Told to leave a group.

[MobilityCat]

I got into trouble at a meeting of people with a common interest. In the beginning, I explained that I had ADHD and asked that if I said anything inappropriate, please tell me, and I'll apologise and stop.
Guess what happened?. I did say something, and instead of telling me to stop, someone challenged my statement, and it went downhill after that.
A lady sitting next to me said that she also had ADHD, but that I should have recognised a line that I should not have crossed.
I told her that I didn't have that ability, I only knew if I got it wrong by the reaction it produced, good or bad.
She told me that wasn't true. She was also prone to inappropriate speech and behaviour but knew what boundaries she shouldn't cross.
Anyway, I was banned from the group, which was hurtful but not unusual. ADHD has cost me friends, jobs, and strained family relationships all my life.

But it is goady.

The form is for ethnic data not nationality. So describing yourself as black African is goady.

I'm both black and British but there is no black British option on those forms. It would be goady of me to tick white British to make a point even though I'm British but not white. You know what you're doing and it's wrong. The data is very important to gather statistics that can help form a view of systemic racism. You're skewing this data by ticking a box only for ethnically BLACK Africans.

I wondered this as well.

A general explanation
I don't use ADHD as an excuse for poor speech or behaviour.
We are not all the same. It's a spectrum, and I'm on the dark side.
To anyone who I have offended in this post, I apologise wholeheartedly.
To those who have offered sympathy and support, thank you!.

A form like this do you mean @MobilityCat?

We don’t know what OP’s heritage is as she hasn’t said. “I’m not a black person as such” may mean she’s light-skinned.

African is not a nationality so I don’t know what you mean by that, the question was about race.

To settle this - what is your racial heritage OP?

If you have no black African heritage then you were BU.

I think that your current management is not reasonable - it sounds like you consider people around you to be responsible for managing your communication.

Now, I do think they could have managed things a bit better - it would have maybe been better to say to you that they found what you were saying to be racist and explained why - but you also don't know what difficulties or capacities the group runners have (who are probably volunteers I imagine).

I also wonder if they may have found your interactions difficult before now, and consider this to be the final straw? I think there's a balance between supporting everyone to access groups, and expecting a group to have to tolerate feeling upset and offended by what someone is saying.

But surely the form is asking about ethnicity not nationality?

My DH is black Carribean mixed ethnicity, hia father is Carribean and mother black Irish, his ethnicity is black or mixed Carribean but his nationality is British.

Wouldn't you just choose the mixed option? There are lots of people born in Africa who aren't black!

But she does have a point. The option should be there as that is her place of birth and her culture. Which is completely different to being born and raised in the UK. So to tick white British would be a lie. The option should be on forms.

Empathy @MobilityCat. I feel uncomfortable being asked to identify my race also. I live in Aus and am such a mixed bag genetically that I could technically identify as indigenous, I could identify as being of African descent, Jewish on both sides, oriental descent, mixed bag European and who else knows what. To confuse things further, I am the only one in my family whose appearance does not make this abundantly clear, as I am the blue-eyed, blonde sheep of the family. (Who happens to tan suspiciously easily, despite being a sun-dodger.) I work for a government department who finds it weird that I always write “I’d rather not say” when it comes to declaring my ethnic background, as I feel that choosing one betrays the rest. (Also one allows certain rights/privelages and protections that I don’t deserve having not been grown up with the prejudice and injustice that warrants such things.)

I have copied below the categories for race data collection that have to be used in England and Wales (from the government website). It's obvious from the wording you quoted that OP means she's mixed race but not black mixed race, and in any event, OP since confirmed she is not black mixed race.

I have no idea of her specific racial mixup but it does not include black and she only ticks African because she was born in Africa. As you can see from the categories, the only African options are for ethnically black people. She's therefore wrong to declare herself African on the race data collection forms.

White

• English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British
• Irish
• Gypsy or Irish Traveller
• Roma
• any other white background

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups

• white and black Caribbean
• white and black African
• white and Asian
• any other mixed or multiple ethnic background

Asian or Asian British

• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Chinese
• any other Asian background

Black, black British, Caribbean or African

• Caribbean
• African
• any other black, black British, or Caribbean background

Other ethnic group

• Arab
• any other ethnic group

@Neopolitan Your information is outdated. ADD is no longer a diagnosis. There are three types of ADHD (not two) - primarily hyperactive, primarily inattentive and combined. A person would no longer be diagnosed with ADD. They would be diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type.

I know this because I was diagnosed just over a year ago and my psychiatrist explained it to me. I was diagnosed with ADHD - inattentive type, which he explained used to be called ADD but that term is no longer used.

You can't say that someone with ADHD must have hyperactivity. This is no longer true. Having the inattentive subtype of ADHD is still having ADHD. They no longer have separate terms.

A list? When I go shopping, I forget to get things. So I make a list, but forget to take it. Or I take it and forget to read it. Or I read it and put it in my bag and forget about it. Or I read it, buy the things I need, pay for them, and leave without them.

I assumed that OP meant she wasn’t technically black because she’s mixed race and from a bi racial family. So she may be considered lighter skinned than one of her parents? And there’s no mixed race African option and she isn’t White African or Black African so what is she meant to tick? Is that correct OP?

But it's about race not about nationality - what is hard to understand about that? There are no white races that ethnically originate from Africa so white African should not be an option.

"I simply said to the group that if people could choose their pronouns, gender and sensuality, why can't I be African. They became angry and said that I was being racist and told me to go."

Bearing in mind modern sensibilities I wonder if it was the blatant and predictable dig at trans people that pissed them off.

Once challenged, it triggers, and I try to explain, and it just goes down the rabbit hole.

@LateAF I’m well aware what government/official forms say I’ve filled them out myself as has everyone else. But this wasn’t a government form so we’ve no idea what the options were.

I asked OP why she didn’t tick mixed race but she hasn’t responded.

I have sympathy with @Fraaahnces for disliking interrogation on mixed racial heritage.

Where did the OP say she’s nom-white African? She hasn’t said that. She said she’s mixed race. She didn’t give any further detail. we still don’t know if she was right or not.

If you are white without any African relatives you are absolutely not racially African. Being born there doesn’t make you that race. Beyond offensive.

Oh come on OP. You know very well that you’re not African ethnically. You were and still are being goady to suggest otherwise.

I take that back if by mixed you do have African heritage, but being born in Africa does not make you African ethnically.

Exactly this. This is a white entitled so and so deliberately offending and then attempting to gaslight.

Mixed white and black African is an option on the forms, and "other" mixed background is also an option. If OP was mixed black African she could tick this but she is not - she is mixed race other born in Africa but not ethnically black.

OP please can you confirm whether you are mixed race black? Do you have a black parent? It would help clarify a lot of discussion on here and also whether YABU or not.

OP you mention being 'on the dark side' of ADHD, more than once, can you explain what I means? I have never heard this term

While others may suffer from ADHD, such as myself, as the op points out it is a spectrum and that doesn't mean everyone suffers from it the same.

It's the same as autism, they also have different needs and issues regarding their ND.

Op you will get a lot of NT people answering here who unfortunately won't understand where you are coming from. If you want some ND help from women in the UK (if you're from the UK presently and on fb) then try this group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/261017617635717/?ref=share

I find it's quite nonjudgmental and I think you'll find you aren't alone on there.

There are also reddit subgroups on adhd but I don't find it as supportive as the group.

Just to ask, how do you manage your adhd. Are you on any medication? Sorry if you've already answered this. If not, how do you manage it?