I can tell you that a girl struggles to sit still. That sounds like an observation. But whether the adults around her decide she is energetic, disruptive, disrespectful, anxious, poorly disciplined, or possibly dealing with ADHD is something else entirely. That is interpretation, and interpretation has a culture.
We do not observe people neutrally. We notice behavior through everything we already believe about gender, race, family, discipline, achievement, and what a “good” child is supposed to look like. The exact same behavior can invite curiosity in one child and punishment in another. Behavior is visible. Meaning gets assigned.
I still think about a directions exercise my class took in fifth grade. I knew the answers to the questions and completed them, only to learn that the directions had apparently told us to skip some of them. On paper, the observable behavior was simple: Jenny did not follow the directions. But even that tiny childhood example makes the larger point. An observation tells you what happened. It does not automatically tell you why it happened, what was happening cognitively, or what the behavior means.
There is also no single “community of color” experience. That phrase can become so broad that it accidentally erases the cultural differences we were trying to acknowledge in the first place. For Haitian families, context can include language, migration, school systems, beliefs about behavior and disability, access to specialists, and family expectations.
Context has to change the work
For Haitian families, that means taking seriously the role of language, migration, family expectations, school systems, beliefs about behavior and disability, and access to appropriate support. Cultural context should be part of how information is developed and communicated, not something added after the fact.
Clinical claims still need strong evidence. Cultural context helps us understand how those facts are interpreted, trusted and used. Representation matters, but culturally responsive work goes further by understanding the world the person actually lives in.