Are there any black people with Asperger's syndrome?

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If you wikipedia "people on the aspie spectrum" you can get a list of famous notables.

Yes, wikipedia is a bad source, because you can claim John Schmo is an aspie, but the fact of the matter is that these people were diagnosed, period.

On the wikipedia page, there are people from all different nationalities/ethnicities/

In order to make an assessment of AS, you have to take into consideration the cultural background of the person being assessed. If white males are assessing, they can pinpoint AS in other white males since they know the cultural background, and can easily recognize the traits of AS that don't blend with the cultural background.

In contrast, in quite a few East Asian cultures, looking in the eyes of a person is a sign of disrespect towards that person, so eye contact is discouraged. Accordingly, lack of eye contact can't be used to get a sense of how likely the East Asian is to have AS. If you know the Asian cultural context, then you'll see that the true Asian AS folks will still stick out like a sore thumb, even if they blend with their cultural background in different ways than, say, a white AS person does with his or her own cultural background. Along the same lines, an Asian NT could have some AS characteristics simply because the culture itself values certain AS traits (though not recognizing them as such), and the same goes for a Caucasian NT who grew up in Europe.

I might...

I'm not entirely sure I understand why skin colour is relevant...why would it matter if you WERE the only black aspie? You could then at least claim fame in individuality... ...

Because every time I say i have asperger's syndrome people say I can't have it because I am black and it annoys me every time.

Unlike humans, I don't think Autism discriminates

What is a "black person"? A recent documentary shown on the Science Channel indicates that many so-called "black people" have genes that are commonly found in European "white" populations.

To put a point on the matter; race is a ka ka concept. There is only one human race on this planet. It is homo sapien sapien. We are the one remaining species of the genus homo on the planet and we are a remarkable UNdiverse species. This is because we are all (6.2 billion) survivors of a small group in Africa (possibly less than 2000). All humans match on 99.9 percent of their genetic material. That is why all human male-female pairs are interfertile and could produce offspring which themselves can reproduce.

Here is a piece of advice: forget "white", "black", "yellow" and "red" as classifiers for human specimens. It is a biologically unsound classification.

ruveyn

Nonsense - of course you can be black and still have AS. One of my aspie friends is black, and his symptoms are possibly the most visible out of any of the aspies I know (not that this has anything to do with racial background - it's just that he's higher on the spectrum than most of the folk I know).

Why wouldn't there be?

We're all human - if it is possible for one race to have a disorder, than it is possible for all races to have a disorder.

Ahh finally someone else who finds the pseudo science fuelled obsession with "racial identity" to be annoying, i was beginning to think that i was the only one.

I would have responded sooner but I wasn't able to until now.

What I wanted to say is that I read an article only last week (but I can't find it now or where I read it) which discussed a study done in the US which showed that African American children are diagnosed on average 18 months later than white children. They had allowed for socio-economic status and so on. The reason for the delay was that racism causes white professionals to be more likely to diagnose black children with behavioural issues and aggression.

Always when threads on WP discuss race lots of people say "race doesn't matter". No, of course it doesn't, EXCEPT THAT RACISM STILL DOES A LOT OF DAMAGE IN THIS DAY AND AGE. We have to be willing and able to understand this problem even if we are white.

Black people are less likely to be diagnosed with asperger's syndrome they just get ignored and be called crazy.

Wow... this is an ignorant question to say the least. Think about it: if you're black and have AS, what does that say about the rest of the black people. Just because you don't see most of them having AS, we're just as prevalent as white people with AS. If you have AS, then it's a possiblity that there are others with AS.

Just so you know, I'm black and have AS. I also have a black friend whose AS.

I've been told by people that i am not black when i was at school they said I don't act black for some reason I don't know why they said that for.

There are stereotypical actions/etc... that some blacks just WANT to do. Of course, sometimes, SO many do them that an absence of them leads them to accuse you of being different. Sometimes, those SAME groups see white as an insult, so they may even say you are acting white.

Anyway, blacks, as a race, are no more one people than whites are. It may be best to just ignore it.

Personally, I would use wikipedia as a guide only. There is an article on there stating there is a debate on what the national flag of the UK is called.
They say it's debatable between "Union Jack" and "Union Flag" In land, I can't remember which one of the two it is referred as. but at sea, it holds the other name. This was mentioned in an episode of Dr Who starring both Billie Piper(Rose Tyler) and David Tennant(Doctor, The) set at the time of Queen Elizabeth II coronation.

There is another "black" aspie on this forum based in the UK in Croydon (for those of you who have no idea where it is, it's south of London) aspiechav. He's a great guy to talk with. Only met him once though