Life in a mainstream school as an ethnic minority aspie

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I received my Aspergers Syndrome diagnosis at a young age, the age of 6, so I don't have much memories of my diagnosis or life at school before I was diagnosed. My parents didn't even tell me until I was 13.

I always went to the same mainstream school and I was always being picked on for my ethnic minority sounding name and my brown skin, but before I was told about my diagnosis, I knew I was being bullied for more than my ethnicity. I was an almost complete social outcast most of my school life, I felt like I was in a room with people but I was in a corner trapped in a glass box with no one being able to hear me no matter how much I shout or try to get people's attention.

I would get laughed at and bullied for giving correct and detailed answers when the teachers asked us questions.

On the few occasions I did make any friends, it didn't last long, because I would struggle to read people's feelings by their facial expressions or people would become bored when I brought my computer knowledge into discussions.

I was wondering if it's the norm for ethnic minority aspies to struggle a lot more with school life than non ethnic minority aspies even do?

I am sorry to hear that. I can imagine that your ethnicity will make this harder. I saw this recently (sorry if it does not directly reflect your experience):



I know this probably does not echo your experience, but I grew up as an American in the UK. I did not know I has ASD then (I was diagnosed this year at the age of 56). Looking back on that time I realized that my autism did affect my ability to make friends and caused a lot of bullying. However, this was attributed to me being a foreigner, not autism. So my autism was hidden behind my nationality making it harder for people to understand me. Sorry, this is probably not making sense.

There will always be people who bully you in school, some students are genetically wired to do it. Key is to realize that the people who bullied you were on a roll of bullying one person after another, and you were one in a long line of people they bullied at school, you just weren't at the right place and time to see it. Once I realized that, and saw myself from a third person perspective ten years later by going back to the same school with some of the same people, I felt relief and wasn't obsessing about it anymore nearly as much.

Are you asking if you experienced a form of racism or being treated differently due to ethnicity - that is absolutely a worldwide phenomenon and what you noticed was racism most likely.

Now one other aspect to realize is that the bad reactions of peers and bullying can help an AS student become aware of inappropriate behavior and stop doing it. It's a painful way to learn, but it helps aspies learn what is inappropriate or frowned upon by their peers. Not that the bullies don't get away with being inappropriate if they chose so, but their inappropriateness is still appropriate in a sense I guess.

People inherently mistrust and dislike and therefore mistreat those who look different. Every person has that. So if you have a different skin color or different social behavior - those things make many people react badly to you. Being the outlier in a group brings on that dislike from people. It's not fair, but it is a phenomenon.

However, people can exhibit this dislike of you and still like you in other ways. For example, the students may dislike how you talked too much, but still look forward to the interesting tidbit of information you brought. So relationships are a mix of ying and yang or bad and good. For the white super social people, perhaps it is mostly good. Whereas, for people with differences, it is a mix. And perhaps with AS you have more bad, but there can be plenty of good if you look for it.

Last edited by idntonkw on 13 Nov 2020, 5:21 am, edited 2 times in total.

I would imagine any two traits that might cause some bullying, when combined would lead to more bullying than either in isolation.

I was asking if you think I experienced racism.

not white people will always experience racism its a fact of life

My brother did not seem to experience racism at school as much as I did.

so he probably has a personality that changes people's racist feelings toward less or not racist. also, you may have had blow back from people because of AS which you may interpret as racism, and/or the AS can make people's racism get worse toward you. i would imagine you experienced both AS blowback and racism from people. you can take strategies to get less negative treatment from people, but some form of racism and AS blowback is just something you have to live with.

My daughter is experiencing this in mainstream school (her mum is south asian). Her ethnicity reinforces why girls in her class don't invite her to birthday parties or try to talk to her. Although she's never been racially vilified, she has been bullied.

1) Are you muslim?
2) Do you look like an ethnicity that would typically be muslim?
3) Do you look south asian?

Yes to all three.

I hope you are no longer being bullied, wherever you now are.

In my opinion, the best kind of neighborhood for autistic people is a highly multicultural neighborhood with immigrants from all over the world and no one dominant ethnic group. In such a neighborhood, with no one majority culture, people are much more likely to respect differences, and there is little or no pressure to conform to anything beyond basic politeness.

Do such neighborhoods exist in the U.K.? If so, would it be feasible for you to live in one?

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 17 Jul 2021, 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In my experience of the three how you look (2 and 3) has the biggest bearing on how you fit in. Contrary to popular belief, being muslim isn't actually something most white christian care about.

The moment a muslim (whether male or female) chooses to be secular and not wear ridiculous archaic costumes from the middle ages people just see them as normal.

But the point 3 also matters. I had a drinking buddy back in my 20s who was south Asian muslim but he was from Kashmir and looked like an Italian model (so he basically passed as an Aussie). His willingness to go to football matches, drink alcohol and parties mean't he was popular with girls and had zero problems assimilating (despite his choice to remain a muslim and carry a muslim name). Mohammed just became my buddy "Mo", It never entered my head his actual identity was actually a Kashmiri muslim, he was just another white Aussie to me.

But if he was a south Indian muslim then it wouldn't work the same. His appearance would mean he would stick out as "Indian" and girls wouldn't be as eager to date him and he would be profiled as "ethnic".

Depends how fanatically Christian they are and/or whether they are Christian nationalists.


In my neighborhood, quite a few South Asian women (Hindu and Sikh as well as Muslim) do routinely wear what you would call "ridiculous archaic costumes from the middle ages" and it's no big deal.


Drinking alcoholic beverages is prohibited in most branches of Islam, as far as I can tell.


Unfortunately, skin-color-based racism seems to be a big problem just about everywhere in the Western world (and in much of Asia too, from what I've heard). Some places are worse than others in that regard, however.

You are talking about religious christians. Among young people these are a minority these days.


And yes, this is tolerated but we are talking about assimilation,


I'm afraid I lived in a muslim country and alcoholism is a big problem. Almost all young muslim men I met in Malaysia drank alcohol, Even in countries where alcohol is strictly banned its still consumed
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24044337

But I am talking about muslims living in Australia. There are no islamic police to check what muslim men and women do in nightclubs, I can tell you they do it,



So living in America or Australia this is the most important factor in how easily you are accepted. If you look like Bella Haddid or Zain Malik then there's no problem, you are white. You can pass for white, Unfortunately If you look like Aziz Ansari then unless you are famous (like Aziz) or rich then you are going to have to make a big effort to assimilate.

I live in a neighborhood that has a large South Asian and Eastern European community, but my home is a shared dormitory in sheltered accommodation and I'm the only brown skinned person in there, and I get bullied by my dorm mates for my brown skin and my body odor problems I mentioned in another thread. I also get made fun of by them when I'm off my head with delusional ranting because of my bipolar or when I sleep walk during the night.