Neurodiversity Matters

what have you. But we oftentimes don't take into account neurodiversity, the diversity in the way that people think, how they perceive things, whether or not they are disabled in terms

of their mental health or in their thinking right. And I've been thinking about this a lot as a person that finds and has a desire to be a constant learner, right, like, I believe that the world can be this beautiful, gorgeous place filled with people that are interested in learning about other people, the ways in which we interact with the world and are curious. Right. We grew up in a time many of us at least, grew up in a time when we were making the transition from tolerating people's

differences to accepting them. Then we got into a place for a short short while where we were actually celebrating those differences, but now we are in a time of great regression where we are forcing people back into boxes, into closets, into darkness right as a way to uphold white supremacy and patriarchy. I'm really excited for you all to listen to today's episode and conversation with Jennifer White Johnson, who is an Afro Latina, disabled Afro Latina neurodivergent artist, educator,

and designer. And she was brought to my attention by a series of tweets that she had done following the news that Elijah McClaine, if you remember, the young black autistic man who was murdered in police custody when they injected into his veins ketamine which forced this twenty some odd year old into cardiac arrest, all because what a white person saw him from the fucking window and didn't like his presence and called the cops and he was

arrested for no reason other than being black and then killed. Jennifer had shared beautiful imagery and her heartbreak because she is the mother of an autistic black son, and you know, her tweet was brought to my attention and then I discovered what wonderful crossover we actually have and the people that we know and have worked with, and was really able then to delve into her art and her vision

and her mission and her work. And so I'm really excited to bring this conversation to you on how we learn to better understand ourselves and also understand the people around us to better build community, right, particularly at a time when the opposition is so vile in their destruction, in their language, and in their presence to try and exile all of those that they deem, you know, unworthy, right, So I would be really interested share with me your

thoughts on this episode via tweet, Instagram, DM in the comments section below, because I would really love to hear how this episode on neurodivergence and neurodiversity lands with all of you. The Damage Report with John Idarola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT Network that serves as your daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges facing our country and world. These days, we're confronted with an overwhelming sea of shocking, confounding, and devastating news stories.

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the Week, and much more. Listen to The Damage Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to wok app Daily for the first time and hopefully not the last time. Jennifer White Johnson, who is a disabled Afro Latina and neurodiverse artist, designer, and educator. Her work explores the erasure of black disabled

children in digital and literary media. Jennifer, you know, I am really excited to be in conversation with you because I think that oftentimes even the best of us who are advocates around representation and around inclusivity, I don't think have as expansive of an idea of what true representation

actually looks like and is. We often think about and at least when I speak about it, talk about representation as it pertains to what we see on the surface, our images, as opposed to also including the ways in which we think and experience and perceive the world around us. And so your work really does delve into that, and so I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain to the wok F audience just the idea and the terminology around neurodiversity and what that means and an example

of how that shows up. Yeah, thank you, and I want to say thank you so much for holding space for this conversation and for you know, and as you were saying, I do identify, as you know, someone living with ADHD and so full disability access disclaimer. You know, I tend to fidget a lot, I tend to move, I tend to you know, talk with my hands. I'm very expressive, and so as much as it as much as being you know, disabled and neurodivergent is very much a part of my thinking and a part of my being.

It is very much a part of like my surface and the way that I act, the way that I move, you know, which is often you know, invisible or maybe seen as something else. Especially as an Afro Latina woman. You know, physical disabilities are very surface based and and it's very apparent. And then there is the invisible disability element of non apparent disabilities, which is what neurodivergent folks often are, you know, are are grappling with you know, um,

things like ADHD. You know, things like anxiety that often you know look a certain way, but on the inside or maybe in other ways. You know, we can kind of channel and we can kind of um not apparently showcase our anxiety. UM. Yeah, and so neuro you know, the actual term neurodivergent is has actually been used within the disability community for quite some time to to basically uplift you know, body minds that are um that are you know living you know as you know, fully disclosed

autistic people. You know, folks that are dealing with you know, possibly anxiety UM disorders or living you know as bipolar or living with other kind of you know, social anxiety elements. You know, it's just very non apparent and we operate in a really beautiful way. You know, as someone who has ADHD, I tend to hyper focus or I tend to um you know, wait until the very last minute to like work on projects because it gives me that

spark of energy. But then I also don't give myself the opportunity to rest as much as I as I should, because you know, the weight, the pressure of all of that is very much on me. You know, that false expectation that all I have to do is exist in order to be seen, versus being a body that is meant to produce constantly along the lines of very ablest expectations. And so, in a nutshell, I mean neurodivergent people are

all around you. I mean we we exist, you know, as artists, as creators, as activists, as parents, as writers that are constantly you know, wanting to to just you know, be ourselves and represent all of the ways our body

minds are divergent in terms of thinking. You know, it's funny because obviously maybe not obviously, but I'll speak for myself that when I hear the term divergent, right like, it goes to the Movieum, which was not that great Um, But but I have a point here, it goes my mind goes to the movie because when you think about I guess, in in in political contexts, when I think about what is divergent. It is operating outside of the norm, right which was or operating operating against the status quo.

And that was essentially, you know, the part of this film. It's like it was, you know, here's the way to think. This is how you should think, and if you move outside of this, then literally we're going to eliminate you. We're kind of living in a society right now. That is that we have two forces at play, one that is trying desperately to hold onto a status quo that

eliminates any difference whatsoever. And so I want to get your thoughts on, you know, where I feel like we're living in these in these multitude of layers of being an existing and thinking where in one frame your work and the multilayeredness of us as as as body mind, people, humans exists. And then at the same time we have the powers that be the establishment trying to trying to compress us all into this one image and identity of what it means to be an American, what it means

to be human. And so I want to get your thoughts on how we how how people express the kind of complexity of where we are and how we hold true to this the more that we know, the better we can think, and the more our society can expand in really incredible ways. And then this fight on the constriction. How do we exist? How do you exist in in

that in that fraught space. I mean, I really just have to be authentic to myself, UM and authentic to you know, my own lived experience and realizing that UM, I shouldn't necessarily try to perform or try to adhere or comply to these very ableistic um societal norms. You know, as an Afro Latina woman, you know, we're packaged and constantly being boxed in to perform or to act a

certain way, specifically to conform to societal norms. Like you stay over in that space, but on what you know, don't come over into my space unless you're ready to like adhere to like the white gaze of what accessibility

may mean or equity may mean. It's like they really want to uphold like our like our blackness, our brownness, but they're not necessarily ready to like uphold all of the ways that we can exist authentically within spaces, academic spaces, community spaces, in the home, on the media, and so we're constantly at war with the media for not necessarily

portraying us in a very positive, uplifting light. Oftentimes, you don't even herald or honor or celebrate anyone who's disabled until they've been shot, or until they've been murdered, until they've been eliminated from the picture, until they've taken their own life, which is what I really talk a lot about, like in my own personal work. You know. You know,

Isabel trician Or from Utah last November, only ten years old. Unfortunately, you know, was a victim of racism, you know, within her school system, and we barely heard about it in the media, you know, en you know, the fact that her family really had to fight year after year to make sure that she had the resources that she needed within the school system, to kind of make sure that herself, as an autistic little girl, was being honored and you know,

celebrated or just being accepted for just coming to school as an autistic kid and not necessarily being victimized by constant bullying to the point where she just felt less

than less than human. You know, she didn't feel value for being you know, an amazing person, and the fact that she felt that she had to completely you know, erase herself from the equation UM was really heartbreaking because you know, I am a mother of an autistic kid, and so a lot of what I do and what I talk about is making sure that you know, our kids are being uplifted because we know that they are

subject to erasure even while they're alive. You know, we there's there's there's this very kind of like one model of what an autistic hid is or what a neurodivergent person is, and it's a very white, you know, kind of supremacist space where we only think that white autistic people can uplift these spaces, and we think that they're the authority, or maybe doctors and clinicians versus community organizers versus families versus actual autistic people and actual neurodivergent people,

like they are the authority, like they are the true experts to uplift what they're experiencing in their everyday lives. You know, I it's so important to show the diversity within our within you know, the BIPOC community, because I think that to your point, when we talk about mental health in general, when we talk about UM different abilities and or disabilities, it is always framed in the context

of being white, right. And it was my sister, my both my sister and I m. One of our degrees is in early childhood education, and we had both gone into special education many many, many years ago. My sister

is still an educator. I use my degree differently now, but you know it, the whole point of our of our master's program was to figure out how to best work with families who are not represented like in their community at large, which meant, you know, children of immigrants, which meant um, you know, children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, um,

but that were that had that were differently abledum. And what I found is that even in those conversations and resources that we were looking for at that time, and this is this is you know, decades plus ago, it was very white centered, right. It was like in the white mommy group, you know, talking about um, you know, autism in a way that was very exclusive right to

in a certain elite class of people. And so you know, for those parents and caregivers of UM, of children that are differently able, who are also children of color, how do you speak to them about how they how they can act with their children, on how society sees them

and how they see themselves. I mean, the story that you just told is heartbreaking, right, because that all anybody ever wants that I understand, is to be heard and to be seen, just to be valued by virtue, not by what we produce, but just by virtue of our existence. And so how do you deal how do you help, you know, through through your work or you know, by virtue of your art, but also in conversation parents that are struggling with their children that have that live at

the intersection of multiple identities that are discriminated against. Yeah, and it's such an important question. And first of all, I when I'm chatting with parents, or even when I'm chatting with you know, my own son, I let him know right away that disability is not a bad word. And we don't we don't necessarily have to dance around trying to come up with terms that erase the word

disability completely. And you had said differently able us And it's a way, it's it's almost like a way of sure where you're you're trying to acknowledge that they operate in a different way and that they still have abilities. But the word disability itself needs to continue to be reclaimed by the actual disability community so that we can uplift it. I mean literally, the word is written into

law so that disabled folks won't face that discrimination. So we can say it, we can we can actually uplift it and declare it as a call to action. You know that I am black and brown, disabled and powerful and beautiful and almost you know, affirming that within ourselves for those who identify as having a disability, and affirming

that within our kids. The minute that they step out of the home every single day to go into that war zone and when they come back, you know, from that war zone into the home, what are they experiencing. Are they experiencing acceptance? Are they experiencing, you know, a space where they feel whole and not broken and not necessarily you know, you know, I'm a broken human. I'm a broken being because I'm not like everyone else. Therefore

I need to be fixed. Because that's constantly what my community, what my family is telling me that I need to be fixed, unbroken, I need to be cured. And those are the constant dialogues that I'm having with parents, with educators, and I really felt the need to continue to author,

to write, to create acts of creative resistance. So whether it's you know, posters that can be used at protests, language justice based graphics and designs that can be you know, shown in classrooms or or maybe even taken into IEP meetings. Things that I've created, Things that my son and myself that we author together to take into the first day of classes, that he can give to his school, that he can give to his teacher, he can give to

his school counsel or his special educator. And it's really nice because what I do is I create like these fun little zines. And so I've been making these since Knox was in the first grade. When he was diagnosed as autistic, I knew right away, Okay, so how are we going to help to reframe this message of autism knowing that, you know, educators already have stigmas and they have their very clinical idea of how to interact with these students, But how do we also interact with them

as human beings, you know? Period. Yeah, And so what this zine says, and it's like a little four by five booklet, and on the front of it it says, HI, my name is Kevin, and you can call me Knox. And on the inside it, for it has a basic little manifesto that you know, like very intentionally declares, I hope this book helps you get to know me. I'm autistic.

I was diagnosed when I was three. I'm very happy and full of energy, and I tend to speak very fast, and essentially I'm talking about myself because my son and I were both neuro divergent. So it was very easy for us to come together to write this because essentially I was it was helping me learn so much about myself in ways that I was not given the authority to uplift when I was a kid because ADHD autism. It looks very differently a little black and brown girls oftentime.

You know, if we're not over exuberant and full of energy and very colorful, maybe we are very literal and very exact and very bossy and very much you know, we have like a little bit of that fire and a little bit of an attitude that's always misinterpreted or very you know, we have to constantly be redirected instead of being put in places of power and being put

in places of love. And so this book really gave me an opportunity to talk a little bit about the things that he loves, understanding the way his body moves, Understanding the way that we speak to him at home, Like we encourage, you know, stimming, which can often be like a very kind of actionable behavioral response to maybe helping to kind of not necessarily cope, but maybe to kind of, I don't know, maybe like react in an environment.

So sometimes you may see a lot of autistic people or folks that are neurodivergent, or folks that are dealing with some sort of anxiety, like they move and it gives them the opportunity to kind of like exhibit their energy in a different way, and it's all so very calming, and it's also a way of self regulation. And so as long as he's not harming anyone when he's kind of rocking and moving, we let him do it. Like, yeah, if that's like his way of calming, if that's his

ways of showing some excitement, we do it. And sometimes I find myself doing that, like I kind of move, I lean over a little bit, or I fidget a little bit with like my hair, or so I try to have like stem toys around me, like fidget toys.

And you'll see a lot of actual autistic folks within within the creative community, you know, creating kits like stem kits and things that they can use to kind of provide some sort of calm when they're in a very stressful, heavy situation, or maybe they're in allowed situation, or maybe they're in an overstimulating situation and they need things to be able to hold on to. But those things are almost are also calming mechanisms for neurotypical people too, people

who don't necessarily identify as neurodivergence. Like we all need like calming techniques. All, That's all. I was speaking as you were saying that, I was just like, no, there are that that that I do that I have rituals that I've created in order to you know, come back

resenter to a place of calm. Right, And so the book continues to talk about his challenges um you know, things that you know, like dark and closed spaces with loud noises and needing to use his noise cancelation headphones, and and even when people are speaking with me, I always there's like a disclaimer. I'm like, will you please provide transcripts or captions to this talk? Will you allow UM can you help redirect me so that I can

stay focused. Um, can you? Sometimes I can be impulsive or very hyperactive and get easily distracted, but please don't be necessarily offended by by by that behavior. It's just very much rooted in like my body mind and the way that that I responded and react. Um. And then it includes ways that you know, he can be helped in the classroom, like he needs breaks, like sensory breaks, movement breaks. You know, make sure that you're very direct

and simple sentences, give him visual cues. He responds really well to like folks that are very positive and full of energy, you know, because neurotypical people, I mean, we get there's the stigma that you know, we can't read in between the lines and that we don't understand sarcasm, but we do understand when someone is very angry and when someone is very sad, and when someone's happy, and those things fuel us, you know, which is why you know,

there's the stigma that we're not friendly, and you know, we're very kind of standoffish, but making friends and being in community with other folks that are similar to us is really like our safe place, and it's really like

our happy space where we can have conversations. Sometimes we talk too much, and and we love being around people so much that it that sometimes we need to give ourselves a little bit of a room to breathe and like kind of be by ourselves for a little minute so that we can kind of collect collect our energy and not give so much of it away, but you know,

learning how to actually channel their energy. Yeah. Indisputable with Doctor rashad Ricci is one of the latest shows on the TYT Network and also the fastest growing news show in America. On his show, Doctor Ricci plays no games regarding policy, delivering a heavy dose of fact based truth and penetrating analysis on all the top news stories, focusing on racism, criminal and social justice, politics, police brutality, parents,

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a new episode. You have said so much, and I want to thank you for the what I will refer to as like a redirect. I'm always searching to use a language that will be as inclusive of people as possible.

And it was like really interesting the other day I was reading something and recognize that a term that I was using not being you know, it has been expanded upon, right, and recognizing you know that I want to move and I know that people who listen to my show and who follow me want to move in a way that

is open, that is inclusive. And I also say that is nimble, that is intellectually nimble, that allows us the space to stumble, but also the space to be able to grow U. And so I just want to say that I appreciate you, you know, saying like, no, it's okay to say disabled. It's okay. It's the it's a term that's written that there's policy around for that reason, U, that it doesn't need to be excluded or nuanced in

in any way. UM, So I really appreciate that. And then just also you know, to your point around providing people like you did with your with your son and teachers and administrators with the tools to be able to best engage with you, right, And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, my goodness, you know, how better the world would be if we all had those booklets, if we all were like when we were going into new jobs, when we were going in to new schools, that we

were all able to, you know, figure out how to best engage and create community with um with different people, right, and be excited by that. And so I guess you know, Um, my last question for you is that I know that we are living in a time again that is just

filled with such strife, such anxiety. There's there has been an increase off the charge UM in depression, in anxiety, in ADHD, in young people as well as adult in trying to deal with our new normal, living inside of a global health pandemic, living inside of climate change, living inside of the rise of you know, racism and misogyny and white supremacy, all of these things. Um, what is

your advice for people? And you kind of mentioned it in talking again about your son, about the ways you know you look to calm yourself, the ways you look to you know, reconnect when you feel disconnected and discombobulated. What advice do you have to people that may not have been diagnosed in any type of way, but they don't feel right, They feel different than they did before, the world is impacting them, and the trauma is impacting them in a way that they haven't discovered language for.

What advice do you have for those people that find themselves, whether they they consider themselves to be disabled or not, but are struggling right now in how they can use art, use music, build community to move forward. Yeah, excellent question. And I really I always really rely on you know, my disabled ancestors and my disabled you know leaders, especially

you know, black and brown and Latino Asian. Like, there's so many of us that have already been living in this quote unquote new normal because as disabled people, neural divergent people, remember, long before the pandemic, a lot of

us were living in isolation. For those of us who you know couldn't always get to the voting polls because you know, mail and ballots were stunted to like our particular demographic or our care home or you know, wherever we resided, or because there weren't you know, perfectly pathed ways for our wheelchair or our mobility devices to be able to get to the polls. So remember, there were so many people who were already in isolation, students as

you mentioned, who were dealing with anxiety ADHD. The classroom wasn't always a safe space for them, you know, where higher ED doesn't always acknowledge an uplift disabled kids within the classroom. So there were a ton of kids who preferred to work in isolation, who were like literally screaming from the rooftops for the kind of accessibility that was finally given to a lot of them during the pandemic. You know, Quoa, like I can actually learn from home.

I can actually you know, like be in community with students and still and still feel connected but all through you know, zoom and remotely like this can actually happen. These are types of accommodations that I had been wanting for so long, but never given to me because they always said that they were no, it was too much work.

So I would say, lean on the wisdom of the actual disabled community to you know, talk to them about their lived experiences, you know, talk to us about how we used art and creative resistance long before the pandemic came and as a way to communicate what our lived experience is meant to us you know a lot of folks. And that was one of the things that the pandemic brought to life was, oh wow, black artists exists black. You know. It's like we've been putting in the work.

We've been authoring our stories. We've been you know, creating spaces of freedom and liberation through our work, like I mean long before the pandemic came, and it was you know, and we were just noticed, like because our struggles were

really brought into the limelight and into the forefront. And and my thing is, you know, support us, continue to follow our work, continue to uplift us, um, and to just continue to listen to us and see how we can you know, co collaborate, you know, stop designing for disabled people. Design with us, you know, see how you can actually you know, lean, how we can lean on each other for wisdom, for love, for liberation. UM. That would be my advice, like, continue to be in community

with us. Don't just put us a part of you know, one little Disability Awareness Month or Autism Awareness Month every April. That's actually that those types of spaces are really toxic to the actual you know, disabled community, because for one day or maybe one month, that's when you talk about everything.

It's like, how can we have this conversation year around, which is why I start off the school day or the school year on day one, you know, providing letting my son know, look like you have these resources that you can take into the classroom so that all of your educators know from jump like wow, like this kid is actually comfortable with self advocacy, with self care, with self love because that's just his own personal practice of joy,

you know, so autistic joy. You know, that was like a phrase that really that we learned to uplift, like even before the pandemic came, you know, the minute that he was diagnosed as autistic, you know, we I was very uncomfortable with what other black and brown parents were saying about their autistic kids. It was very much a space of you know, oppression and heaviness. And I was like, I'm sorry, but that that's not the world that I

want for my family to exist in. When it comes to someone that I love and that I honor and that I respect and that I know is a leader, you know, even if he's not meant to be the president. Of the United States one day, or an astronaut, He's still going to be a leader within his community and letting folks know I'm autistic, I'm here, you know, and

I'm and I'm powerful. And so the last thing that I leave with with the audience is something that I recently created, which is the anti ablest Art Educator's Manifesto, because I knew that I had to continue to kind of author and make very impactful declarations specifically for art eduction caters. And it's great because I was able to speak and present this at the Adding Voices conference this past weekend in Philly at the More College of Art

and Design. And as a part of my presentation and for all of the bipoc art educators that we're gonna, you know, be their sharing space with each other. And so I'm just gonna read this really quickly kind of just like as as a like, you know, as the final point of advice. It's like, this is what we need to do for ourselves as educators, as community organizers, organizers that are constantly trying to kind of you know, navigate through spaces of inclusivity and equity. So this is

the anti ablest Art Educators Manifesto. So number one is show up. Number two is eradicate ableism. Number three uplift acceptance. Number four create with and not for. Number five, Our differences should embolden us. Number six disability is not a bad word. Number seven value all bodies and minds. Eight allyship is sacrifice. And number nine our art is our survival. Yeah. I love it. I love it so much. And this is actually available today on on my website at gen

Y Johnson dot com. Um. I had print printed copies available at the conference so that you know, all my favorite art educators could take them back into the classroom and like post them up and so that when their kids pop into classroom it's like wow, Like you're advocating for someone who exists like me, Like you want to show up, like you want to uplift acceptance, you want You're you're encouraging me to use my differences to kind of embolden you know, everything that that I can be

and that I already am. Um. So yeah, this is just my my little piece of of of creative resistance to kind of say look, we're here. Um. And ultimately, to practice inclusivity, you have to you have to make space for us to take up that space. Absolutely. Jennifer White Johnson, thank you so much for making the time to join woke app. Thank you so much for your work and for your art and for your voice, and I really do hope that you will come back and

join us again soon. We appreciate I would love to you. Thank you so much for holding space. This was beautiful and it's such a pleasure to meet you. It really is. That is it for me today, dear friends on woke app. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.