I just want to say a few words about Jason Arday

Plenty has been said already, and I know the world isn’t waiting for my take - please make sure you read/listen to the words of Black writers before reading anything I say. Because we should make no mistake: this dragging of a vulnerable man through the blogosphere and then the press was the result of overt racism. It’s not even hiding in plain sight anymore. It’s out and proud.

But I know that lots of members of this community will be personally wounded by this news. We already know that autistic people are more likely than the general population to die by suicide, and many people reading this will have been directly touched by the issue in some way. As this confected scandal rampaged through the discourse last week, I felt a numb terror welling up in me, because it seemed so obvious to me that this brutal shaming could lead to the worst possible consequences. And it did. It felt inevitable.

One thing that struck me - which I felt in my bones - was the groundwater of shame that neurodivergent people carry, which is always ready to tip over at the least provocation. It is not right that we carry this, but nevertheless it is the truth, and I think many of us are feeling those waters rippling right now.

It interested me that Jason was accused of lying about his life story, because I recognised it. I’ve said it before - and I don’t think it has to be our dirty secret - that neurodivergent people are often adept liars, not because we’re bad people, but because we learn to lie in order to survive. Lying is a form of masking, a way of covering up these needs and feelings that are so clearly unacceptable to the outside world. Growing up, I lied all the time to cover what I was, and while I’ve made a career out of telling the truth about myself, I know it’s a privilege. I don’t know whether or not Jason lied about his achievements, but I do know that the world required him to be ludicrously gifted in order to merit his position. I feel nothing but compassion for him.

The part of his experience that I’ve personally encountered is the way the media treats you when you’re autistic. It’s not enough to be what you are, to have written a book or got an important job, or whatever. You are asked, endlessly, to be a savant. What’s your superpower? people ask, over and over again. I always refuse to answer that question because it’s patronising, but I have often felt nudged into making bigger claims about my abilities than are true. You have an exceptional ability with words. That came very young, didn’t it? Is it true you memorised the dictionary? You seem to have exceptional focus. It’s all nonsense. In interviews, I often feel like I’m going into battle against this aggrandisation of what I am, which is good at writing, nothing more. I think I’m quite good at winning that battle, and offering myself as an ordinary writer, but in truth I can imagine how easy it would be to be carried along with those questions, just trying to please people and give them what they so clearly want; just wanting to believe, for once, that you’re allowed, finally, to bask in positive attention, having been so starved of it all your life.

Once, in an interview - I do not remember where, or know whether it ended up being published - I was asked the standard superpower question, and I said, ‘Still being alive.’ I meant it; it feels like a miracle. Jason Arday deserved this superpower too, but it was stolen from him by a gleeful mob, high on their own cruelty.

Autistic people - whatever their achievements, whatever they’ve said or done - deserve to be alive. Outside of the vile, bullying media landscape, there is love for you, I promise. It pains me that I cannot personally help, or hug, everyone in this community, but I write here because it matters, and we matter, and Jason Arday, imperfect though he surely was, mattered, and should have been allowed to survive any mistakes he made in being Black and autistic in the public eye.

One final thing. I’m deeply troubled - and not for the first time - that the hounding of Jason Arday began on The Clearing. I realise that it is a heterogeneous publishing platform, but in the years since I began here, it has also become a social-media platform, akin to Twitter, the land of the merry pile-on. That’s a fundamental change, and I’m reflecting on whether this is a safe place to invite my community to spend time in any more. I’m not sure it is, but I also know that change is hard and so I won’t be making any grand gestures right away. But I am mulling my options, because I’m sick of the cruelty that stalks this place. I don’t want to keep feeling like I have to keep my head down to avoid glimpsing those people, fearful of catching their eye. I want to be somewhere they’re not.

Take excellent care of yourself, yes? Get help when you need it. Reach out. Be here.

Lots of love,

Katherine x