Under the Mask
Initial Findings from Interviews with Neurodivergent People of Color
So as you may know, I’m working on two books right now, my second and third. The third one is another academic book about whiteness and language education, but the second one is a project for which I feel a lot of pressure and responsibility, narratives of neurodivergent people of color curated to help teachers support students like us more effectively.
I haven’t finished my data collection or analysis yet (though I’ve done most of it), but what I can definitely say thus far is that the experience of being an NDPOC is a deeply emotional ride during which we’re often shamed for expressing how we feel. To be clear, we feel A Lot, and given our unique ways of relating to the world, our intense moods probably seem unrelated to our neurodivergence. But every single one of the people I talked to has told me about how much it hurt when they felt rejected, how hard it was not to be able to understand everyone else or be understood by them, how confusing it was to try and move through the world. But we also knew, as people of color, that the box of emotions inside of which we were allowed to exist was small, and so the mask went on for as long as it could, except for the moments when our feelings burst through the facade we’d created.
None of us were diagnosed as children, because we were all “smart” and therefore we didn’t need support for how we felt. And to be a “smart” student of color meant we had the tools to deal with anything that was hard. Or that our schools didn’t have to care.
It’s been validating to hear that my own experience wasn’t entirely singular, but it also makes me feel sad that there are a lot of other POC out there who are neurodivergent and may never be given the chance to fully understand themselves. It’s estimated that 25% of the American prison population has ADHD (and that’s just one form of neurodivergence), so when things go wrong for us, they go spectacularly wrong.
I often compare my brain to a bullet train. I go faster than anyone else I know when I have tracks under me and a system to support me. But if things go wrong, I crash and the explosion can be seen and heard for miles.
I can only hope that my book, whenever it finally comes out, gives our hidden, fractured community a voice it’s always lacked. But for now, I just want any of you reading this little essay to spend a bit of time looking up what neurodivergence might be like for people who aren’t really allowed to self-soothe in visible ways lest they be seen as dangerous, who aren’t allowed to ask for help lest they be seen as burdens, who aren’t allowed to be stressed in public lest we be classified as threatening. All the parts of neurodivergence that white folks experience are true of us, but the world we live in requires us to hold our breaths for as long as possible. And if we ever exhale, the consequences are dire.
Hopefully, after I put this work into the world, more teachers, and parents, and people in general, will see us as the brilliant, emotional, vibrant community we are instead of as the nuisance we’re usually seen as. I’m too damn old to keep the mask on anymore, and we all deserve to show what we’re capable of without worrying how much we’ll be rejected for doing so.
