I've been thinking a lot about whiteness this week, and how white supremacy enables white people to understand ourselves as objective and true, and other people's interpretations of us as subjective and flawed.
I think most of us white people would assume that everyone understands the world that way, with themselves at the center, and everyone else on the periphery. But reflecting, I really do think this is a specifically western white experience.
White supremacy that tells us we are "value-neutral", the "normal" to the "other". When you're constantly given the message that you are the norm, it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing your interpretations as unbiased, as logic, as the natural and obvious perspective.
It pays to remember that we are just as subjective as anyone, probably more so because we are rarely reminded of it. Instead it's reinforced to us that our whiteness is normal, and so we can get away with ignoring the way it defines and influences how we interpret the world.
When people challenge us on our racism, it can feel unfair- because our whiteness is so invisible to us that we forget that it's very obvious to others that aren't seeing through that lens, and us not noticing it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I remember talking to an incredible Māori friend when I was planning my thesis on parenthood and struggling with how to address race. "I don't know how to do this in a way that captures diverse experiences" I told her. "So don't" she said. "Start by making the whiteness visible".
What she meant was: You don't have to talk about lots of ethnicities to talk about race. But above all else, don't NOT talk about race, and talk in the general sense, when you're actually talking about a white experience. Because the white experience is not general or neutral.
I think about this a lot, and how tired she was of earnest white people (like me) pushing into conversations we won't ever really understand. How we look at racism in others without examining how our own whiteness is not neutral, but actually imbued with power that causes harm.
Whiteness is it's own culture, with it's own norm, cadence, and tone. Treating this as the "truth", and expecting others to work harder if they don't instantly get our "good" intent, hides this, and reinforces our view as the right and correct one. That's white supremacy fam.
P.s this is not a subtweet, please don't treat it as such.

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More from @AdhdAngsty

30 Apr
I think people need to get better at distinguishing between growing visibility of ADHD in their online circles and it becoming "trendy". Nobody irl I know even understands ADHD. People look at me with pity when I tell them. It's not "cool".
It makes me sad bc it's predominantly women, trans and non-binary people, and POC of all genders who are discovering their ADHD themselves in adulthood, bc systematic bias meant it wasn't picked up on earlier by the caregivers around them.
These people then find communities online, and share and learn and connect, sometimes seriously and sometimes with humour, only for this uptick in dialogue to be dismissed as a "trend", and for other ADHDers to gatekeep them bc "that's not what ADHD looks like".
Read 8 tweets
28 Apr
Something I dislike about ADHD is that so many of my mistakes feel the same: like blips, where I can't quite figure out how I didn't notice them at the time. But the consequences are HUGELY different. Figuring out how "big" a mistake is, and what my response should be is hard.
E.g. I often read emails and messages wrong, and reply to the wrong interpretation without realizing. Most of the time this is fine. Sometimes it has been very very bad. So now everytime I do it, I feel the same level of regret and panic, and struggle not to overapologise for it.
To me it makes perfect sense that many ADHDers also have anxiety. It's a shitty feeling to know even when you're careful, and really care about what you're doing, you're likely to just randomly drop the ball, and there's no way of knowing the fallout of that until you get there.
Read 4 tweets
27 Apr
Tbh growing up is just constantly reminding myself that I'm allowed to have different views to those who I respect. I'm always reevaluating stances on things, but have to remember that doing this should come from strengthening my understanding, not trying to make others happy.
ALSO have to remind myself that disagreement and conflict DOES NOT MEAN that those people I respect will lose respect for me. Disagreement is okay, and everyone has different filters that they learn and build opinions through.
This resistance to disagreement is totally a Fawn trauma response, but it's also a White ™️ thing, and I do think that being an advocate would require me to get much more comfortable with disagreement, bc otherwise I'll end up prioritizing civility which I don't want to do.
Read 5 tweets
26 Apr
I've seen too many tweets this week claiming ADHD is actually just a trauma response, so here is a thread unpacking that assumption.

So, is ADHD actually just trauma? As far as I can tell, no. For my reasoning...keep reading. 1/16
For starters, most scientists agree there is a strong genetic component to ADHD, which suggests that ADHD is an inherited neurological difference, rather than a condition developed in response to external factors. 2/16
However, I CAN see how people think ADHD is just a trauma response, bc they have lots of symptoms in common. This diagram from a paper I read is simplistic, but helps demonstrate how one can appear like the other, and how they can look the same from the outside. 3/16  Venn diagram. Under trauma: Feelings of fear, helplessness,
Read 19 tweets
25 Apr
I can feel a long thread about the limitations of neurotypical based therapy for ADHD coming on, but atm it's all just messy thoughts so if someone has already written that thread, please link me and save the angst haha ❤️
There's so much big structural stuff to unpack but today I'm just thinking about my therapist asking me if I had tried taking over mopping the floors and ironing from my partner as a way of "participating" in the face of my chronic illness inadequacy anxiety.
A. My neck pain makes that impossible

B. We both have ADHD...you think we iron our clothes????? You think we own a mop for our 1 bedroom apartment???

Her point was to find new things to replace the old things I did...but like, my partner would never value me doing this anyway?
Read 6 tweets
25 Apr
If you can afford it, I highly recommend getting some Tiles from @TheTileApp for things you use and lose regularly. I have some on my keys, my work lanyard, my wireless headphone box, and this personal details folder I always used to lose.
They have key rings, tiny buttons and wallet cards. If you lose them, you just turn the bluetooth on on your phone, call the item and it will ring if it's close. If it's not close, any time another tile user works past it, it will ping on your map so you can go find it.
If you have bluetooth on on your phone all the time, you can also use it in reverse, by pressing a button on them that calls your phone, even if it is silenced.
Read 4 tweets

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