“And if it all takes time and I ask why, will time eventually reveal this?”

Something I’ve been going over in my mind for almost a year is this profound sense of melancholy I’ve gained after realizing that I’m autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, etc.

Not because I am those things.

But because the cultural concept of those things intrinsically excludes Blackness.

And because of that, there are so many Black people – from Boomers to Gen Z-ers – who’ve gone through or are currently going through their lives without any real access to information about themselves that’s literally life-changing.

And I don’t even mean that as an exaggeration either.

Medical professionals, mental health professionals, and social workers always are like, “Well, wouldn’t the adults in your life and in school have noticed?”

It’s a question that haunts me because of how profoundly racist, white supremacist, and anti-Black that question/suggestion even is.

Black people’s behaviors are so overpoliced that masking is something we are literally taught to do as a survival skill.

Black children that act out are seen as problem children who make their families and all Black people look bad.

Black children that are quiet and to themselves are mostly left alone unless it’s to try and get them to be more social.

At home, in schools, and our communities there’s a different level of supervision given to “good” and “bad” Black children.

And “good” and “bad” are the measures by which all of society judges the way Black people behave, especially because of the school-to-prison pipeline and how police are occupying forces in Black communities.

The cultural image of neurodivergence is so profoundly white supremacist that it hasn’t registered as a possibility to help to re-contextualize Black people to ourselves, let alone to non-Black people – especially white people – who have very little incentive to believe Black people aren’t intrinsically violent and uncivilized, and that Black people that are “well-behaved, articulate, non-threatening, etc.” are exceptions to the rule, and the way Black people “should behave.”

So, if medical professionals – despite all their years of schooling and training and work experience; that aren’t even trained to have a real world understanding of Black people; and are raised and educated in our inherently racist, white supremacist, and anti-Black by and with family, friends, co-workers, and educators who are exactly the same – can’t even diagnose Black people properly as neurodivergent, how would the adults in our lives growing up have been able to?

And it’s all of that that’s inspired this almost year-long melancholy that’s made a home of my mind.

Four generations of Black people who’ve been systematically and institutionally denied access to a meaningful and important part of themselves through no fault of their own.

What’s worse is that medical professionals don’t even have a sense of urgency to rectify this because the majority of the people in charge of doing this research (all the white psychologists and psychiatrists in charge the world around) benefit from oppressing Black people.

They’re the ones who continue to teach society to pathologize Black people as inherently violent and uncivilized.

There’s very little incentive for them to truly contend with the role they play in the every day and almost mundane violence Black people encounter.

And that’s something that should deeply unsettle everyone.