TC Waisman says, “When I show up in a room, I’m Black first. That’s what people see. They don’t see the invisible disabilities right away. This informs not only my worldview, but the kinds of things that I want to work on, and the ways I want to challenge the barriers I’m experiencing.”
All the Noise at Once tackles so many issues with such care and thought, including racism, classism, and class segregation, the stress of excellence and being a “model citizen,” family expectations, ableism and neurodivergent treatment in a neurotypical world, police brutality, and power imbalances.
Since I was late diagnosed with autism, I feel like the people in my life are still adjusting—because now I am being the ‘real’ me, and not the person they thought I was.
“I have to be realistic about the community that I am nurturing in, and the community for my children and for the parents that I help, as a Black autistic woman.”
HEARD is a Black-led and disabled-led, cross-disability abolitionist organization. With practically no funding, HEARD has been doing vital work that no one else does.
