In your case, you are suspended. When you are unsuspended your rep will be recalculated. This means that downvotes that you accumulate will be calculated against your real rep when you are unsuspended. You do not actually have zero reputation, it is just displayed that way due to your suspension.
For a regular new user with 1 rep, the negative rep is not "queued" up so to speak. A user with 1 rep can receive 100 downvotes and still be at 1 rep, then receive a single upvote and be at 11.
Contrary to your apparent opinion - this site is usually very encouraging to new users. Many of the discussions in meta are about how to attract new professionals and how to improve the new community and it all boils down to integrating new users into the existing system.