A few weeks ago I was on Facebook and came across an article, “Being Weird and Black Doesn’t Mean You’re Interested in Being White." This is a strange title to begin with, but the content was something that I, as an African-American who considers himself a geek, a gamer and a bit of a literature nerd, could sort of understand. Having grown up and heard other black people that didn’t share my particular interests say that I was “acting white,” the article intrigued me. I had friends of all different kinds of races throughout my early and late school years who shared many of the same interests as me, even other black friends. The majority of my black friends have had to deal with this accusation to some degree, as if our interests had to be binary. Either we were black and had “black people” interests, or we were black and had “white people” interests. This never made sense to me. My interests do not and should not define my cultural background. If I like "Doctor Who," it doesn’t somehow change my skin color – it is just an interest I have. But when I read the article, I was not surprised at seeing someone else go through a similar situation.
The article talks about “black culture,” but focuses more on music and certain other things that I wouldn’t equate to being black. They do not truly epitomize a culture but more of a trend in black communities. Having a black Barbie doll doesn’t really make you black; it’s a toy. Its color, while capable of giving a child a sense of relatability, doesn’t really embody black culture. Defining black culture by the current music trend and the ethnicity of the famous person you had a crush on isn’t an accurate way to define culture -- it’s really just personal preference, as is an interest in "Dragon Ball Z," "Star Trek" or jazz.
Trends change throughout communities over time, and music is a clear example of trend versus culture. Jazz was the black community's trend of music in the 1920s through the 1930s, but today, black people’s grandparents might listen to jazz while you’d likely be hard-pressed to find a black person under 35 that has a real interest in it. Jazz was a part of black communities, but it wasn’t part of black culture.
The title “Being Weird and Black Doesn’t Mean You’re Interested in Being White” bothered me, though, because what exactly is weird about metal or "Star Trek," a current mainstream movie series? The word "weird" has a negative connotation to it, and I don’t think that having unique or non-mainstream interests should be viewed as negative. People are unique individuals and don’t all have one singular mindset or set of interests. We are diverse in our media consumption, and using the word “weird” puts a negative weight on the reader’s shoulders, whether they are black or not. If the focus of the article is to emphasize that being from a particular culture and having particular interests isn’t bad, then the title should be appropriate to that focus.
After reading the article, I reposted it, because I knew my other black friends would understand and relate to it. One of my white friends commented on it because he had never heard of that being a thing and couldn’t understand why anyone would say something like that. I think that his lack of knowledge about it is probably very common, since it is mainly only brought up among black people and in mostly black communities.
It is an issue that separates black people and it needs to be addressed not only in black communities but everywhere.
