The following is based on Dr Beverly Tatum’s excellent book, “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (1997):
At American high schools and even at universities black students often sit together at lunch without any whites. Why is that? Are they being racist?
Both Barack Obama and bell hooks say it was to get a break from white racism. Dr Tatum, a psychologist, says there is more to it than that:
Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 20 blacks at mixed-race schools start to experience racism from whites: from white parents, white teachers and white students. Like racist remarks or having white friends change on them or having no luck with whites of the opposite sex. They no longer feel completely accepted by whites.
They start thinking about their blackness. They knew they were black all along, but before now most people did not make a big deal about it. They got invited to birthday parties like everyone else and all that. Not any more. Why? Puberty. Many white parents do not want blacks dating their sons and daughters. Thus the racism that starts coming their way from whites at this age.
Their white friends play it down and tell them not to be so sensitive. Because whites do not experience the racism, they do not understand it; they do not take it seriously. But guess what: their black friends do! Because they are going through the very same thing!
So who do they sit with at lunch? The people who will listen to them and take them seriously and understand where they are coming from. Which, in this case, are the other black students! It is the shared experience of white racism that brings them together.
Not only do they listen to each other, but they give each other support. Together they try to understand what it means to be black.
Being teenagers they turn to each other for answers instead of to the hard-won wisdom of their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. So it becomes the blind leading the blind. And they come up with some of the most brainless ideas of what it means to be black:
- Like the Wigger Fallacy: that being black comes down to clothes and music and slang and stuff like that, as if it were some sort of youth subculture like the goths.
- Like not “acting white”, which takes in not just clothes and music but even proper English and doing well at school!
- Like copying stereotypes from television, not understanding who made those stereotypes and why.
Out of stuff like this they build their “oppositional identity”, as Tatum calls it. Not being accepted by whites, they are trying hard not to be white. But in so doing they are harming their education.
All this is new since the 1960s. Before, in Jim Crow times, getting a good education, for example, was not seen as “acting white”. It was merely sensible. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr certainly thought so.
See also:
I really understand this. I grew up in a mostly white town in the midwest and for most of my youth I only had white friends because we shared most of the same interests and were all on the same softball team etc. But when middle and high school came I couldn’t really relate on deep levels with white students and former friends because if s*** went down I knew white people would not have my back. The girls who I knew from day one of kindergarden that were white, grew up to become more ignorant to racial stuff and simply ignored it.
I did not have that luxious.
Black kids that didn’t even each know well were the ones who would help defend each other sometimes, like you said the
“shared experience”.
It is one of the good things about it all but it also made me more aware of racism in the tight circles of my community and began to have friends that were non-white who also felt the same way.
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also on the oppostional identity thing, it can really alentiate other black people.
In my English 101 class there was a total of three black students in the class and even though I actually didn’t really care for one of the girls (and I had a feeling neither did the other black girl) they would contastly sit at the same table wiht each other. When I would visit the table in the begining we made small talk but after awhile I really wasn’t feeling the “group dynamic”(it was kind of minstrsel show sometimes) so once I decided to sit somewhere else or not be in the group they would be like, “oh we see how you are!” As if our connection was farther that the fact we were black.
sorry for the long post 🙂 great topic
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Great comment! And it was hardly too long.
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i remember an incident in high school.
i pretty much associated with whites in school.
i was in a class, and lunch had just ended, these two white kids who were standing in front of me, told me not to be offended by what they were about to say.
and im like “okayyyy??” and next thing i know they are saying how much they hated black people….they were talking about how at lunch they had a small altercation with a table full of black people apparently over some issue with chairs, and they were saying all sorts of things about how they are ghetto.
i honestly did not know what to make of that situation.
i know with some of the white people i have hung out with in the past, had racist parents, and i remember the dirty looks they gave me. i also remember when one white girl i was walking home with called this black boy that was hassling us, a nigger.
honestly it wasnt til recently are started realizing just how bad racism really is. because i didnt have the black side of my family in my life, any racist experience i went through growing up, i either ignored or didnt pay much attention to.
now that i am waking up to it, i honestly dont know what im supposed to do anymore.
i must admit, i actually miss the way the black race used to be, back before the civil rights…i liked it when our race had morals, and more self-respect. i just hate the whole “gangsta” thing, and i also dislike “ebonics”. i always kinda agreed with Cosby on his criticisms of the black race.
okay, i just realized, that in this entire comment i made, i switched subjects like several times….i dont think anyone is going to be able to make sense of this comment…
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It made perfect sense to me Alwaysright101 🙂
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yeah alawysright101
I understand you and your furstation. This post really has me looking back at how i conducted by self in high school (class 0f 08) and to be honest my town is lengedary for being a bubble ( their was a doc. in the 66 about it)and talking to other blackpeople after they have graudted I can’t helped but feel brainwashed sometimes, I know most of the people white and black really cared about me and my development but there were some cases when I was refered to as the Black girl and not my name that I really felt self concious and thought “how dare you refer to me as black you weren’t supose to notice that I’m different from you” so having black friends really does relieve the tention having to be a certain way, (sometimes)
And i wish I knew how to confront racism in way that I don’t comprimise myself and what i want in life and for the world i live in, so yeah if there were more activism like back in the civil rights hayday maybe but there are to many people who just don’t know and don’t do anything.
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I think there is bit more to racism than whites simply not liking blacks.
The university I went to in the early 90’s saw the black community protest the “integrated” housing strategy. They wanted segregation. Go figure. It was argued that segragated living gave them a better sense of community. No problem for the latin and asian communities. It was only the blacks that felt this way.
Are we coming full circle from the civil rights movement?
Is it really about gaining a sense of community or was it the majority of blacks simply not liking the ways of “others” in the “integrated” community. I think we can all find reasons why we dont relate to other races. Is the discontent really due to racial oppression from others? Or could it be something else?
In my lifetime, I have witdessed far more acts of discrimination coming from blacks aimed at perceived white racists.
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@wcb2009
you’re right it’s way more then just whites not likiely blacks it goes both ways and happens to more then those groups but I tend to think that it has something to do with the security of certain groups. I have no idea what the racial climate was in that community your talking about but comparing the black community and the latin community does not help you understand because there is different histories. While I think baggage is just baggage and everone has it, there are things what aren’t being addressed in the racial divide, and that prevents people from intergrating.
Like i said in post before when racial problems happened in my community that was ‘intergrated’ the adminstration at my high school would send the wrong message to the students by ignoring certain details, whether it was fight or if something was stolen; a black person could expect to be in the wrong if a white person is involved.
In my lifetime I have witness racial acts from everyone, I don’t keep count because it’s one too many.
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wcb2009:
I think you missed the point of the post: blacks stick together like that as a defence against white racism. If you are white, whites do not seem racist, except for the Klan and stuff like that. But if you are black you will have a markedly different view of them.
Think about it: if you are white and you go to a high school that is 85% black, you have two main choices: stick with the other whites because they understand you and will stick by you or try to be accepted by the blacks on THEIR terms – which takes way more courage and may not work in the end.
Blacks start out being accepted by whites but then in junior high or high school your white friends start to change on you for some strange reason. And you find that no matter what you do you will not be fully accepted by whites – unless you are a sports hero or something (and probably not even then).
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This post makes perfect sense to me. As young people become sentient, they tend to be drawn to others with similar experiences. Empathy is a strong social binder.
I would note as an aside that, at least in the area where I live, it appears from casual observation that interracial friendships and dating are becoming increasingly common among young people, suggesting that this phenomenon – transferred racism from parents to children resonating in the social structures of adolescents – is diminishing.
Back to the post, I’ve seen reference in this blog several times to the feeling of being the only black person in a particular room, or the only white person. I am one of those whites who has frequently experienced this, both in rooms of black Americans and rooms of continental Africans, and thus I’m aware of the sensation. For people (probably mostly whites) who haven’t experienced this, a good analog would be to envision a trope commonly written into rom-com films, where the female lead, through miscommunication or chicanery by a rival, is lead to believe that she is going to attend a costume party with a “ho” or “prostitute” theme. She dresses in a skimpy, revealing outfit, often a Playboy bunny type outfit, and walks into the party only to be greeted by the sight of a room full of conservatively dressed party goers, all of whom turn and gawk at her improvidently generous display of flesh.
This is of course a variation on the “naked in public” nightmare commonly experienced by most people, but for black Americans it is a quotidian reality of life, especially for a black person in academe or professional circles. In the movies, the heroine, with her Hollywood body, holds her head up and makes the best of her plight, which is what life demands of black people too, but the process does expose a raw nerve that, for black Americans, can never fully heal.
What black Americans do not recognize, at least in my experience, is that this is also a quotidian reality of life for white Americans, albeit often on a more subtle scale. White society is not a monolith. Quite the opposite in fact, and to confound the issue, boundaries are often ephemeral or difficult to discern. Yet they exist, and almost any white person is painfully familiar with the circumstance – for most whites a common an repeated one – of finding himself in a circumstance in which he is an unwelcome outsider.
Thus, Goths will eat lunch with Goths, rich kids with rich kids, computer nerds with computer nerds, etc. The comfort they find in their shared experience is exactly the same comfort that black students find in their shared experience.
Because of lack of time I did not reply to Agabond’s excellent post about the Kerouac passage, but the same idea has resonance there. The Beats were largely strays and outcasts – the reason I mention them here is that eventually they tended to drift to San Francisco, where they congregated at City Lights on Columbus, a larger scale version of black students congregating together in the lunch room.
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“And you find that no matter what you do you will not be fully accepted by whites – unless you are a sports hero or something (and probably not even then).”
I was going to comment that I’d never sat at a “black table” but then I read your caveat, which I think applies to me (I was head cheerleader). I’m much younger than most of the posters (28) so the school I went to was already very integrated.
Basically, it was all broken down into the “subgroups” of varsity sports, geeks, artists/skaters/alternatives, ROTC, goths, etc. There was a “black group” but most people grouped by pastime and interest. I was sort of in this weird in-between category because I was in the GT program and was dating an “artist” (to the chagrin of my cheerleader friends). So I sort of flitted around between groups, which irritated a lot of people. The jocks (even the white ones) tended to treat me like I was their private property and my boyfriend was harassed regularly.
Anyway, the point of this post was actually:
In our school the black people were mostly integrated as they were seen as “American” and athletic (2 things Texans value above all others) but the Hispanics were definitely segregated. They further segregated themselves based on their heritage: Puerto Ricans and Mexicans DO NOT MIX. My best friend was Puerto Rican but we only hung out outside of school. Her other friends referred to me as “Blanca” even though I’m black (yes, I understood the insult). Now that I think of it there were quite a few black cheerleaders but not a single Hispanic one. Weird that I never noticed that before. There weren’t many Hispanic athletes at all and none in our GT class. That is really odd, now that I think about it, as they were a much larger group than the black kids.
They didn’t have their own table. We all sat at tables and they stood outside in the hallway to the cafeteria and ate lunch there. If you can call drinking soda and eating Cheetos lunch.
There was a lot of interracial dating and friendships but only between the black/white/Asian population. My friendship was very unusual and my friend wasted plenty of time explaining that “She’s cool, guys. Leave her alone.” And I’ll never forget the look of absolute horror on her face when I pointed out the cute Mexican boy I’d been flirting with.
So my point is: in the South brown is the new black.
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Black&German:
I would be curious to know what the percentages were in your school of black, white, Asian and Hispanic.
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The analogy with goths is a good one but it can be pushed too far.
Like them blacks are seaching for their identity and like them try to find it in music, dress and codes of behaviour, in an oppositional identity. They are teenagers coming up with the sort of answers that teenagers do.
Where the analogy breaks down is that the goths are not stuck being goths. If there is a wedding or a college interview they have to go to, they can manage to make themselves presentable. But blacks are black for life. So the stakes are much higher.
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Wow. This is really interesting. I’ve seen it happen even in ‘international schools’ which exist across the globe. The Asians say that they all mix while in primary school. In middle school it starts separating into ‘Westerners’ (this includes the very few North American blacks) & ‘Asians’. By high school they separate into ethnic/nationality groups. The Westerners hardly notice this change over time though. Part of it is language & culture, but I think part of it is also for feeling emotionally ‘safe’.
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Abagond:
Percentages. Hmm… Can’t say exactly but it was probably 40% minority with Hispanics being the largest (but most invisible) group, followed by blacks, and then Asians. That school is now majority-minority. It was near an Army base so the black people (and some of the Hispanics, such as my friend) were mostly middle class. A lot of us had officers or civil servants as parents and were upper-middle class. As I said, there was little racial divide but a strong ethnic one.
There was also a bit of a class-divide there, with poorer whites (“trailer trash” even if they didn’t live in a trailer) being below wealthier blacks, status-wise. And there was a quite a bit of rank-snobbery. Officer’s girls dating officer’s boys was okay, regardless of race, but I remember my dad being angry about my dating someone whose father was lower-ranking. One (white) guy I dated introduced me as Officer H****’s daughter and his mom (who had been looking skeptical) immediately gave me a huge smile and gushed over how pretty I was. I guess he knew the deal already. Turns out his dad worked with mine.
The only people who really seemed to have a problem with race were black girls who had moved there recently from someplace else. They didn’t seem willing to “date out” and they got pissed off at non-blacks dating “their boys”. But they usually got over that within a year or so. There was so much interracial dating that a black girl not willing to date other races would’ve been very lonely.
FromTheTropics:
I also noticed it overseas. I used to work for some very international companies in Germany and the breakdown was by language. All of the native English speakers (black, Asian, brown, and white) were a group, the French-speakers (black, brown, and white) were a group, and the Spanish/Italian speakers (black and white) were a group. The native German speakers formed their own group but if they were fluent in a language they often joined in there. There was a lot of dating within groups and between the Germans and the groups (regardless of color) but rarely between foreign groups. Basically, we were all just tired of speaking German all of the time and tended to stick to people we could relax with in our native tongue and who “got our jokes”. The only exceptions were people who spoke multiple languages fluently (a Mauritian woman who spoke French/German/English hung out with whomever she wanted to, for instance).
So, it was voluntary segregation by language. Really, the typical “racial” differences are minuscule when you’re in a foreign country.
I distinctly remember the first day for a new Moroccan colleague. You should have seen the shocked look on his face when a small horde of white Parisians showed up at his desk for lunch and said, “Hey, we’d heard another one of us had arrived. Come join us for lunch!” He was like, ummm…. But within a week he’d been initiated into the fold and that was that.
It was quite a shock for me to move back to the States.
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Black&German:
Your comment did not appear right away because you used “pissed”. If you use one of these words your comment will get thrown to moderation:
cock, cracker, cunt, dick, fuck, gook, kaffir, motherfucker, nazi, nigger, piss, pussy, shit, spic, tits, whitey.
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Oh, okay. That would explain why my other post didn’t work. I think I put “take the pi$$” in it. Good to know.
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I think it goes beyond a “sense of community.”
I grew up in a mostly black community in Hempstead, New York. When I lived there, the blacks treated anyone who wasn’t like them, like crap. I went to college in upstate New York and it was 2% black.
When I arrived, I didn’t know anyone, so I hung out with my floor mates. They were all pretty nice, and mostly concerned about doing what they needed to do and getting drunk on the weekends, although I didn’t drink.
On the other hand, the blacks were a different story. They sat isolated in a corner of the cafeteria and gave the impression that if you were black, you should sit with them. One day, out of curiosity, another floor mate and I,who was also mixed race, decided to sit with them. They talked about race the whole time, analyzed everything we said and eventually my friend and I, earned the title of “not black enough.” Yet, they weren’t being racist, they were “conscious.”
People need to stop making excuses for this type of behavior. It’s not a sense of community, it is racism. They think they are better, more fun, and more talented than the white people. There way is the best and whites are just boring. No matter how you look at it or twist it, they feel as if they are superior.
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@Black&German – Did you notice any subtle sense of hierarchy between the language groups? Or a sense that the ‘dominant’ group (whichever one it is) was subtly ‘disinterested’ in talking to the others?
The thing at the international school is that many from the ‘minority’ groups are fluent in English and claim that they’ve tried talking to the ones from the English speaking group (which is made up of a myriad of nationalities and ethnicities) but it didn’t work and gave up after awhile, that’s when they retreated into their national/ethnic groups. The English speaking group dominates the school (which is English language based), and some say they’d like to join that group, but don’t know how. Humor is a factor, but also there is a sense of a hierarchy of cultures (which in my mind is basically the (post)modern version of subtle racism).
@adai Goldman – It’s true that that kind of attitude doesn’t help at all. Definitely. But I’m not yet fully convinced that they ‘feel superior’. I get this feeling that when groups do feel superior, they spend less time talking about it because they just are (superior). They’re superiority becomes invisible, as whiteness (or any other dominant culture) is invisible to anyone who is or acts white. It’s when groups feel inferior that they find the constant need to talk about how superior they are, because they are so fraught with insecurities. It sounds as though there is also a deeply ingrained sense of anger, and a deep longing to ‘belong’ and the only way to do that is by keeping all threats out.
…I’m just tossing ideas here. What do you think?
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I agree with Fromthetropics. The truly superior simply assume they are better or “know” they are better – they do not sit and talk about it all the time. There is no need to.
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Fromthetropics & Black&German:
Something I noticed from both your comments is that when Americans are overseas they seem to be less racist than when at home. What do you make of that?
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>when Americans are overseas they seem to be less racist than when at home.
Not necessarily so. Some are, but others become more racist. Firstly, the ones who go overseas are often the ones who are more open-minded in the first place. So you get a high concentration of people in the expat world who are less prone to racial prejudices. Secondly, if you are willing to learn, then contact with those who are different from you will help you become more open-minded. So, in a way, I do find it easier talking to white people who are overseas, but not always.
Others seem as though they are or have become more open-minded because they ‘lurrrv’ all these natives and love collecting all these traditional artifacts, but whose prejudices have in fact been driven underground and become even more subtle than it already was. It gets even more subtle when they marry a local woman. They don’t need a black friend anymore because now they have a ‘lovely’ exotic ethnic wife to back up their ‘objective, unprejudiced’ views, and their extensive international experiences. Some end up reducing white privilege to ‘class difference’. I’ve seen at least a couple of these commenting on some anti-racist blogs. Of course, not all are like this. Some become even more aware of racism after being married to a local woman. It just depends on the person.
Others become more prejudiced/racist and justified in thinking that the locals/natives are backwards, dirty and lazy. After all, they’ve ‘observed it’. The immense wealth gap exacerbates this. And sometimes when the locals do not espouse white liberal views, they are also seen as backwards. Basically, they are imposing their supposedly superior Western values on others. (Some countries openly discriminate against minority groups, and others have started to openly discriminate against foreigners – sometimes black, sometimes white. I dare say the sentiment behind the discrimination is markedly different depending on who it’s against – black, white, or other minorities. Also, there is a huge difference between ‘discrimination based on ethnicity/race’ and ‘racism’. The former is when you discriminate because you don’t like them – whether you see them as ‘equal’ or ‘superior’ (a U.S. example that’s come up here would be: Blacks treating others like crap), the other is when you believe the ‘Other’ to be inferior. That’s my take.)
Many also carry ‘an air of arrogance’, as the locals will put it, when overseas in non-white countries. There is a sense that because they are white or a non-white Westerner, they can get away with things that they wouldn’t be able to get away with in their home countries. Basically, a revived sense of colonial mentality. The locals remain an ‘exotic Other’, and often invisible. They are, of course, often unaware of their white privilege. These same people are often less racist than their Stateside counterparts. The remnants of their prejudices are just more subtle now.
The worst IMO are the more ‘socially aware’ ones, but who haven’t quite managed to fully understand or identified their own prejudices. They speak the local language, and act and think they are totally unprejudiced, not because they are, but because their prejudices have become ultra subtle. I have a few close friends in this category and I love them, but at the same time they drive me absolutely nuts sometimes.
Apologies for the long post, but it’s something that I’m having to deal with everyday right now, and am in the midst of processing these things in my mind. It’s great that I can talk about it with others like this.
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Oh no, that was beautiful.
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“an air of arrogance’, as the locals will put it, when overseas in non-white countries.”
It seems to me, as if they have an air of arrogance in whatever country and often it is based on feeling like minority for the first time. Then they throw up the “old wasp guard” in an attempt to once again feel significant.
“It’s when groups feel inferior that they find the constant need to talk about how superior they are, because they are so fraught with insecurities.”
No, perhaps many years ago, close to the Jim Crow era, there may have been some sort of cognitive dissonance. However, in my observations, I believe sometimes those actions are definitely a feeling of superiority. “Oh, they all smell” “Oh they can’t fight or will be to afraid to speak up, if we say something” things as such spoken for all to hear. When you combine that with some of the NOI videos, and hateful literature, yes it is an air of superiority which is no different than whites who are racist.
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“The worst IMO are the more ’socially aware’ ones”
This is consistent with my observations both here and abroad — the most insidious structures that perpetuate down-low racism come from the so-called “liberal” side.
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FromTheTropics:
“a sense that the ‘dominant’ group (whichever one it is) was subtly ‘disinterested’ in talking to the others?”
The English-speaking group (mine, although I mixed freely with the Germans, as well) was definitely dominate. Even dominate over the Germans, strangely enough. We didn’t just dominate socially but also in management and other leadership positions. One reason for this is that English is the default language in business and politics in Europe (the French just HATE that) and it’s simply easier for us to write eloquently and seem witty and clever in our native language. We have a decided advantage there.
And whenever even one of us was present in a room we expected everyone to switch to English even if we spoke their language adequately. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how asinine that was. We even did it with our German colleagues. I’d walk into a room full of Germans and speak English the whole time or write English emails to my German colleagues. Don’t ask me what I was thinking.
Yes, English-speakers feel superior, regardless of race.
“Something I noticed from both your comments is that when Americans are overseas they seem to be less racist than when at home. What do you make of that?”
I’ve only lived in European countries so my experience is limited. But I have noticed that Americans overseas tend to be less racist. As I said before, race is a social construct that loses it’s meaning in a foreign country. Nationality gains in importance. And language after that and ethnicity after that.
Also, what “race” is changes depending on the country. In America I am black. In Germany I am American. Nobody gave a rats behind about my “African roots” they just peppered me with questions about growing up in George Bush’s Texas. Did I have a horse? Did I date cowboys? Have I been to Dallas and do they really have horns on their cars like JR? Can the Texas Rangers really all do karate?
They got a kick out of my being a former cheerleader.
If I mentioned that I was black they’d just stare at me blankly for a moment and say something like, “Seal is black, you’re more like a honey-color.” Over there I noticed that I was usually lumped into the “racy” (“rassig”, meaning to have a fiery temperament) category. The same category as the Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, Italians, and even dark-haired Germans. Basically, the indeterminate-brown-woman category.
But I think FromTheTropics is right in that:
“Firstly, the ones who go overseas are often the ones who are more open-minded in the first place.”
People who are truly closed-minded tend to stick close to home, where they feel safer. I was also startled by the amount of interracial/inter-ethnic ex-pat couples.
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All the black kids did sit together at my high school. Only me and two other black kids did not in the whole lunchroom.
I get the whole “racism” bit, but I still think that if we want to be included in society we have to learn to get along with white people and everybody else.
We worked so hard to integrate, no use going back to segregation.
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I have noticed that black people often sit together myself. This was evident in my canteen at university. But I think it is less likely due to racism from white people, because any racism that that black people now incure is more likely to be covert than overt. I think it is mainly because people like to be around people that they can relate to culturally. I have sat on tables with black people and white people before and sorry to generalise but what I found I liked when sitting with the black people was that they were more expressive and honest than the white people.
What I also find interesting is that on the black table you often get a ‘token white person’ who enjoys being around black people and has the danger of being labelled as a ‘wannabe black’ or a ‘wigger’, and on the white table there is often a ‘token black person’ who the black people tended to see as an ‘uncle tom’.
As for me like meagan good said in her interview
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…I hung around in a mixed group, one white, one asian, two black, one mixed race, which is probably unusual.
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This is especially common in predominately white schools with few black or people of color students. when i was in high school all the black girls which were very few, would harshly judge each other and the “white way was the right way” to them. I remember befriending all the black girls in high school and they would ask me “why are you so friendly?” “She’s this, shes that”. hate on each other for stupid stuff.
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I am a bit uncomfortable by associating
“Why all the black kids sit together”
and
“Like not “acting white”, which takes in not just clothes and music but even proper English and doing well at school!”
Indeed the latter may be part of adolescent identity exploration, but I don’t think it is a direct result of the former. After all, in many of the mixed race schools, the whites do not necessary value education either (at least where I grew up). Or . . . Maybe I studied more because I did not feel comfortable with either whites or blacks and I didn’t want to be like either one.
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Having read through all the posts, I think it would GREAT to more posts about Americans overseas, ie,
– white vs. black vs. Latino vs. Asian vs. multi-racial
– vs. locals or other expats
– those that immerse with locals, those that remain aloof
– those who have other family or cultural connections with locals or other expats
– going back “home”
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imo it goes both sides people associate with people like them it might start by one group but then the other group enforce it making it worst. not saying it doesnt happen but Ive never had any problem with black friends altho I must admit that seeing one trying to be too gangster tick me its the same as if a white guy does it if its not worst. Ive had asian friends all my life same for latino never had a problem with it. guess it depends where you are born in the end Ive lived in montreal which is rather multicultural.
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Officially not allowed at the black table back then. It was ok for me I never really thought about it too much. Well, I was fine until the attacks and yes my white friends were the ones who often enough defended me. High School was a mess however and I would never willing want to do it again. I think that there are two experiences one from accepted blacks those who fit in against those who don’t. My freshmen year I found a black kid that wanted to hang out. He was super smart in the sense that even the teachers didn’t know what to do with him. We use to have great debates over lunch our group was very diverse. Going home one day waiting on the public bus corner four kids jumped out and beat my friend senseless with baseball bats. (I saw him again in my twenties and he can still barely feed through a straw and his motor skills are gone.)
Everyone on the corner ran accept for me it took my brain a couple of seconds to catch that these kids were doing. They turned and looked at me and I took off. I was fast and a track star at the time but I have barely ever hit that speed again in my life. The next day at school I was warn that I was next. Why because we thought we were better than them. I looked at my accuser and said I am failing out of this school how am I better? I failing everything and you can’t leave me alone. He thought I was lying but I hadn’t been considered academically smart since I entered the 6th grade. Yes, spoken people considered me smart and it would be a crazy teacher to ever verbally challenge me, but I couldn’t pass non standardized test. I watch those tables but I stayed away in High School they weren’t for me. No matter how dark my skin was and that I had an open friend policy you could be my friend as long as we could have good discussions. I felt like a jazz singer out in the rain singing to a blues crowd but so foreign a song was mine that it was country western to them.
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Very sorry to hear about your high school friend.
DITTO.
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^ A terrible experience… and I’m sorry to hear of it K.O.T.
It’s an ongoing problem that rarely gets dealt with. The crabs in the barrel mentality and the tyranny of the ignorant.
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@ K.O.T. You have some stories about your youth that should be in a book. I guess that’s what your screen name is about ? That was terrible what happened to your friend. It’s the crabs in a barrel where our people are concerned. But you are a survivor and you are resilient.
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The herd mentality is a something black youth need to be taught to get away from. Our children need to be taught that ignorance is not cool. I totally agree with Bill Cosby on his dialogue about some of the dysfunctions in our community.
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@Bulanik: This then is your trigger. It’s one of the few topics or events that can set off a kind of panic attack or just an extreme emotional reaction in you. And you just hit one of my triggers.
I was one of the “smart kids” in school that everyone thought was uppity or stuck up or trying to be white. To this day I hate that mentality to the point where I rarely socialize with black people and hold back a lot about my personal life when talking to other blacks. I’m still wary of being called an “oreo” or “wannabe white” just because I’m well spoken and have an interest in life outside of the ghetto.
Lately I’ve been spending time with some more enlightened people and this has helped me cope with this better, as they’ve created a safe space for me to express myself with them. The sad thing is that I always had such a space with whites. Not one of them ever seemed to question my black credentials no matter what I said or did or what music I listened to, shows I watched or topics I liked to discuss.
No one has said anything really nasty to me in years but every now and then someone black will sh** on something I’ve told them I loved or ask why I like or don’t like something or ask why I’m so antisocial or why I hate black people and that will trigger me and I’ll go off that person. The last time it happened I stopped talking to this person for years. Only now getting around to even saying hello to her.
Is it still like that for you and how are you coping with this now?
Would also like to point out that on Jim C Hines website he discusses exactly these topics of bullying and micro-aggressions and those who stand by and do nothing while it occurs. Please read.
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I was just weird. I had friends but I was considered an odd bird. But I was cool with that. I was flying my freak flag and didn’t care what people thought.
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I was the white guy who sat at the black lunch table…
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Mary: May I ask when you graduated?
I ask because it’s probably very different for “odd ducks” such as us today in HS. From what I’ve observed of my sisters who are 20 years my junior, their age group seem to be more open minded and accepting of oddities and strangeness.
So you can get away with being black and a Goth today whereas there were certain articles of clothing I couldn’t get away with wearing in a predominantly black school in the 80s.
I was just your garden variety nerd/artist and as a result had almost no black female friends until I went to work after college.
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@Ikeke35 1977
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@ Ikeke35
LOL. Reading your post reminded me of me. I was the nerd/artist/goth (for a year on the goth part). Grunge another year.
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Yeah, My mother God rest her sweet soul, She and my aunts were clutching their pearls at all my crazy antics. LoL. I was like a black Cyndi Lauper. My family was concerned. The theme songs of my life would have been like the title of Lauper’s first album “She’s So Unusual. LoL! I look back on those days and laugh.
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What i have observed is that being in a mostly white school–Black students seek each other out more often–it is as if you have found a jewel when you spot out other Black people on campus. There is no in fighting in these situations, only support and understanding. Contrary to popular belief, when Blacks are the minority at a school they are not more likely to date the white students. Usually they are just trying to survive in a seemingly hostile environment yet the hostility is more covert so you can’t go and file grievances, you just have to stick together.
There will always be those one or two Black students who mix and mingle freely with the white students and think you place to much emphasis on “color”, but these types are very rare. But even they will admit to feelings of exclusion and microaggressions from white students and professors.
It truly is a balancing act in these situations because when are seen with just the Black students, it is easy for the cultural “others” to accuse you of reverse racism. Yet after awhile you realize the Black students have got to look out for each other because no one else at your campus will despite what they say, their actions will always exclude you and some of us learn the hard way.
This is just my experience. I would be interested in knowing if someone else experienced something different.
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If black teenagers believe getting good grades is acting white it’s because teachers, school administrators, and parents teach them that when they push the black kids into the lower track classes. They didn’t come up with that themselves.
I agree with most of the post, though. I was one of the few black kids in the Honors program at my school. There were usually only one or two other black kids in my class, but I still ate lunch with the black kids and didn’t feel any sort of camaraderie with most of the white kids, mainly because they were a bunch of racists. I was never outcasted by the black kids at school for making good grades, reading all the time, or frequently scoring higher than everyone in our class on standardized tests.
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What I thought was crazy was the young white female teachers went after the black athletes. The football players and the boys on the basketball team. The white female teachers would look at the black females with derision. But would look at the black athletes like they were porterhouse stakes.
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My oldest boy (white) would always be with the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria in preschool when I went to pick him up.
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I honestly don’t understand the brouhaha about the black kids sitting together but somehow it seems perfectly normal to see the white kids sitting together.
@v8driver
Am I to believe that white and black preschoolers segregate themselves in the cafeteria? Not calling you a liar, but that’s hard for me to conceive.
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In my high school while the Blacks were sitting together, the whites were also seated amongst themselves, the same as with the Latino students. The few Indian and East Asian students in the school tended to congregate with the whites.
The white kids who seemed to like pointing out such things usually only hung with other whites….but, of course, that’s different….
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I was a very lucky kid, I thank my parents for raising us in an integreted neighborhood. My kindergarden / grade school was 50 percent black, and, I remember games the teachers gave us in kindergarden , one to have the kids be wives and husbands, and it was nothing for me to be with a black girl, holding hands as the man and wife
I bonded deeply in grade school , with freinds , some who I would play with profesionaly later, and, when we hit puberty and went to junior high and high school, I didnt buy into the societal preasures that whites wernt suposed to be with blacks socialy, and in the mid 60’s, you can believe they were there, I became very focused on keeping my relationships from grade school and socialising with them and new people I would meet at high school, to the point that I went through puberty with my black male freinds and started to just not be on the white social scenes so much, with some exceptions…being a basketball player and a musician in soul groups and James Brown cover bands, just blossomed my social life even more in the black communities I hung out in…
I look back and really want to thank my parents for raising me in that kind of envirnment and being wise enough to let me be who I am, instead of trying to advise me to do something else , and I was very lucky to be running with such a hip crowd…My roll models of how to grow up and carry myself in this world were black men and women, all to be ruined and torn down by 8 years in new york , which I want to thank for turning me into an @ss hole….hey , what the heck,it comes in handy for survival , also
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@ Bulanik; You are accurate in your assessment on the blacks acting white madness. It is the crabs in a barrel syndrome.
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@ Mary Burrell, As a child I thought I was going to bipolar or have a mental break. I personally wish my friend was still his old self the kid that made the math teacher cry because of how good he was. He was writing computer programs in his notebook. Had those kids ever talked to him they would have found one of the most dedicated black boy I have ever met. He would always get on me for not trying hard enough to find a black girlfriend. “You give up because you want easy and we aren’t made for easy!” He use to say that to me all the time. “If she smacks you down the first time go back for more there is victory without obsticales. He even tried to convince me that math could tell you that the perfect shape for a girl was black. “The numbers add up.” I couldn’t keep up with him always but we had a lot of fun back in those days.
He once argued that of course there would be a black president. I argued against I thought America was too against blacks and we would see a white woman first.
I miss that kid a lot but that day after getting threatened I packed all my books in the middle of the day hopped on a bus and never returned to that school. Told my Mom I didn’t need an education over my life.
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@ King of Trouble; Man, I am so touched . I feel like I’ve been on this journey with you. Brother you need to write. Seriously. That friend of your’s sounds like an amazing guy. That is just tragic. That he will not be able to share his gift. I feel honored that you would share with me. Thank You for this. You are working in Japan and teaching. That is amazing in it’s self. You have stories my brother find some kind of way to share with the rest of the world. I love your commentary.
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@ Mary Burrell, thanks and yes King of Trouble refers back to the time where just getting up in morning trouble came to greet me. I am coming back to the States this months and yet it is the only place I constantly find myself in Trouble.
I think you would like my sister perspective because as an older brother I thought I was sheltering her but girls have a way of hurting each other that is not always clear to a boys eye. I only caught the things floating around her almost rarely did I get the things under the water.
To this day I feel horrible about my half job of protection because I preferred that people picked on me and kept their nasty hands off my little sister. I thought my sister was doing better than me but she never sat at the black table either. Had I been looking I would have tried much harder for her. We will always be black and that is a proud fact for me but that doesn’t mean we will or were always accepted but some ignorant people. I don’t like ignorance in any shade.
The last thing my friend ever said to me because we were 14 before the incident, was be black in mind, be black on the outside, be black in will because we don’t easily break. It is his spirit that echoes in most of my words. So if I have to sit at a table it will always be the one where I am proud of myself, my relatives, and the accomplishment of those who survived the passage of hell that was the slave routes. I cannot guess what type of stamina it would take to endure something like that. I am not sure if I have it in me but my relatives did and I hope that spirit resides in me. I am from a strong people and no matter how tough this world gets I set myself aside and remember that. I don’t need to sit at a table to know that even as good as it feels to sit I am black I am strong in that.
Running from that school marked the last time that I would run.
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“…. all to be ruined and torn down by 8 years in new york , which I want to thank for turning me into an @ss hole….hey , what the heck…”
********
– B.R.
“NEVER underestimate the power of stupid (and rude) people in large groups!”
LOL
I’m assuming you’re referring to NYC which can be a very tough/dog-eat-dog place. It isn’t for the meek or faint of heart. Good thing you escaped!! lol
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Hahaha, yeah, Matari, pretty much living on the deuce, between the years 78 and 86, traversing it 4 to 6 times a day taking percusion to 28th street dance classes, put an edge in ones step, you know the worst people , who were kicked out of their neighborhoods congratated to the deuce , back then…not now
Of course for me, the grossest rudeness came from da joisey, staten island, brookloin, Queens (no offence Abagond),da Bronx,all doze rude a holes tryin to pahk dere cahs all over da place and insult any joik lucky enough ta pass by ,and, gave me all the edge i could ever ask for…and, hey, I wouldnt trade it for the world , comes in real handy in reality world…ha…Ive gotten softer , though , can you beleive that?, gees thank gawd , but, its amazing how true the world rings through New York eyes
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The BBQS — residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island — are so often derided by Manhattanites. In my experience Manhattan is the real dog-eat-dog borough of NYC. Yeah, it’s great for the shopping experience, theatre and the Arts, and many travel there for employment purposes (even from out of state) etc, but from what I see / have seen, it’s not such a great place to live — especially not for families with young children.
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“What does “living on the deuce” mean?”
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Grifters, hustlers, users, con-men, druggies, crooks, anyone that might prey upon the weak, pimps, thieves, fences, playas, junkies, pickpockets and other assorted characters HANGING OUT on 42nd St before that former red-light district was renovated & cleaned up.
“…many travel there for employment purposes (even from out of state) etc, but from what I see / have seen, it’s not such a great place to live — especially not for families with young children.”
*********
Concur! NYC imo is not a place to raise children. Kids deserve wide open natural, safe places to explore plants, animals… trees to climb, non-congested space to learn/play. They don’t deserve concrete jungles, crowds and crowded/rude living spaces.
If I was a dog (pet) the last place I’d want to live is somewhere I could not run, roam, hunt, romp – be myself. Millions of dogs in NYC only get to walk, sniff, and be a personal body guard. And maybe bark, and even that’s usually frowned upon, unless it involves something BAD going down.
Maybe Abagond will write a post about LIFE in NYC.
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Bulanik,”the deuce”, refers to forty second street , which became a pretty tough congregational place…42nd and 8th ave got called “the minnasota strip” in referance to the blond prostitutes thay got met at the bus stations by “pimps” who had them hustling on 8th ave ,minnasota a referance to a state that has a lot of blonds
Well, Flamma, they used to say all the interesting exiting people that made Manhattan exiting all came from the midwest…..hahahahahjust kidding
Kinfdof Trouble, very compelling testimony, the people who did that to your freind,will pay a huge price in their soul, even if they dont conciencly realise it
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ha cool,Bulanik, i read Iceberg Slim a long time ago myself
that was way before gangster rap…pretty intence language
lots of prostitutes in brazil dont have pimps anymore, which is good…i dont know about the states anymore
back in chigago, a woman i lived with for a minute made freinds with a prostitute, and tried to protect her money from her pimp…this chump came banging at our apartment door screaming for his money…i just said i dont have anything to do with it and didnt open the door as he screamed and fumed….later, someone had dumped dog poo in front of our door right in the hallway….i kind of eased out of that relationship after that
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Bulanik, Im not sure if pimps were ever in the situation in Brazil…there are these bath houses that the ladies are in that are run by men who take their cut, but, they dont try to get customers and are only there to protect the ladies and get their cut
Prostitution in Brazil is almost legal, so , it doesnt have the dangerous stigma it does in the USA. The only way I can tell you that I know some prostitutes and not incriminate myself is tell the truth , and, that is , my wife is from a big family and one of her sisters was in the business for a while…she even got over to Italy..and now is married with a kid. So, because I know her, I know how hard she worked ,the dues she paid and how she never had a pimp, and she is really good people…
Im not sure how much pimps are involved with ladies now in the USA, I think there still are some, but, I bet some ladies have their own business
I used to work at a club on 59th and First Ave, The Ali Baba,owned by a Turkish guy…it was a club for profesional ladies to hook up, this was in 84 or so…I never saw a pimp in there…but that doesnt mean they didnt have someone who looked out for them
Sometimes I think the whole “pimp” thing is blown out of purportion in urban street myth , exactly because of the Iceberg Slim referance you brought in…but, the guy beating at my door and cursing me out to get his money was no figement of my imagination…hahaha
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Abagond, you should really compile your race-related posts and use them in writing your own book. I could see it being called “You Are a Racist!” (That would really get people’s attention!) But you would have to offer your readers more suggestions on how NOT to be racist and how to fight racism. I feel like you write a lot of (excellent) posts about the problems of the past and present, but not much about the possible solutions.
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I think you are right ,Bulanik, its more than a street myth like I suggested
Heck, even my idol , Miles Davis , was pimping women when he went through his drug addiction phase, and ripped off one of his freinds trying to help him, Clark Terry
So, I would revise my statement to say it is an urban street myth, and a reality…a street myth only in the sence that young men would read Iceberg Slim and fantacise about it, but, also a hard street reality
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@all you have to be careful though, not all blacks are your friends, y’know…in Africa we go by nation, I was born and raised in Canada yet the Nigerians etc are always saying I’m not Canadian, im nigerian and fighting with me, and I’m like “how do u know I’m Nigerian?…exactly! If u already know why do u need me to tell you! I say to non-Canadians I’m Canadian so ppl know that’s where I was raised, and I tell Canadians I’m Nigerian, so they know that’s where I come from”
One of those girls later cut my hair, the one who used to always say I had such long hair, cut it! It went from nipple level (pardon my language) to my neck, which is where it’s at right now, another one of my friends that was there didn’t say anything except laughed, but at one point told her to cut it out. I can’t remember well but I was so afraid, because she was literally throwing me around and pulling my hair, and sitting on me so I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t even the first time, she cut my hair a lil bit when I was in hallway and a TEACHER was there who I was helping. I didn’t see her but I heard laughing so I turned around and started yelling at her and the other girl she was laughing with. My other “friend” starts yelling at me what’s wrong with cutting your hair, why can’t you cut it, after i told them even my mom doesn’t allow me or anyone to cut it…this was the same friend along with a group of others, who would later tell me after I told them the girl cut my hair “it looks cute short.” And started smiling…I knew those girls had problems but since there were one of the few that spoke English, I talked to them…
Let’s just say they weren’t laughing when I told on them…weird ppl, eh?
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It sucks not having someone to look up to as a black girl…and it’s affecting the rest sadly! Have you realized that’s there no longer any black girls (even if they were mixed before) on Disney? White ppl have Taylor Swift, and Hispanics have half white Selena Gomez with all her hair extensions! 😛 They end up looking up to only Rihanna, and Beyonce, and all those other rappers. Who I no longer listen to! Ever since 2Chainz became a rapper and Kanye married Kim, I knew rap wasn’t going to get any better…and once I started paying better attention to the racism in their videos, lyrics, and lifestyle toward bw…but they don’t want to open their eyes and see it! We’re slowly getting replaced completely by biracials and “mixed, light skinned, ambitious looking yet calls her self black” women in the media. In Canada they only show mixed ppl for blacks, period! For both men and women…these girls used to always fawn over light skinned guys with green eyes, it was scary…we need direction!
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@ torontogirl
I’m sorry u had to go through that sis. Some black ppl are not our allies. That is messed up they cut ur hair. They were probably jealous, was their hair short? if so that is probably why. Good that u told on them, they need to learn u will not allow that mess. As far as role models, well i like jill scott, maya angelou, frances cress welsing, my mom & grandmother, and i kinda like viola davis. Its not too many non whitewashed ppl in hollyweird. As far as music goes i love old school like sam cooke, stevie wonder, earth wind and fire,etc. some new artists like marsha ambrosius, heather headley, jazmine sullivan etc. Yes i do notice there are no black kid shows anymore, i remember watching, static shock, the proud family,thats so raven,the famous jett jackson etc. Now they mostly show mixed chicks in our place, and we can’t really complain because black ppl allowed these ppl to be called black when some are white identified and take roles that were for us. All the books that were made into movies use mixed characters in the place of a dark skinned character that was described in the book. Like with the hunger games they use a biracial girl to play a character that in the book was described as dark skinned.
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I love people like Gabby Douglas and Willow Smith because she’s so odd and artistic (like me). And about the Hunger Games thing, I think they met dark skinned when compared to a white person…but that’s so true, at least she has a black mother this time (see the things I rejoice over?! Lol) I was thinking about the light skin/dark skin thing recently when I saw the carpet for the BET awards and realized that the light skin blacks, had just as “black” features as the darker skinned blacks. And it looked so stupid to me, as I saw darker skinned men paired with lighter skinned women because in the end, even to me, we’re all dark skinned. Do you realize that even on black shows, they love putting mixed chicks in desirable roles. Lisa Bonet? And they always play the quirky, and sweet one…
Yet, if you turn it around, to men…I’ve heard a couple guys complain about the only reason girls like him is because he’s light skinned (the boy can dance!) and when Drake (I don’t even know he was black till someone told me lol) came out ALL the rappers were attacking, a lot of them, ESP. The dark skinned ones were saying he’s only this famous and swooned over because he’s mixed so they can relate to him and because he’s light skinned. Yet, the say black women are the haters…sheesh!
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*in desirable roles–and trying to put them off as 100% black
I think biracials should have their own community and stop using us and then dumping us when no longer needed. Mariah Carey magically became black again after she broke up with that old white dude! Halle Berry, is always called the most beautiful black woman people always say Alicia keys is such a beautiful black woman, Rihanna is mixed…it’s weird, because if they’re worried about trying to relate to different audiences…why don’t they do that to black men? Or even white people?
I hope I don’t sound angry, oops! I’m just asking some questions!
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@ torontogirl
U don’t have to worry about sounding angry, u don’t. I won’t judge u i can tell when a woman is venting or not. U right i don’t see them doing that to others. Now as far as black men i do remember acura casting asked for a friendly light skinned man to play the car salesman in their commercial, but i don’t see things like that much. They do this to black women because they know they can get away with it. When they have black ppl that co sign with their racist standards of beauty that makes them think they are right. It doesn’t help that some black people go on about light skin and having “good” hair. If we were united and didn’t make these statements they couldn’t use that to justify what they’ve been doing. That is what they always do, use a whitewashed black person to say see this negro agrees with me so u shouldn’t be offended. that is what the racists do when they get caught, like paula deen brought out her black friends and her grown ass black son. lol.
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Lucky for me. My table was pack with different ethnical friends. Only thing crazy is the popular,middle and loser titles.Popular children portray themselves as elite/segregation upon us. The middle children was hardworking to become like the popular children and pick groups to boost themselves up. Some middle class gain power by using tlow class to climb up. Low or losers class just don’t care.
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