurodivergent people that is the breeding ground for discrimination and hate. Creating and promoting awareness for neurodivergent people is beneficial, however it fails to address the fundamental problem facing them: differentiation, or otherness. Therefore in order to truly create a better society, instead of treating them differently we must include neurodivergent people in our idea of normal.
This idea of otherness is not new to humanity; in fact, it is an unfortunate aspect of our psychology that has been around for centuries. It is our nature as humans to fear those who are different from us. This is extraordinarily prominent in the continued struggle for racial equality here in the United States. In our struggle, the goal is to abolish the distinction between different races and treat people the same regardless of how they appear. In his address to the United Nations in 1963, Haile Selassie said:
“until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…the African continent will not know peace”.
In the same way we treat all eye colors equally, we should treat all races equally. Furthermore, we cannot support marginalized groups while treating them as others. This separation inherently breeds hate: this is clearly shown in the segregation period of United States history and the idea of “separate but equal”. At this point, I should say the struggles between neurodivergent and people of color are in no way comparable: that is clearly untrue. However, I use racial equality as an example because it is familiar to many, and clearly shows how the “us and them” mentality is dangerous.
Therefore, our goal for neurodivergence should be inclusion, as well as support. Furthermore, I’m very excited to see large corporations like IBM recognizing the value of neurodiverse employees. Neurodiverse people have unique skills that could and should be utilized in the workforce. As Boorgu states,
“In recent years, companies have found that neurodivergent employees outperform their neurotypical counterparts in these fields and are the more efficient hire”.
Companies making efforts to hire neurodiverse employees is progress, and we should be treating it as such. However, putting neurodivergence on a pedestal runs the risk of alienating them. This leads to the “other” mentality described earlier. Instead, the goal of neurodiverse inclusivity needs to be recognizing that everyone’s brain works a little differently. The idea of a “normal” thinking process is outdated. Only once we recognize this can we move forward into a world where everyone’s skills (and quirks) can be appreciated.