SZA, Autism Diagnosis, and Ableism
TW: Ableism
Hey, I finally read the article of SZA saying she’s autistic. Honestly I felt relief…as a black woman dealing with audhd it’s been a very difficult experience for me. I’ve received no accomplishments for it…the diagnosis was hidden from me until I was in my mid 20’s. I’ve dealt with a lot of shame, bullying and being insulted for being different even into my adulthood.
I started reading some of the comments people were making and of course most of it is ableist as hell. There’s a bunch of comments of neurotypical people lying or just calling SZA dumb. Someone said SZA isn’t autistic because you need to take an iq test (I didn’t have to take an iq test wtf), I read another persons comment saying,” Why does she need to tell everyone about this? I remember when stuff like this was hidden.” Then of course the reality set in….it doesn’t matter how successful we may become, how talented we are…once most people find out your autistic they want nothing to do with you and think you’re incompetent. It’s much harder dealing with it as a black woman.
I know some people are going to say,” Not all NTs.” But it is the majority of them and a lot of other neurodivergent people that just don’t like autistic people…I’ve been noticing a lot of other neurodivergent people painting all autistic people with one brush just because they had one bad experience with one.
I just wanted to rant and see if anyone else feels this way. It’s so strange how hostile people get when they found out someone is autistic especially a black woman….it kind of saddens me that black autistic women can’t just live in peace and not be degraded so often…even by our own community.