Racism In Autism

I had originally scheduled a post on insomnia for this week, but with everything going on with Black Lives Matter and all the protests I thought it was important to address it now, as well as how racism had manifested in autism.

Obviously there are individual autistics who are racist just like there are individuals of every kind who are racist, and just like there are good and bad people in a more general sense, but what I'll be discussing here is the racism (whether intended or not) within the autism diagnostic process.

The diagnosis of people with autism has always been heavily biased in favour of white boys and men. I think the earliest we can look back to find the root of this is to the 1930's and 40's with Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. I explained in a previous posts about how Hans Asperger worked closely with the Nazis who were a heavily racist German political party aiming to establish the German population as a superior race by eradicating others, famously including Jews. I remember someone saying to me years ago that their aim was to create a race of purely white skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed humans but now true that is I'm not sure.

With Asperger's heavy influence at the beginning of our understanding of autism, and the much more racially biased nature of the mid 20th century in general, it's little wonder that racism stuck around in the diagnostic system for such a long time. If I'm honest I do sometimes wonder how nowadays we're only just starting to properly understand autism, but I guess any progress is good progress, even if it's slow.

So how are people of colour affected in the modern day in terms of getting an autism diagnosis? First of all there's medical bias that could stop them from getting a diagnosis. This could mean for example that a doctor (especially an older one whose knowledge might be more outdated) may be may not refer a black person to an assessment service because they don't believe that they are - or even can be - autistic. Just to give an insight into how real medical bias is, my wife is a student midwife and highlighted this article to me which explains that women of colour are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Obviously this is a huge difference and is clearly unacceptable.

Another factor that affects the diagnosis of people of colour is their location. One of the many things I learned from watching Netflix documentary 13th is that the "war on drugs" in the US was designed to target black people who were predominantly poor. So in relation to autism, especially in countries like the US where medical and health services are expensive, the autistic person is less likely to be able to afford assessment for a diagnosis.

The final point I want to make (although the points I'm making here are by no means exhaustive) is that other people's reactions and attitudes might be more likely to put them off seeking diagnosis. This ties in a bit with what I mentioned earlier about the attitudes from the 30's and 40's lingering for a long time. Their peers, family, colleagues and so on might have outdated views which can cause disheartening, or even worse it can cause argument and fall outs with the people they confide in.

All of these issues that I've discussed are reasons that we need to educate and inform the whole of society, which is absolutely what I aim to do with this blog, as do lots and lots of other autistic advocates through their blogs, YouTube videos, social media accounts, books etc. I feel like now more than ever education is needed around how autism presents and affects all races, genders, ages... everyone! As a final note I think it's important to share some links to black autistic advocates' pages. The best ones I can think of are AutisticTyla and Aspienelle. These links are to their Instagram accounts. Let me know about any more black autism advocates in the comments or on social media!

I really, really hope I've helped with this post. I know I say that about every post, but this one in particular is such an important topic as we're essentially missing out on a whole section of the autistic populaton. Please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: The Black Lives Matter logo (a black fist raised upward) with the infinity loop in white on the wrist to symbolise that black lives really do matter whether disabled, autistic, otherwise neurodiverse, or anything. This is on a white background and underneath it is the post's title with "Racism In" in black, and "Autism" in rainbow colours.]