Photo credits: HolLynn D’Lil. Bradley Lomax and Judith Heumann are sitting in their wheelchairs. Bradley is a Black Panther and a disability rights activist.
I spent more than three weeks immersed in this intersectionality between the two oppressions (AMEN, HYPERFOCUS!) and the more I study it, the more I lack words to describe how much I was crossed by them, still without knowing I was autistic.
When I got pregnant with Luiz, my mind became a mix of joy and worry. And I was not worried about finances because I knew that was the smallest of the problems, but since my hyperfocus has always been Race/racism, I always knew that having a Black son as a Black mother in Brazil was not an easy task.
I, an autistic person, made a thousand plans about how I would teach my son to behave when stopped by the police, in racist situations at school, and above all to build in him an unshakable self-esteem. Nobody could ever tell him he was anything less than beautiful, and if someone said it he would not believe it.
When Luiz’s diagnosis came, my head turned upside down and I became afraid.
Here I distance myself from white atypical mothers in this country and say:
No, my despair and fear were not about not having a son “accepted by society”, because after all we are Black and peripheral, and society does not accept us! My fear was the police aggression to which we are constantly exposed, with Luiz being a Black, non-verbal autistic boy. Would they listen to him? Would there be time for him to signal that he did not speak?
Much criticism is made of the card or ID with the word autistic on it. I have some reservations, but I was not sad to learn there may be a “signal” before speech that can tell the police officer that my son is diverse. Even though I know the police are perverse.
Me and how many more Black atypical mothers are in this despair?
In this urgency to show the world that our children are Black and diverse?
Before being autistic, my son and I are Black.
And we are crossed by racism and ableism. But racism is far more objective and destructive; in our lives it does not give us the right to speak or argue, and we are always living in fear of being the target of a stray bullet.
Giving a voice to Black neurodivergent people is more than necessary! It is urgent!!!
