I think the terms "Oreo" and "sellout" are often applied in a manner that damages the person being criticized and the person attempting to "enforce the rules and standards of blackness". It's a lot like toxic masculinity in more ways than anyone wants to admit. There are black people that actively make life more difficult for other black people, and they should be criticized...but we paint a Candice Owens with the same brush that we paint a black kid that's into skateboarding or Heavy Metal and that makes us all ...smaller in some way. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, people should be allowed to believe and do what they want, regardless of their skin color. There's never any point in time when it's acceptable for someone to go "Oh you're like this? But I thought you were black/white/hispanic/etc." There's still people like Candace Owens who are doing more harm than good, but to call someone like, say, Glenn Loury or John McWhorter a racial sellout because they don't agree with your concept of racial solidarity is ridiculous. Your race doesn't determine what you believe -- your brain does.
As someone who was technically labeled and “Oreo” I had a weird experience with my blackness. Despite me “liking white things” I would still get bullied ruthlessly for my blackness. Due to that I would take great offense to my black peers when they say I wasn’t black enough (and yes I knew they were joking but still hurt). Since, I didn’t act like them or know something most black people knew. So in a away I did develop some anti blackness due to being attacked on both sides. Now I learned to get over that since I know I wasn’t the only person who experienced something similar to this.
Often times people use jokes to cover up the actual messed up thing they want to express. People often use joke as a shield so they can't be called out on the hurtful thing they did
This isn't just about being raised around white kids it's also just not having a sense of community becoming a stranger to your people. Cuz you can live in the hood and not go outside. You still interact with black people more than you would in the suburbs but there is a mistake of being too much of a recluse
I cant speak to the racial element, but as a trans woman who is a recluse, yeah. You do it to be safe. But it isnt mentally healthy. It gets to you. And having no one you can talk to about niche stuff can be rough. Even if you have privledges. Be even harder if you dont have that to fall back on. I am sure.
Hella late to the game, but I was raised the hood but I was a huge loner as a kid and still am. I was also very sheltered cause of the environment I lived in. So any interests I had was a mix of whatever I was exposed to by kids at school plus what ever I discovered on my own on the Internet. So yeah I was always ostracized for having interests that weren't stereotypically black
"Oreos" and "Sell Outs" aren't the same thing. "Oreos" are just black people who may adopt stereotypical white "cultural" elements, such as their "stereotypical" pattern of speech; an interest in " stereotypical" "white" music (although alot of American "white" music is just "Caucasianized" "black" music), etc. This usually happens due to being raised in a white area, but it isn't because this person necessarily views whites, or "white culture" as superior. On the other hand, being a "sell out" is to be someone who actively works against your people. Refer to Candace Owens as an example.
Omg thank you. People act like these are the same things. No one can choose what culture they grow up in or around. Being a sellout is an ACTION that someone takes.
That is bullshit and tells me being myself is "white" what does a black person talk like? I grew up in the country around mostly black people and lived in the hood and felt like an outsider there because I didn't want to be a walking stereotype. They will call you white for speaking in full sentences. They will call you white because you like to skate they will Joan you. I don't like the term white people music. Wth is white people music? I can't like Phil Collins or rock country the only music as a black person was hip hop. You will get beat up for being different.
@@MrShaiya96I disagree as well. I've never observed a practical difference in the contempt between an Uncle Ruckus vs Black-Suburbanite: by those inclined to fling those accussations.
F. I wasn't the only black kid in the school. My school actually has a decent mix of kids. But I was often one of very few black kids in some of my "advanced" classes.
Where I was from in Canada, 9 out of the 10 black families were doctorate holding African immigrants. I was in and out of advanced classes. My home life was rather unlike the other advanced kids. Estranged dad, working mom, brother in the system, making my own meals and getting myself where needed. But I was white. This one black guy (Nigel) in the classes with me had a more WASPy set up than most of the white kids in there. Dad was a doctor, mother a chartered accountant, sister in grad school, 3000sq. ft. house with 800 series beamers in the driveway. Vacation home bigger than my apartment. Because of the social dynamics, somehow Nigel and I were in each other's orbit. I didn't understand why at that age. From my innocent viewpoint, I thought Nigel had taken me as a friend as, like, charity. When it all dawned on me with age it rewrote my understanding of his experience.
Grew up very sheltered in a multicultural neighborhood, but we drove out to all white, southern, christian private schools. My dad thought private schools provide more liberty with my education and further accommodate my neurodivergence. He was a single parent who worked very long hours in a unionized job, and spent a lot on my education in predominantly white private schools and tutoring for supervision in the afterschool hours. As an ethnically Middle Eastrern/Indian parent who emigrated from Iran, he and my grandmother wanted the “best” for me educationally even if that meant entering such a white sphere. They often prioritized education over anything else. Problem was, those schools falsely advertised the prospects of a higher-end education. Honestly, my high school experience in public schools was just as as good if not better than in private schools. It definitely wasn’t fun being the only biracially black and asian kid (or only poc) in most of my classes. But I could see where my dad was coming from and how much he tried to do his best and sacrificed for me.
Single dad? Wow, I actually saw an Indian boy 1 grade above me who was raised by his father. We never saw his mother and we never asked. When parents divorce do fathers get sole custody in some cultures?
@@suzygirl1843 I was born in the U.S. and dad gained sole custody when I was little. I guess that doesn’t happen often, but my parents were young, and things were complicated. Also just so no one who reads this gets the wrong impression, I wanna add that when a woman doesn’t get majority of custody, they tend to be under greater scrutiny than men, and harshly stigmatized. As I’ve reached the ages my parents were when they had me, I realize that I’m in no place to judge either side. In young adulthood, having kids, dealing with societal pressures, partnership, financial means, emotional/mental well-being, are tough things to balance simultaneously. Btw there was probably a simpler way to answer your question, but my thoughts got scrambled xD
Still love this conversation. The weird thing for me was through most of my life, my Blackness was rarely questioned by other Black people(when I was young it happened a little but hard cut out in my teens) it was whiteness usually questioning my Blackness. It is why that I loved that you touched on the white gaze. That ish messes with you for years.
I totally can relate to this video. Growing up, I was always being accused of “acting white”because I used big words and my community shunned me. My best friend was a Filipino and a white guy because of that. I did not start relating to and trying to identify with the black experience until College and I met more people like me. I was able to self educate way more than the school system ever did. But I often remember being the only black girl in an all white classroom because I was “gifted and talented” . The mixed, toxic messages delivered in a space like that can have a lifelong impact.
For me I had pretty much every race including black people questioning my blackness, but I was never a sellout. They just saw me as smart and I had a high pitch voice so they'd call me white. But literally no one says that anymore, because when I was 17 I went from sounding like a fairy to sounding like Mr. T. Im 18 now and people recognize me as black, they can be threatened by me now. Its odd.
Yeah, one of my best friends, when we were young and just starting out, once told me: “Wow, [Real Name], I think I’m blacker than you are!” Dude was a white redheaded kid. Now, he’d cringe in embarrassment at ever having said that nowadays, but it’s telling about me that I remember him ever having said that.
This was my experience as well. My black friends never really said anything but literally every non-Black person, friend or not, always had a cheeky little phrase about how “white” I was or how I “wasn’t like other black people.”
I feel like queer kids have a similar, but more subtle, experience of this. Unlike racialized minorities, queer kids can generally "pass" (well, most of them, a few have problems that way) well enough to not be a constant target; but you still have this constant, pervasive reminder that you are the Other. You may not have any direct experience of being bullied or ostracized, but there's that zeitgeist that always tells you that you don't belong, that you will never be accepted, that you will never be One Of Us, but will always be One Of Them; and constant fear of what will happen if or when you're Found Out. And if you're a queer person of colour, that's a whole additional level of that sort of othering, that lack of community and shared experience. Not only having to deal with the cultural queerphobia, but if you do manage to find a queer community where you could otherwise belong, you'll often still have to deal with that level of othering because of your racialized status.
I was actually thinking that this experience is really similar to being neurodivergent growing up. Although in many cases it can be even more confusing especially if you're not diagnosed as a child or at any early age, because you're definitely othered, often can't pass as (or it takes years to learn to pass as) neurotypical. I was/am queer too, but I'm pretty sure a lot of my experiences with peers and being a social outsider had more to do with being neurodivergent (ADHD & autism). I learned to mask pretty well, but since COVID it's become a lot more difficult and exhausting to do so since isolation meant I didn't have to do it 5 days out of a week, so I'm basically "out of practice" now and so social situations are even more difficult than they were previously. And I think they're also closely related (the othering with queerness, racialization, and neurodivergence) in terms of all 3 often being related to developing some type of PTSD (or at least having several trauma markers) and often developing anxiety a/o depression at some point (often in young adulthood) due to these pressures. (Interestingly, there are papers about the complexity of diagnosing neurodivergent "disorders" due to the fact that most people with them will often also have PTSD, and having to rule out PTSD from *causing* the neurodivergent markers, rather than the other way around, because sadly most ND people don't escape childhood without being traumatized by societal expectations and negative messaging) And ofc, these things compound one another as you mentioned with queerness and racialization. But neurodivergence seems like a closer comparison to me, since often people can't pass, at least in childhood before many people learn to mask (and some people can never "pass" as NT), and passing is a type of code-switching similar to racial code-switching in terms of things like linguistics, body-language, etc. (Although in terms of queerness, being trans is probably the closest comparison, since it takes time and/or practice to "pass" and some people never will, and some people don't even want to. Outside of that it's just "passing" when closeted, or actually passing. I'm also trans so in a weird space that way.)
@@FoxyFemBoi I'm a 33 year old cis white straight male, and can relate to these sentiments. I didn't realize that I was on the spectrum until literally two months ago. But I failed at being 'normal' constantly in my childhood and my adult life. I was called things like 'odd duck' or 'weird' or just 'strange', but most of these qualities were given a pass due to my race and gender. For over three decades this part of me flew under the radar with the people responsible for my livelihood, yet I wasn't overtly questioned for my oddness (until I was working the regressive blue collar profession) for most of my life thanks in part to the privileges society 'grants' me. But in private, I would constantly beat myself up mentally for failing at normal social interaction and being able to function like NT's do, and loathe myself for a perceived ineptitude on my part. In some circumstances I do mask *extremely* well due to the learned behaviors acquired from my cPTSD with my narcissistic family. Yet I know that I'm extremely lucky in the sense that other Neurodivergents aren't as well received by society, and in some cases just "being" a woman or minority can cause doctors to disregard the idea that these people are on the spectrum (or have ADHD). And having to navigate a society that is so hostile to certain genders or races while also having one's own set of handicaps for being divergent is quite possibly a hellish experience.
I was literally bullied out of a private school for presenting queer. having one queer friend and then that friend turning on you for social capital was a traumatizing experience and truly wished I knew how to advocate for myself back then. when i moved back to public school I found community and it got so much better.
That Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys is a great book. Jawanza Kunjufu was not lying about 4th grade syndrome. I taught math and science. It’s tough to see how teacher’s behavior harden towards our Black boys in real time. You can really see that light go out in those students eyes and it’s tough to bring it back. I also love that you brought up elitism of HBCUs. In Atlanta it’s a big issue if you’re trying to progress professionally and socially to a lesser extent. You’re pedigree is just questioned. Interesting enough was seeing the hierarchy between students on AUC campus. Morehouse and Spelman students would dog Clark and Morris Brown students. Thank you for the video.
I was doing an observation in a middle school Spanish class prepping to become a language teacher (I teach a different language, but was there to "learn" by watching another teacher. The teacher starts talking about "be" verbs in Spanish. And then she goes "and some people use 'be' verbs wrong in English. They say 'he be eatin' or something like that, and it's wrong." I watched the only black boy in the class drop his shoulders and dip his head down and mutter to himself. I just watched that kid's self esteem get wrecked. I was a 30 something White dude, but I made sure to tell him after class that there's nothing wrong with expressing yourself in your language and I saw him. He brightened up a little bit, but man seeing his body language I just realized how much that hurt him.
@@6dragondaddy913 he’ll probably remember that moment a long time. Educators can ,unconsciously or not, do a lot to tear these young men down by dragging their bias in to the lesson.
@@Quantumedic I'm sure he will. It was a heartbreaking thing to watch. Earlier in my life I probably wouldn't have even seen it, but I'd been living in East Asia for 12 years before I came back to get my masters degree. I had developed by that time a sense of how it feels to have other people get to define your race to you without your input.
@@6dragondaddy913 You should also let him know specifically that there's nothing wrong with colloquial speech but to also be wise enough to switch when needed. A more balanced approach I would say
@@innitbruv-lascocomics9910 absolutely, code-switching is not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, I teach language, I tell my students straight up what code-switching is and all the different times I do it in my life. I even get real with the kids in my class and let them know I swear like crazy when I'm with my friends but I adjust the way I speak when I'm teaching them (then they have fun trying to get me to "break character"). Code switching is a normal and natural process and one I quite enjoy, but FORCED code-switching and denigrating accents/dialects is traumatic.
Im a Jamaican in Canada and I got called an Oreo... Personally didn't care bc I wasn't going to stop watching anime and acting in ways that did not fit my personality to please anyone.
To my knowledge a lot of black people love anime and manga and its culture so how is that a white thing? if any white person tries to call you white because you like anime, they are wack.
I’ve been watching you for about a week now, only 22 but I was so happy to realize that my fly in the milk experience wasn’t just some weird thing unique to me and that other people struggled with feeling like an outcast not only in the neighborhood they were in but also when seen not as “black” when returning to places with more of our people.
Honestly going to a majority black and Hispanic school especially in those important years of middle and high school where you really depend on my friends to help shape your identity; it helped me. Because it made me realize that I was not the fly in the milk. I was not some anomaly out here amongst black people I had a plethora of black and Latino friends into what I was into. We shared similar taste music as well as the same movies even those who were in to comics and anime you know before those things crossed over into the mainstream. I found my tribe of people who I just vibed with and that I feel like it's vital to experience. The isolation of being the only black kid really does no benefits to that kid. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Same. I'm in a small town now with that kind of demographic. Both my parents want me to move to a more "successful" city. But my little girl makes friends here that look like her. It's important that she not have to feel like an outsider.
thank you for this! growing up biracial w/ a white mom (smh) with a black father in an a l l l i v e s m a t t e r home and in an all white community, i had to do soooooo much unlearning. it's nice to hear my black experience be talked about even if its misunderstood, scrutinized etc
I feel you. I'm Biracial as well, but my dad's the white one. I was moved from a big city to the suburbs as a kid, and that "fly in the milk" experience definitely fucked me up. My Blackness was never questioned by white people (I faced a lot of racism growing up for my hair, skin, and lips), but when I went to Black communities and spaces, I got called an Oreo a lot. It is certainly a particular kind of Black experience, even if it isn't the predominant one
I think you are underselling the myth of "success in high performing schools". When you see it from the inside (as a teacher) you really start to realize how much success is affected by income inequality and how little is affected by what the school offers. I work in a large high school district that has schools that go from "very rough" to "very rich". I went into education thinking that the "top teachers" must work at the rich school, or private ones. That idea was instantly shattered. People work at all kinds of schools for all kinds of reasons. There are a lot of reasons to avoid the rich white schools and I know A LOT of teachers who would never work there (me included). I don't necessarily know my point. I guess parents don't necessarily know this dynamic and their decisions affect what kind of experience their kids will go though.
F. F. F F F I was one of only TWO Africans in a private girls Catholic high school. The experience was so painful lonely and traumatizing it took me nearly 20 years (until the horrific death of my mother from metastasized breast cancer) to stop calling it the worst experience of my life. I will NEVER let my kids be the only black ones in a school no way no how.
Wow, you're story is my story! Only African girl in the white burbs and it was horrible! Last 2yrs of highschool was very happy when I begged my parents to transfer me to a more diverse school. I met a lot more African kids and learned more about my culture. Same here, there's no way in HELL that will happen to my child. The only good thing that came out of it was dealing with hideous racism and now racism does not hurt me at all.
I had a white woman question my blackness because I don't exhibit her stereotypical idea of "blackness". I went to a mixed race grade school in the country and graduated from a HBCU 🤣.
So, my mom grew up on air force bases in like middle of nowhere places, with mostly white communities (until they moved to Florida for a brief time).Also, my black family lived in Spain for a bit because of the Air Force and they talk about how racism, at least the way it is in the US, wasn’t a thing, so coming back to the states and then being the only black family on these bases was like wow! Flash forward, high school where my black friends would comment on how my mom “isn’t black” which she said something along the lines of ‘there are many ways to be black’, but also she was frustrated cause it was coming from teenagers. Flash forward, we are driving from Cali to Vegas to visit our family and someone started driving like super aggressively and like yelling racial slurs at my mom. I was asleep for most of this but when I woke up she like speeding fast and basically said, it doesn’t matter if I’m not black enough cause to them I was black enough for them to do what they did. So, take that, how you will.
F. Got my blackness questioned. Got the racist and nice racist treatment in white spaces. Removed both from the equation and moved to Japan. I have no children but there are a lot of black and black mixed children in Japan who are without a double the fly here. Third culture children struggle tremendously with identity. Not sure if my going to an HBCU would have helped because of the level of how critical blacks were to my own black identity but I KNOW white undergrad was a microaggression petri dish.
F. So close to making it out of undergrad. But I was able to be in black spaces when I got my africana and black studies minor at this mostly yt college.
My husband and I recently bought a home in a very diverse suburb, however, the schools in this suburb are not mixed-seemingly all the white kids go to one school and everybody else attends the other. Of course the white school is the one that’s ranked the highest and the other school although not ranked terribly seems substantially worse. We’ve opted out of both and instead are choosing to drive 40 minutes a day to send out child to high performing school that is majority black. Another thing that I’ve noticed is that many of the interacial couples with biracial children opt to operate exclusively in white spaces. It’s kind of wild to me that when black ppl partner with white ppl, they almost always default to the white partner’s culture.
My child will be a biracial, and I would never. They’re not white. People who do that aren’t in touch with America and it’s history. Biracial people were never called that and they’ve been in black peoples family for generations m.
F. I relate to this as I was one of the only Asian kids at my high school. This is further complicated by me being adopted, so no matter how many times I explain to my parents how hard it was (especially now that I live in an area that has a majority-minority population and it’s so nice to kind of blend in!), their response is always, “But you got to live next to your family!” 🤦♀️
I'm a pale Latina Jewish woman and I was a minority growing up where we did. I'm really grateful for that experience. Leaving that community and living in white areas afterward was extremely shocking. The microaggressions. The racist comments they felt comfortable saying around me because I appeared white. The distinctive otherness always present in my social interactions (comments about my curly hair, curvy body type etc). There were straight up Nazis walking down the street once, little flags and everything. I have missed the type of environment I grew up in. It was a struggle but it was real. Diversity was encouraged and heritages celebrated and I never had to be around white racists. I was exhausted from trying to represent minorities in a positive way and be their voice when they were getting dragged for no reason. I didn't know white people still did stuff like that because I didn't know many other white people growing up. Being the only one noticing racism at jobs (towards clients and staff), the list goes on. It is just so lonely and I only dealt with it a few years as a white adult. For a child of color to deal with all of this and worse, must be horrible and deeply scarring.
Maybe I missed this part of the stream, but I don’t feel like this fully covered the stigmatization that is the “Oreo” monicker in the black community. There’s a few degrees of separation between being starved of cultural emersion and being told that liking anime or punk music makes you less black. I feel like the latter experience happens in predominantly black spaces and functions as form of intraracial discrimination thats more damaging to your concept of self.
It irritates me when people try to pretend that they were labled an oreo for no good reason. I was born in a very white town in WV and moved to a mixed city in NC in my teens. I was in love with being around so many black people. I listened to greenday and wore band t-shirts and dirty chucks and, because of where I am from, I do in fact sound like a super karen, not proper, but really really white. Like bland, midwest, made for TV accent, type white. But because I genuinely was in awe of being surrounded by blackness I was never called an oreo or had anyone question whether I was black enough. I didn't give off the self hate or anti black vibes. I never acted like stereotypical black things were beneath me, nor did I suddenly become blacker to gain cool points. Almost all of my friends were black girls. Black people can tell if you are just extra nerdy or trying to escape your own blackness through "white things."
@@tybooskie Lets not jump to conclusions. Whether we admit it or not, some members of the black community do have an issue when it comes to consuming non-black media, and it doesn’t always have to do with giving off “self-hate vibes”.
@@tybooskie fair point but I can 100% disagree. As a British Black person that grew up in predominantly white areas with a white step dad I felt othered by black people and worshiped by white people. When I first started secondary school (middle school I think) I moved to a school with a higher black population and I was incredibly eager to finally be able to capture and perform what I perceived and what I was told was blackness, I.E: sagging pants or listening to rap music but I was bullied RELENTLESSLY because I was coming from a starting point that all of my black peers had much much earlier than me and because I was into "non black" activies, such as anime and metal. We need to accept and engage with the fact that sometimes as black people we have not made black spaces friendly for ourselves. There are a miriad of good reasons for this and they can definitely be explained but denying that it happens or claiming that black kids who were bullied by other black kids for not being black enough were some how lesser or fake to their own culture just sounds a lot like what I was told when I was in school lmao
@@tybooskie There was no good reason. You know what I did that was so wrong? Simply speaking, my bad I guess because my natural speaking voice sounds like an English teacher. Really shouldn’t have done that on my part, I suppose. Being into my own things like anime and rock and roll, a genre we ironically created, go figure. Being talked down to, being called Braxton, Carlton, Urkel, being told to “talk normal” when I WAS talking normally. And what do you mean “escape” your own blackness, huh? I was born in the same cities, grew up around mostly black people and was absolutely cultured in that surrounding. I wouldn’t know what “escape” could have been as a child because that wasn’t even a concept to me, I just wanted the bullying to stop. Why are you making excuses for this abuse when we’re all telling you as other black people who can confirm the experience, are telling you otherwise? What do we gain to lie about this and how it made us feel and how it affected us? This is a perfect example of a part of the bigger issue: you’re not even trying empathize with what you’re being told, but instead trying to spin a narrative to somehow put the blame on us???
I'm glad you clarified this a little more. I do really look forward to any more commentary you have about some black people saying that mixed black people aren't black. Its something that hits very hard for me, as a mixed woman who is racialized as black, and I haven't heard anyone address this in more than a few words.
I'd also like the discussion to mention mixed black people from heritage long past. It's an experience all its own to come from generations of other black people trying to other you, your parents, grandparents and so on.
I grew up a gay blerd which made it hard to connect with other black folks during childhood but thankfully I went to an HBCU. I learned to love my blackness, love other black people, and I discovered by sexuality in a black context. My boyfriend is also a gay blerd that never got that HBCU experience and until very recently struggled with his blackness, until he realized being fetishized was not the same as being accepted but most black men especially never come to that realization.
This comment reminds me of another reason why HBCU's are so valuable (whilst not trying to deny or overlook some of the intra-communal problematics). Living in the UK, we don't have such institutions (at least not at any level beyond what we call the supplementary schooling system which is more for students before they get to University) but gosh am I tempted to hop over and do a PhD...!
I only realized how lucky I am to come from a high school with a diverse space, when I went to a majority white college. My younger black male cousin goes to basically all white school high school on a football scholarship. He recently tried to end his life because of all the bullying, microaggressions, and overall and inability to fit in. I wish my aunt will put him somewhere else, but of course they are there for some of the reasons you broke down in your black athletes video, and he's pretty good. The only time I had to deal with being in mostly/all white spaces were in my AP classes, and that was 1-2 hour day. I couldn't imagine dealing with them overall sense of othering 24/7. I agree with the sentiment that the average school with a deserve range/black kids attending is better than the top school with all/marjoity whites just from lived experience.
Just to add, Love and Belonging is number 3 on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. No child is going to learn at an optimal level if they feel isolated from their peers.
I've been called an oreo by my classmates in elementary and middle school. I've been called an oreo by my family, but I've never been called a sell out. Growing up in an all black area and living in a mostly white area now I get why that can be isolating to so many people.
I got what you meant and I like this debate. Its similar to being a "gifted" student. The benefits of being the only one is clear when you are younger but your mates will catch up to you. Your faster path will have its perks but in the long run if you do not put in effort to develop your "black" side or mature in other areas other than academics(in the case of being a gifted student) you could fall behind. Your head start could turn into a disadvantage.
I feel this I went to three different colleges 1 PWI, 1 HBCU and a community college and by far the worst was the PWI. At the PWI I had a situation with white girls saying the n word in my face and flirting with me based off racial stereotypes and invited me up to their room. That shit hurt. But another thing I think that's interesting is who white people feel comfortable saying the n word around, like I wondered why they thought I would be cool with it, kinda like the episode in Atlanta where the dude would say it around Earn but not Paperboi.
If you want to read something fascinating about this dichotomy, there's a book by journalist Eugene Robinson called Disintegration that discusses this fragmentation of Black people in America in solid detail. There's nothing more illuminating about the 'Black people are not a monolith' reality, than this discussion. Because the irony is, there are Black people who think they have some birthright to gatekeep the Blackness of other people. As if it isn't inherent as opposed to some cultural thing. And the wild thing is, whether we admit it or not, we're ALL GUILTY of this to some degree. We all do this. We have all denigrated someone Black for saying/acting/doing something we felt was out of pocket or contrarian or self serving. But the root of a LOT of these issues is the reality that we didn't TALK about these things. Gen X bore the brunt of an 'accepted eclectic' as far as Blackness and a lot of us bucked against it. Not even purposely, but because no generation IMHO was more individual than Gen X, largely because a whole generation of us were left to our own devices as children growing up. But yeah, as much as I might be bothered by a Clarence Thomas, a Larry Elder, a Candace Owens, a Stacey Dash, and even non political folks...I don't take away their Blackness. Ever. If it was strictly cultural, then we wouldn't trip on the Rachel Dolezal's of the world.
I'm glad it has been discussed because not gonna lie the oreo/sell out statement lacked a lot of empathy and brought me back in a time when I was othered for my blackness (still am). I live in predominantly European country so you can see the othering is more intensive since birth. I sure know you meant well by mentioning it but the lack of input was upsetting and was hard to watch. I wonder if you could ever share more stories about black Europeans like us and how we have to deal with not only anti blackness but othering within our own community.
I agree 1000%!! I’m a black man who went to all white schools and all black schools. We moved a lot when I was younger. Although the white schools were “better” from all aspects, I hated being the only black kid in class ESPECIALLY during BHM!! Then when I went to the black schools, I got teased for “being white”… smh.. can’t win for nothing!
What are y'all's feelings on how this stuff applies to rural Black people? I live out in Maryland farm country in a 96% white county, and yet there's a small working-class Black community out here that's been here for many generations. The white suburbs are coming to them, not the other way around; a weird mirror of urban gentrification. Racially, it's a fly in the milk experience, but very different class dynamics than the Carlton situation. It seems like a totally different relationship with whiteness, based on how often I'll see Trump branding or hyper-patriotic messages on Black people's T-shirts and bumper stickers. There's a HUGE police and retired-cop population in this county, and I'm sure that's somewhat related.
What do you mean by "the white suburbs are coming to them, not the other way around; a weird mirror of urban gentrification?" That this farmland is being gentrified?
@@andrewteague114 Many younger generations from farming families sell off their land to expensive housing developments. Farming is high risk so most don't want to deal with it. This causes massive gentrification in a short amount of time. Lots of wealthy people from the cities move into the area to have enormous homes and acre to several acre sized yards. Prices of everything blows up but the core community stays poor.
I grew up in Prince George's County, Maryland and lived there until I was 30 yrs old (before moving to Baltimore City). I've just always grown up around black people who when they achieved a good amount of upward mobility they moved their families from the "hoods" of DC or Baltimore into the black middle class enclave that is PG County, MD. The conversation of black folk moving to the suburbs when they "get rich" means a totally different thing over here than it does in most of the country. There are so many interesting layers to these convos depending on where you live and it's fascinating to see.
Being a sellout is a state of mind. I have lived the "Fly in the milk" and the "Hood" experience and it had no overall impact on my opinion of blackness other than to confirm my belief that it is how you feel about yourself and your people that determines this.
I was the only minority in my grade until 7th grade. I was the only African American in my entire grade until I was a sophomore in high school. I was tired of being the only person of color and went to an HBCU. I did not fit in there either. I would have done better in a diverse environment for both primary education and undergrad.
RE: being the only one of your ethnicity in a neighborhood- I can see it but I also can't. I'm half mexican but look white. I've grown up in predominantly white neighborhoods and been around light skinned wealthy mexicans, never felt comfortable there the way I do with more diverse groups at work and college. majority of my friends are latinos who are darker skinned and grew up rougher than me. white circles, wether upper income or blue collar have always felt pretentious(they think they know everything when all they've done is watch movies and regurgitate things they heard or read) and alienating. In diverse settings I am also set apart because I recognize my privilege and otherness. but I prefer it to being around people who look like me but who have nothing in common with me in spirit.
What goes under the radar is that the internet really throws a wrench in liking “white” things. Like, I’m getting called Oreo growing up in Memphis cause I’m listening to kpop ,watching early minecraft let’s plays n watching anime amvs lol. How the internet affected Black culture specifically is a whole thing in itself
I was like one of three white kids in my class of like 30 kids in 3rd-5th grade, and honestly, I'm thankful for the experience, but I had to unlearn a lot of bullshit. I legit thought "reverse racism" was just as bad as Anti-Black racism because I experienced very mild othering (but to be real, most of that othering was Homophobia/Transphobia). I think it's just better overall if you can have schools being mixed spaces, and I can imagine how damaging it must be to be in the reverse of my situation as the only Black, Latino, Asian, etc. kid in a Majority White class.
I don’t think that the terms “sellout” and “Oreo” should be used interchangeably. Just because a black person was raised in Anglo-White American culture does not mean that they are sellouts. Selling out is a specific action or group of actions that someone does. You don’t have a choice in what culture you are raised in or around.
I’m biracial, so my relationship w/ Blackness is complicated for other reasons, but growing up as The One Black Person in sooo many of my spaces *including* my own home was…honestly, a kind of violence that I’m only just barely starting to realize the scope of. I can relate deeply to the alienation.
Black/Cuban from Capital Heights.moving to Naples,Florida when I was 12 and being the only person of color in two schools was a traumatic change that still resonates in my daily life and I’m in my thirties.
Me and my brothers were sent to catholic school in Minnesota from grade school through High school and we were part of a VERY small group of Mexican students if no the only ones at times, otherwise it was majority white. I used to beg my parents to go to public school because my experience was so awful and alienating, this video definitely hits
F. Spending past few months healing this aspect along with a whole host of other internalized mess (young millenial). Your content has been a safe space for such reflections. Thank you. 💯🙏🏾
F. I was adopted by a single, successful, black mother who wanted to raise me in the Ohio suburbs. I went to PWIs my whole life and as a kid tolerated a lot of microagressions, straight up aggression and anti blackness cuz I thought it would help me fit in. Seeing new Carlton in bel air was cathartic, to say the least. Your analysis and discussion has been so helpful
Ngl, nothing gives me more pleasure than disrupting white spaces with my presence. I was born in a majority white, but rapidly diversifying community. I love being Black, and love representing my community wherever I go. It's been great overcoming the need to conform to any stereotypes. Asserting who we are as individuals is the best thing you can do when isolated racially.
Love this! I grew up in a white public school and pwi in Texas and it really messed with my mental. Alot of white people questioned my blackness more than black people and it made me think that there was something wrong with me and tried to make me into the image of their ideal "black men". My parents worked hard to move us out the Southside of Dallas and I applaud them for it. Yet I still and working through the years in public school because I harbored alot of antiblack sentiments I had about myself, my peers, and etc.
F Moved around alot growing up and I always preferred being in the more mixed schools. I've been both the only black kid in the school and accused of being acting "white" because I had the neutral accent and pop cultural interests(type of music, style, etc) not especially typical of black kids in the 90s
I was called an oreo back in the day because when I was in school, I couldn't "do blackness" well enough so I looked to other cultures to fit in. I went to the goths and nerd groups and found people who were ok with me. However when I left the group they were still mad at me because... 1.) I was chewed out for not being black right and suffered every time I tried. *AND* 2.) I was chewed out for leaving the space and finding a group that took me in. When I went to a majority white school however, things got both better and worse. I didn't have to try to prove my blackness but parts of my black experience was not understood and even downplayed.
I'm mixed and my gf's sister did not believe I'm black because I don't look or act like what she is used to seeing in the media, since her family is from a different country. my blackness gets questioned constantly because my features look ambiguous. but I have been that only black kid in the white school but it always feels like an othering experience feeling like you have to defend your blackness as a kid when your black parent is self hating. luckily i was raised by the black half of my family later on when i was 8 and older and it helped me realize how important it is to not compromise your personality or individualism just because it doesn't fit a stereotype. my black experience may not have been as othering in some ways, but it doesn't negate my struggles and growth.
Damn I feel most of this. My parent's grew up poor but quickly gained money over time through promotions in their jobs. So I literally had experience with a super poor school in Dekalb County that was majority black, then moderately better schools in Gwinnett County that were pretty well mixed between Black, White, and Hispanic students. And then went to a majority white university. Gotta say the well mixed experience was probably the best imo. Right now I'm doing graduate school in a private university that's majority white catholic, and I have to say that it sucks ass lol.
It's weird - I randomly found two or three volumes of the "Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys" in my Kansan middle school library in the 90's. Not the kind of place you'd expect to find that. I tried reading it then but I wasn't familiar with enough of the concepts. To hear F.D bring it up 25 years later is weird.
Interesting perspective considering I'm a Nigerian living in Nigeria. I've never had to think of my race because tribe and religion is more important here.
Never hated myself, I just found it really weird that people would assume billions of black people on the world millions in the United States and somehow we all fit a very narrow and specific standard of behavior?
I had no idea how contentious school integration still was until I read Kendi. He sees it as an idea mainly imposed on Black communities by white liberals. Meanwhile, Stacy Abrams is still calling for school integration full speed ahead. Could you recommend some books on the issue?
I think a lot of "oreos" and "biracials" have a lot in common around the way blackness is defined in the black community. I'm biracial and my mom was 100% against putting me in situations where i would be the token or the "diversity" so i went to the hood schools in my neighborhood and i'm soo glad i did. I learned a lot about how blackness is defined and preformed in the mainstream. I did get called "white" but i realized the term "white" is a synonym for "weird" "eclectic" "alternative". I was seen as white not based on what i look like but what i was into. It was confusing at first but there was another girl in my school who was unambiguously black who liked anime and Japanese things and everybody called her white too haha, that's when i realized anybody who even slightly deviates from the commercialized mainstream blackness will be seen as other. I think the rigid way blackness gets defined hurts more black people than we think. It also makes it harder for us to gate keep our contributions when in in just a few generations the things Black people invented are seen as "white" by their natural inheritors.
I was told by a dark skin man when I was a child that I wasn't Black because my skin was too light. That and being abused and bullied led to me being anti-black for a long time. I'm still struggling with it as I live in a poor Black neighborhood where Black men have threatened to attack me as well as being treated poorly in Black online spaces. I'm learning to change my mind thanks to college and RUclipsrs like you.
one of my best friends growing up who was Hispanic often had the oreo type label on him by others, and was not accepted among other Hispanic groups sometimes for it, or just laughed at. and he was very mixed in whether to embrace a more Hispanic experience or this more mixed white Hispanic experience where he fit in better among white people who were majority of his friends. and it seemed like a really complicated experience to be in. where no matter what you are rejected by people for what seem like shallow reasons.
Wasn’t the only black person but one of like 3, I’m mixed and I was brought up in a small town as my parents didn’t wanna raise me in London. But I wasn’t taught my culture due to fear of racism and because the other black people are mono and 2nd gen where I’m mixed and 3rd I really had no sense of what it meant to be black and got bullied a lot by them for it and then that basically gave the white people the ok to do the same. Still got fetishised or assumed to be the problem child in a class in the first week, it’s very hard for my identity and what it means to be black.
I spent the early part of my childhood in a small city in WV with a 4% black population. Imma pass on ever living any place with such a demographic again. I've been told I sound white, because I do sound like a generic midwestern white woman, and got a bit of teasing for my taste in music but I've never had my blackness "checked". All of the people I know who have experienced being labelled an "oreo" are the people who gave off anti black vibes or were obviously uncomfortable with their own blackness. I went from a lily white town in WV and often being the only black person in a room; to living in NC and experiencing culture shock from seeing a Black cashier at the grocer store. SO even though I had this "white sounding" voice and was bumping panic at the disco while wearing dirty chucks, I never gave off a vibe that I was uncomfortable with my blackness. I have never experienced having my blackness questioned. TL:DR Black people know the difference between niche interests and self hate. No one gets called an Oreo for liking "white things" It's acting like those "things" have greater value than "black things" that gets you rightfully called out. It's being a "Black friend" that gets you called out; not simply having white friends.
I gotta agree with all you said. I remember being the only Black kid that enjoyed hockey before I found football & basketball. I’m from NYC I think it’s fine line between others questioning something new unfamiliar & challenging ones blackness.
Its crazy because as a Mexican I was in a primarily black neighborhood in CA my minority status wasnt challenged despite being nerdy and being super into books. In fact a lot of my friends showed me a lot of acceptance and praised me despite calling black kids in the same vein oreos. The funny thing to me is that my Mexican as hell family called me whiteboy way more than anyone else in any community. Even coming back from the Army my family told me I "talked black" and seemed "less Mexican". Its always thrown me for a loop because as a result I've always been more comfortable in majority black spaces and some people saying I dont fit there even fucks me up because I'm put in a space like "where do I fit?"
This is interesting. The only people that ever questioned my blackness were a small number people from the hood that I've encountered. Not one of those constant bullying situations. I grew up in the suburbs but it was very diverse. Because of this I'm uncomfortable in all black and all white situations.
My mom is white and my dad is black, so I grew up in an all white family. I'd love to do a podcast with Fiq, from the talk about metal and stuff, I feel like our experiences have many similarities.
Having grown up in "the country," where there was only one high school, I got that oreo label as well... especially when I found attraction to other ethnicities. I was also that kid who got the good grades, too, so I got a lot of flack for that, too. I think a lot of that was "crabs in a bucket" mentality going on, but that's a rant for another time.
Ive met one girl in my life who was a true Oreo. I went to a suburban private school for two years. Once I got there, some black kids had been there since kindergarten and were from rich familes. I made friends with many black kids who grew up rich and black. One black girl stuck out as an oreo and even other rich black kids called her that. The difference was the other kids had parents who immersed their kids in culture on the weekends and after school. This girl probably didn’t know one black person outside of her family and the kids she met at school. On top of that, my parents couldn’t stand her parents. They said they were stuck up and acted like they didn’t know they were black, so I agree that parenting plays a part.
We were raise thinking "struggle" or poverty is blackness and its not. Most black areas have a poor and a wealthy sections. The shared culture is blackness not the lack of . The point of being closer to your own kind isnt so we all talk walk and act alike, its so you have support in time of need. Black kids been reading comics and talking square for ages, thats not a unicorn and we should stop supporting that narrative that you are special bc you dont consume the common black products or expression. I grew up on NWA and I love Seinfeld. those things are in competition. Ive seen work on the table and I graduated college with honors, those things arent in competition.
Hey Fiq, thanks for the clarification. You mentioned there are a bunch of studies showing black kids do better when there aren't other black kids around them to relate to. This makes sense to me so I'm definitely not gonna dismiss it on its face. That said, I'm a student studying neuroscience and in one of my classes we've recently talked a lot about the replication crisis in psychology and the social sciences (which also present in neuroscience and most other scientific fields that are more recently established), and how both the academic community and the public at large needs to take a more critical eye to results from any single study or handful of studies that seem to definitively answer a question. So with that in mind, do you think the issue of how to optimize a black kid's education/experience is something we have enough good data on to draw solid conclusions like the one you mentioned? I'm not trying to call out these studies or anything, since I know very little about them and I don't have any background in sociology or child psychology. Just curious to hear your thoughts, or anyone else who has knowledge about this stuff.
Yes I do. The experiences of black students without black peers and teachers is pretty well studied and a common theme is how white administrators and teachers along with their peers create a deleterious environment for them from elementary to college.
@@signifiedbsides1129 Hey, thanks for responding! I really appreciate your perspective. Only just figured out how to actually check my comment history for replies XD. I'm glad to hear this stuff has been studied thoroughly, hoping there are good educators out there trying to do something productive with the results.
Have you seen the show “David Makes Man”? I LOVE that show, and it is literally like a mixture of Will and Carltons experience from the experience of I think a middle school aged kid heading into high school
Folks need to take responsibility for driving young black folks toward the "Sell-out" mindset. I was raised in a mixed area. But my interests and ( I hate to say it), academic achievement had a lot of my black peers say I was "acting white" or that I was a "Sell-out." Young Me, looking for allies anywhere, fully embraced white culture. SO much so that I became a...Republican when I was old enough. It wasn't til I was a grown man that I took ownership of my blackness. And I feel better for it. YEars later, a number of my black "friends" from back in the day apologized to me for the way they treated me, and complimentd me for not turning away from my interests in the face of their...no better word for it...abuse.
I feel this man, I never went republican, but I did feel myself getting drawn towards that during my high school and early university years, although I completely bounced the other way and went democratic socialist now lol
A lot of great data on the subject matter captured/translated in Heather McGhee’s “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” ✌🏾
i could say that i’ve been identified or seen as an oreo, but honestly being white passing and biracial i think most people just perceive me as white. my dad was in and out of prison a lot growing up and my family network on his side wasn’t often present and largely wasn’t a big part of my life until i got older. my mom and white step father took me out to the burbs when i was 8 or so and the experience was mostly to my detriment i think. while i did get a good education, made life long friends, and was still in a pretty diverse community, moving me from my family and a lot of the realities of life in the city left me really lost when it came to the world and my own identity. i’ve spent quite a bit of time now to try to find an understanding for myself, but at 22 i’d be lying to say i’m not still left frustrated and confused. i’ve been able to find some normalcy and build relationships that really should have already been there with siblings cousins and my dad as he has been free for 6 years now. i say all this to say that suburbification of your kids in hopes that it will “ get them through doors” in the future is in my experience really misguided and robs them of something a lot more valuable than ap classes. the troubles and stresses of life will follow you anywhere you go, not to be dismissive of situations where safety is a pressing concern, just to say recognize what you’re giving up in ur pursuit of some fairy tale perfect life. love you fd and really appreciate your content.
I grew up with this type of experience . I graduated with 400 kids, there were about nine black kids, counting me, and most of us had the same grandmoms and daddies. We all handled it in varying ways and I was a bit of a loner and probably handled it, self esteem wise, pretty bad, maybe the worst. it is super important for kids to grow up around ppl that look like them who will protect them from yt folks bullshit and the -isms. It's funny that the biracial discourse thing comes up bc I am, technically, but never really identified with that except bc when I moved around all these yt kids they wouldn't leave me alone about being light. I feel like I'm healing from trying to fit into the damn "oreo" thing lmao I guess I did....? but I didn't? long story short, I do really wish I grew up around like a few more families of black folks or something, that shit does matter. big time.
I went to a suburb school and was from the inner city. I never picked up the "kayfabe" of "acting black" so man... being in monstly black areas just led to me getting jumped and how I talked got made fun of. My parents made the right call for me I think.
Great conversation. Originally I came from the hood, but went to a private, almost entirely white, private school that was still in the city. We moved to a super white rural white suburb when our neighborhood became a lot harder as factory jobs closed down. In this school I was labeled oreo by both my white & black friends when busing started in the 80's despite being a fierce defeder of the bused children to my white friends and peers. I must say it took me some years to deprogram any internalie anti-black bias I had developed from those experiences. I always was an avid reader, and took a mad amount of AA studies courses in college in addition to developing many more positive black male relations outside of my family. I know I did an excellent job because when I took those implicit bias tests I was rated as having a slight bias towards black people with no other negative racial biases. This result surprised me because I had developed some hard attitudes against ignorant white folks due to my early educational experiences. I guess I've learned to understand them while also not puting up with much of their b.s. I guess I've developed a way to explain their crap to them in a manner which they can absorb more fully.
I’m in the situation right now! I’m military and the base that I live in is in the middle of a very expensive mostly white area in Virginia Beach. I’m now dealing with my daughter being insecure about her hair because all the other girls in her class have very long straight hair and she has long curly hair that doesn’t style like her peers. It’s extremely heartbreaking to see her go through this because her hair is so beautiful and her mom and I make it a point to tell her so.
I hope you are taking the time you need between these videos Because I personally had to take a break from the tube after your last video. A lot of animal crossing under my weighted blanket.
F just graduated from the number high school in Tennessee.I thought it was cool at first, but in retrospect it eally wasn't worth it. Got some nice scholarships tho.
I was the eldest of the only Chinese family in town. Specifically we were Taiwanese but I learned quickly that I had 1-3 choices on how to describe my race. I am so sad to hear that this is something that other people experience too. I didn't realize this racial trauma was a shared experience... I thought my town was just particularly racist.... ahhhh ..... F
This is the thoughts i’ve been having while reflecting on middle and high school. I hate the fact that I had to grow up around so much whiteness, especially being in the advanced classes. I think that might be why I burned out so much junior and senior year. Coming to college, I’ve had to unlearn so much but to still see people just minimize the actual struggle growing up in white areas has makes it harder.
I have had the full spectrum of this. They only time I felt seen understood and excepted fully was in the predominantly Black areas and the mixed area.
If you travel you'll understand black is a spectrum. Black is not synonymous with just one particular thing. Simplifying or Limiting is what destroys black evolution. It puts a fence around us that helps others who dont have our best interest.
"Fly in the Milk" is the most ignorant phrase I've heard in a while. Moving to a neighbourhood has everything to do with economics, and little to do with colour. Using big words has nothing to do with being Black. Calling somebody an "Oreo" or "Sellout" is not a critique, it's an insult. Sending your kid to a mediocre school when you have the means to send your kid to a non mediocre school is nuts. I can't believe you think every black person in a white neighbourhood has a choice in being there...Therefore "Black excellence" is unachievable. All you've said here is that those who were lucky enough to be borne in a place with a high Black population have more value in their Black experience. This narrative is dangerous.
Thank you man, i thought i was the only one that felt this was slightly off. We're subject to bullshit colorism, ethnic tribalism and racism EVERYWHERE. This is painfully US-centric imo, what about African diaspora worldwide? People move to where they see better opportunities where they can. Fuck any weak ass projection of "oreo" i want better quality of life ffs.
Im half mexican half white and being in an all white school still had me in a lot of weird racialized conversations and questions. And i look white for the most part.
My little cousin is the fly in the family of whiteness, but she does live in an are of rural KY that has a fair about of black folks. So that's good. Besides helping me I hope the black leftist YT community that have familiarized myself with will be helpful to her once she is old enough for this level of discourse. A thought occurs, anyone recommend any teen/tween focused black experience content creators? I don't know how big of an ask that is.
I'm a metal fan and I've made friends over the years with some black people who liked metal who often got accused of being an "oreo". It bothered them a lot, but not being black myself I never knew what to say. This was back in the 90s, though, things seemed to have changed, there are more black people in the metal scene now.
when i was going into high school my mom moved just 25 miles in LA from reseda to santa clarita. having a fly in the milk experience for 4 years, especially not having grown in that environment, i was doubly ostracized for not being white and my disdain for car dependent white suburbia.
I think that some of the experience in the video is regional. I grew up in well off neighborhood that is historically known for its racial diversity. My parents sent us to private school in the more affluent neighborhood next to us, not because they thought the white man's ice was colder, but because they wanted the best education for us. My school was very small, my graduating class was 58 people. 5 of us were Black (4 of us from the neighborhood that I mentioned). Our parents were doctors and dentists and lawyers (spare me the Cosby jokes) the same as the White kids' parents. I moved to the suburbs of my city so that my daughter could get the best education. My daughter was far from the only Black student in her class. The school building that she was in when she graduated was one of two $100 million high schools the district had finished in her freshman year. Not everyone sends their children to certain schools for proximity to whiteness.
I think the terms "Oreo" and "sellout" are often applied in a manner that damages the person being criticized and the person attempting to "enforce the rules and standards of blackness". It's a lot like toxic masculinity in more ways than anyone wants to admit. There are black people that actively make life more difficult for other black people, and they should be criticized...but we paint a Candice Owens with the same brush that we paint a black kid that's into skateboarding or Heavy Metal and that makes us all ...smaller in some way. Just my thoughts.
That was my experience. Thank you.
Very true on my end.
Yeah, people should be allowed to believe and do what they want, regardless of their skin color. There's never any point in time when it's acceptable for someone to go "Oh you're like this? But I thought you were black/white/hispanic/etc." There's still people like Candace Owens who are doing more harm than good, but to call someone like, say, Glenn Loury or John McWhorter a racial sellout because they don't agree with your concept of racial solidarity is ridiculous. Your race doesn't determine what you believe -- your brain does.
True man
Lmfao. I feel called out 😐as I have legit always been a skateboarding metal head 🤣🤣
As someone who was technically labeled and “Oreo” I had a weird experience with my blackness. Despite me “liking white things” I would still get bullied ruthlessly for my blackness. Due to that I would take great offense to my black peers when they say I wasn’t black enough (and yes I knew they were joking but still hurt). Since, I didn’t act like them or know something most black people knew. So in a away I did develop some anti blackness due to being attacked on both sides. Now I learned to get over that since I know I wasn’t the only person who experienced something similar to this.
Often times people use jokes to cover up the actual messed up thing they want to express. People often use joke as a shield so they can't be called out on the hurtful thing they did
I feel this.
@@SoniaSephia or they were just immature kids telling jokes
My aunts and mother mostly made these jokes as well but they call me bounty instead of oreos. (that chocolate bar)
This.
This isn't just about being raised around white kids it's also just not having a sense of community becoming a stranger to your people. Cuz you can live in the hood and not go outside. You still interact with black people more than you would in the suburbs but there is a mistake of being too much of a recluse
I cant speak to the racial element, but as a trans woman who is a recluse, yeah. You do it to be safe. But it isnt mentally healthy. It gets to you. And having no one you can talk to about niche stuff can be rough. Even if you have privledges. Be even harder if you dont have that to fall back on. I am sure.
Hella late to the game, but I was raised the hood but I was a huge loner as a kid and still am. I was also very sheltered cause of the environment I lived in. So any interests I had was a mix of whatever I was exposed to by kids at school plus what ever I discovered on my own on the Internet. So yeah I was always ostracized for having interests that weren't stereotypically black
Qqc
These days the internet is so easy to use.... people are forming senses of "identity" and "community" in so many different new ways.... !
@@grassgeese3916 not in a good way tho, how do u think alt right was formed lol
"Oreos" and "Sell Outs" aren't the same thing. "Oreos" are just black people who may adopt stereotypical white "cultural" elements, such as their "stereotypical" pattern of speech; an interest in " stereotypical" "white" music (although alot of American "white" music is just "Caucasianized" "black" music), etc. This usually happens due to being raised in a white area, but it isn't because this person necessarily views whites, or "white culture" as superior.
On the other hand, being a "sell out" is to be someone who actively works against your people. Refer to Candace Owens as an example.
Omg thank you.
People act like these are the same things.
No one can choose what culture they grow up in or around. Being a sellout is an ACTION that someone takes.
false
That is bullshit and tells me being myself is "white" what does a black person talk like? I grew up in the country around mostly black people and lived in the hood and felt like an outsider there because I didn't want to be a walking stereotype. They will call you white for speaking in full sentences. They will call you white because you like to skate they will Joan you. I don't like the term white people music. Wth is white people music? I can't like Phil Collins or rock country the only music as a black person was hip hop. You will get beat up for being different.
@@MrShaiya96I disagree as well.
I've never observed a practical difference in the contempt between an Uncle Ruckus vs Black-Suburbanite: by those inclined to fling those accussations.
F.
I wasn't the only black kid in the school. My school actually has a decent mix of kids. But I was often one of very few black kids in some of my "advanced" classes.
THIS!! It was the worst being the only black kid in honors classes.
Fuck man same here
Where I was from in Canada, 9 out of the 10 black families were doctorate holding African immigrants.
I was in and out of advanced classes. My home life was rather unlike the other advanced kids. Estranged dad, working mom, brother in the system, making my own meals and getting myself where needed. But I was white.
This one black guy (Nigel) in the classes with me had a more WASPy set up than most of the white kids in there. Dad was a doctor, mother a chartered accountant, sister in grad school, 3000sq. ft. house with 800 series beamers in the driveway. Vacation home bigger than my apartment.
Because of the social dynamics, somehow Nigel and I were in each other's orbit.
I didn't understand why at that age.
From my innocent viewpoint, I thought Nigel had taken me as a friend as, like, charity. When it all dawned on me with age it rewrote my understanding of his experience.
been there... I was surrounded by Asians...
I was basically the only black kid in my classes for the first 10 years of my life. I'm still sorting through that to this day at 20.
Grew up very sheltered in a multicultural neighborhood, but we drove out to all white, southern, christian private schools. My dad thought private schools provide more liberty with my education and further accommodate my neurodivergence. He was a single parent who worked very long hours in a unionized job, and spent a lot on my education in predominantly white private schools and tutoring for supervision in the afterschool hours. As an ethnically Middle Eastrern/Indian parent who emigrated from Iran, he and my grandmother wanted the “best” for me educationally even if that meant entering such a white sphere. They often prioritized education over anything else. Problem was, those schools falsely advertised the prospects of a higher-end education. Honestly, my high school experience in public schools was just as as good if not better than in private schools. It definitely wasn’t fun being the only biracially black and asian kid (or only poc) in most of my classes. But I could see where my dad was coming from and how much he tried to do his best and sacrificed for me.
Single dad? Wow, I actually saw an Indian boy 1 grade above me who was raised by his father. We never saw his mother and we never asked. When parents divorce do fathers get sole custody in some cultures?
@@suzygirl1843 I was born in the U.S. and dad gained sole custody when I was little. I guess that doesn’t happen often, but my parents were young, and things were complicated. Also just so no one who reads this gets the wrong impression, I wanna add that when a woman doesn’t get majority of custody, they tend to be under greater scrutiny than men, and harshly stigmatized. As I’ve reached the ages my parents were when they had me, I realize that I’m in no place to judge either side. In young adulthood, having kids, dealing with societal pressures, partnership, financial means, emotional/mental well-being, are tough things to balance simultaneously. Btw there was probably a simpler way to answer your question, but my thoughts got scrambled xD
@@PerpetualCalamity No. Thank you very much for elaborating.
Still love this conversation. The weird thing for me was through most of my life, my Blackness was rarely questioned by other Black people(when I was young it happened a little but hard cut out in my teens) it was whiteness usually questioning my Blackness. It is why that I loved that you touched on the white gaze. That ish messes with you for years.
I totally can relate to this video. Growing up, I was always being accused of “acting white”because I used big words and my community shunned me. My best friend was a Filipino and a white guy because of that. I did not start relating to and trying to identify with the black experience until College and I met more people like me. I was able to self educate way more than the school system ever did. But I often remember being the only black girl in an all white classroom because I was “gifted and talented” . The mixed, toxic messages delivered in a space like that can have a lifelong impact.
For me I had pretty much every race including black people questioning my blackness, but I was never a sellout. They just saw me as smart and I had a high pitch voice so they'd call me white. But literally no one says that anymore, because when I was 17 I went from sounding like a fairy to sounding like Mr. T. Im 18 now and people recognize me as black, they can be threatened by me now. Its odd.
Yeah, one of my best friends, when we were young and just starting out, once told me:
“Wow, [Real Name], I think I’m blacker than you are!”
Dude was a white redheaded kid.
Now, he’d cringe in embarrassment at ever having said that nowadays, but it’s telling about me that I remember him ever having said that.
Yes, this!
This was my experience as well. My black friends never really said anything but literally every non-Black person, friend or not, always had a cheeky little phrase about how “white” I was or how I “wasn’t like other black people.”
I feel like queer kids have a similar, but more subtle, experience of this. Unlike racialized minorities, queer kids can generally "pass" (well, most of them, a few have problems that way) well enough to not be a constant target; but you still have this constant, pervasive reminder that you are the Other. You may not have any direct experience of being bullied or ostracized, but there's that zeitgeist that always tells you that you don't belong, that you will never be accepted, that you will never be One Of Us, but will always be One Of Them; and constant fear of what will happen if or when you're Found Out.
And if you're a queer person of colour, that's a whole additional level of that sort of othering, that lack of community and shared experience. Not only having to deal with the cultural queerphobia, but if you do manage to find a queer community where you could otherwise belong, you'll often still have to deal with that level of othering because of your racialized status.
@Cassandra Tafoya That's a very good point.
I was actually thinking that this experience is really similar to being neurodivergent growing up. Although in many cases it can be even more confusing especially if you're not diagnosed as a child or at any early age, because you're definitely othered, often can't pass as (or it takes years to learn to pass as) neurotypical. I was/am queer too, but I'm pretty sure a lot of my experiences with peers and being a social outsider had more to do with being neurodivergent (ADHD & autism). I learned to mask pretty well, but since COVID it's become a lot more difficult and exhausting to do so since isolation meant I didn't have to do it 5 days out of a week, so I'm basically "out of practice" now and so social situations are even more difficult than they were previously.
And I think they're also closely related (the othering with queerness, racialization, and neurodivergence) in terms of all 3 often being related to developing some type of PTSD (or at least having several trauma markers) and often developing anxiety a/o depression at some point (often in young adulthood) due to these pressures. (Interestingly, there are papers about the complexity of diagnosing neurodivergent "disorders" due to the fact that most people with them will often also have PTSD, and having to rule out PTSD from *causing* the neurodivergent markers, rather than the other way around, because sadly most ND people don't escape childhood without being traumatized by societal expectations and negative messaging) And ofc, these things compound one another as you mentioned with queerness and racialization.
But neurodivergence seems like a closer comparison to me, since often people can't pass, at least in childhood before many people learn to mask (and some people can never "pass" as NT), and passing is a type of code-switching similar to racial code-switching in terms of things like linguistics, body-language, etc. (Although in terms of queerness, being trans is probably the closest comparison, since it takes time and/or practice to "pass" and some people never will, and some people don't even want to. Outside of that it's just "passing" when closeted, or actually passing. I'm also trans so in a weird space that way.)
@@FoxyFemBoi I'm a 33 year old cis white straight male, and can relate to these sentiments. I didn't realize that I was on the spectrum until literally two months ago. But I failed at being 'normal' constantly in my childhood and my adult life. I was called things like 'odd duck' or 'weird' or just 'strange', but most of these qualities were given a pass due to my race and gender. For over three decades this part of me flew under the radar with the people responsible for my livelihood, yet I wasn't overtly questioned for my oddness (until I was working the regressive blue collar profession) for most of my life thanks in part to the privileges society 'grants' me. But in private, I would constantly beat myself up mentally for failing at normal social interaction and being able to function like NT's do, and loathe myself for a perceived ineptitude on my part.
In some circumstances I do mask *extremely* well due to the learned behaviors acquired from my cPTSD with my narcissistic family. Yet I know that I'm extremely lucky in the sense that other Neurodivergents aren't as well received by society, and in some cases just "being" a woman or minority can cause doctors to disregard the idea that these people are on the spectrum (or have ADHD). And having to navigate a society that is so hostile to certain genders or races while also having one's own set of handicaps for being divergent is quite possibly a hellish experience.
If you’re trans… no matter what, particularly for those that can’t pass… there is no hiding
I was literally bullied out of a private school for presenting queer. having one queer friend and then that friend turning on you for social capital was a traumatizing experience and truly wished I knew how to advocate for myself back then. when i moved back to public school I found community and it got so much better.
That Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys is a great book. Jawanza Kunjufu was not lying about 4th grade syndrome. I taught math and science. It’s tough to see how teacher’s behavior harden towards our Black boys in real time. You can really see that light go out in those students eyes and it’s tough to bring it back.
I also love that you brought up elitism of HBCUs. In Atlanta it’s a big issue if you’re trying to progress professionally and socially to a lesser extent. You’re pedigree is just questioned. Interesting enough was seeing the hierarchy between students on AUC campus. Morehouse and Spelman students would dog Clark and Morris Brown students.
Thank you for the video.
I was doing an observation in a middle school Spanish class prepping to become a language teacher (I teach a different language, but was there to "learn" by watching another teacher. The teacher starts talking about "be" verbs in Spanish. And then she goes "and some people use 'be' verbs wrong in English. They say 'he be eatin' or something like that, and it's wrong." I watched the only black boy in the class drop his shoulders and dip his head down and mutter to himself. I just watched that kid's self esteem get wrecked. I was a 30 something White dude, but I made sure to tell him after class that there's nothing wrong with expressing yourself in your language and I saw him. He brightened up a little bit, but man seeing his body language I just realized how much that hurt him.
@@6dragondaddy913 he’ll probably remember that moment a long time. Educators can ,unconsciously or not, do a lot to tear these young men down by dragging their bias in to the lesson.
@@Quantumedic I'm sure he will. It was a heartbreaking thing to watch. Earlier in my life I probably wouldn't have even seen it, but I'd been living in East Asia for 12 years before I came back to get my masters degree. I had developed by that time a sense of how it feels to have other people get to define your race to you without your input.
@@6dragondaddy913 You should also let him know specifically that there's nothing wrong with colloquial speech but to also be wise enough to switch when needed. A more balanced approach I would say
@@innitbruv-lascocomics9910 absolutely, code-switching is not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, I teach language, I tell my students straight up what code-switching is and all the different times I do it in my life. I even get real with the kids in my class and let them know I swear like crazy when I'm with my friends but I adjust the way I speak when I'm teaching them (then they have fun trying to get me to "break character"). Code switching is a normal and natural process and one I quite enjoy, but FORCED code-switching and denigrating accents/dialects is traumatic.
Im a Jamaican in Canada and I got called an Oreo... Personally didn't care bc I wasn't going to stop watching anime and acting in ways that did not fit my personality to please anyone.
Exactly!
To my knowledge
a lot of black people love anime and manga and its culture
so how is that a white thing?
if any white person tries to call you white because you like anime, they are wack.
This 👆🏿 & to be black is actually diverse, blackness is not a monolith.
I’ve been watching you for about a week now, only 22 but I was so happy to realize that my fly in the milk experience wasn’t just some weird thing unique to me and that other people struggled with feeling like an outcast not only in the neighborhood they were in but also when seen not as “black” when returning to places with more of our people.
Honestly going to a majority black and Hispanic school especially in those important years of middle and high school where you really depend on my friends to help shape your identity; it helped me. Because it made me realize that I was not the fly in the milk. I was not some anomaly out here amongst black people I had a plethora of black and Latino friends into what I was into. We shared similar taste music as well as the same movies even those who were in to comics and anime you know before those things crossed over into the mainstream. I found my tribe of people who I just vibed with and that I feel like it's vital to experience. The isolation of being the only black kid really does no benefits to that kid. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Same. I'm in a small town now with that kind of demographic. Both my parents want me to move to a more "successful" city. But my little girl makes friends here that look like her. It's important that she not have to feel like an outsider.
thank you for this! growing up biracial w/ a white mom (smh) with a black father in an a l l l i v e s m a t t e r home and in an all white community, i had to do soooooo much unlearning. it's nice to hear my black experience be talked about even if its misunderstood, scrutinized etc
Is your mom racist?
I feel you. I'm Biracial as well, but my dad's the white one. I was moved from a big city to the suburbs as a kid, and that "fly in the milk" experience definitely fucked me up. My Blackness was never questioned by white people (I faced a lot of racism growing up for my hair, skin, and lips), but when I went to Black communities and spaces, I got called an Oreo a lot. It is certainly a particular kind of Black experience, even if it isn't the predominant one
Why did you write "smh" with the white mom?
I think you are underselling the myth of "success in high performing schools". When you see it from the inside (as a teacher) you really start to realize how much success is affected by income inequality and how little is affected by what the school offers. I work in a large high school district that has schools that go from "very rough" to "very rich". I went into education thinking that the "top teachers" must work at the rich school, or private ones. That idea was instantly shattered. People work at all kinds of schools for all kinds of reasons. There are a lot of reasons to avoid the rich white schools and I know A LOT of teachers who would never work there (me included). I don't necessarily know my point. I guess parents don't necessarily know this dynamic and their decisions affect what kind of experience their kids will go though.
F. F. F F F I was one of only TWO Africans in a private girls Catholic high school. The experience was so painful lonely and traumatizing it took me nearly 20 years (until the horrific death of my mother from metastasized breast cancer) to stop calling it the worst experience of my life. I will NEVER let my kids be the only black ones in a school no way no how.
Wow, you're story is my story! Only African girl in the white burbs and it was horrible! Last 2yrs of highschool was very happy when I begged my parents to transfer me to a more diverse school. I met a lot more African kids and learned more about my culture. Same here, there's no way in HELL that will happen to my child. The only good thing that came out of it was dealing with hideous racism and now racism does not hurt me at all.
I had a white woman question my blackness because I don't exhibit her stereotypical idea of "blackness". I went to a mixed race grade school in the country and graduated from a HBCU 🤣.
So, my mom grew up on air force bases in like middle of nowhere places, with mostly white communities (until they moved to Florida for a brief time).Also, my black family lived in Spain for a bit because of the Air Force and they talk about how racism, at least the way it is in the US, wasn’t a thing, so coming back to the states and then being the only black family on these bases was like wow! Flash forward, high school where my black friends would comment on how my mom “isn’t black” which she said something along the lines of ‘there are many ways to be black’, but also she was frustrated cause it was coming from teenagers.
Flash forward, we are driving from Cali to Vegas to visit our family and someone started driving like super aggressively and like yelling racial slurs at my mom. I was asleep for most of this but when I woke up she like speeding fast and basically said, it doesn’t matter if I’m not black enough cause to them I was black enough for them to do what they did. So, take that, how you will.
F. Got my blackness questioned. Got the racist and nice racist treatment in white spaces. Removed both from the equation and moved to Japan. I have no children but there are a lot of black and black mixed children in Japan who are without a double the fly here. Third culture children struggle tremendously with identity. Not sure if my going to an HBCU would have helped because of the level of how critical blacks were to my own black identity but I KNOW white undergrad was a microaggression petri dish.
F. So close to making it out of undergrad. But I was able to be in black spaces when I got my africana and black studies minor at this mostly yt college.
Thanks for mentioning TCK and identity. It’s not easy.
My husband and I recently bought a home in a very diverse suburb, however, the schools in this suburb are not mixed-seemingly all the white kids go to one school and everybody else attends the other. Of course the white school is the one that’s ranked the highest and the other school although not ranked terribly seems substantially worse. We’ve opted out of both and instead are choosing to drive 40 minutes a day to send out child to high performing school that is majority black.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that many of the interacial couples with biracial children opt to operate exclusively in white spaces. It’s kind of wild to me that when black ppl partner with white ppl, they almost always default to the white partner’s culture.
I mean it depends, particularly if they are a family of means. I had quite a few of mixed kids in my all black school.
My child will be a biracial, and I would never. They’re not white. People who do that aren’t in touch with America and it’s history. Biracial people were never called that and they’ve been in black peoples family for generations m.
F. I relate to this as I was one of the only Asian kids at my high school. This is further complicated by me being adopted, so no matter how many times I explain to my parents how hard it was (especially now that I live in an area that has a majority-minority population and it’s so nice to kind of blend in!), their response is always, “But you got to live next to your family!” 🤦♀️
I'm a pale Latina Jewish woman and I was a minority growing up where we did. I'm really grateful for that experience. Leaving that community and living in white areas afterward was extremely shocking. The microaggressions. The racist comments they felt comfortable saying around me because I appeared white. The distinctive otherness always present in my social interactions (comments about my curly hair, curvy body type etc).
There were straight up Nazis walking down the street once, little flags and everything. I have missed the type of environment I grew up in. It was a struggle but it was real. Diversity was encouraged and heritages celebrated and I never had to be around white racists. I was exhausted from trying to represent minorities in a positive way and be their voice when they were getting dragged for no reason. I didn't know white people still did stuff like that because I didn't know many other white people growing up. Being the only one noticing racism at jobs (towards clients and staff), the list goes on.
It is just so lonely and I only dealt with it a few years as a white adult. For a child of color to deal with all of this and worse, must be horrible and deeply scarring.
Your experience sounds exhausting
Maybe I missed this part of the stream, but I don’t feel like this fully covered the stigmatization that is the “Oreo” monicker in the black community. There’s a few degrees of separation between being starved of cultural emersion and being told that liking anime or punk music makes you less black. I feel like the latter experience happens in predominantly black spaces and functions as form of intraracial discrimination thats more damaging to your concept of self.
It irritates me when people try to pretend that they were labled an oreo for no good reason. I was born in a very white town in WV and moved to a mixed city in NC in my teens. I was in love with being around so many black people. I listened to greenday and wore band t-shirts and dirty chucks and, because of where I am from, I do in fact sound like a super karen, not proper, but really really white. Like bland, midwest, made for TV accent, type white. But because I genuinely was in awe of being surrounded by blackness I was never called an oreo or had anyone question whether I was black enough. I didn't give off the self hate or anti black vibes. I never acted like stereotypical black things were beneath me, nor did I suddenly become blacker to gain cool points. Almost all of my friends were black girls. Black people can tell if you are just extra nerdy or trying to escape your own blackness through "white things."
@@tybooskie Lets not jump to conclusions. Whether we admit it or not, some members of the black community do have an issue when it comes to consuming non-black media, and it doesn’t always have to do with giving off “self-hate vibes”.
@@tybooskie fair point but I can 100% disagree. As a British Black person that grew up in predominantly white areas with a white step dad I felt othered by black people and worshiped by white people. When I first started secondary school (middle school I think) I moved to a school with a higher black population and I was incredibly eager to finally be able to capture and perform what I perceived and what I was told was blackness, I.E: sagging pants or listening to rap music but I was bullied RELENTLESSLY because I was coming from a starting point that all of my black peers had much much earlier than me and because I was into "non black" activies, such as anime and metal.
We need to accept and engage with the fact that sometimes as black people we have not made black spaces friendly for ourselves. There are a miriad of good reasons for this and they can definitely be explained but denying that it happens or claiming that black kids who were bullied by other black kids for not being black enough were some how lesser or fake to their own culture just sounds a lot like what I was told when I was in school lmao
@@tybooskie There was no good reason. You know what I did that was so wrong? Simply speaking, my bad I guess because my natural speaking voice sounds like an English teacher. Really shouldn’t have done that on my part, I suppose. Being into my own things like anime and rock and roll, a genre we ironically created, go figure. Being talked down to, being called Braxton, Carlton, Urkel, being told to “talk normal” when I WAS talking normally. And what do you mean “escape” your own blackness, huh? I was born in the same cities, grew up around mostly black people and was absolutely cultured in that surrounding. I wouldn’t know what “escape” could have been as a child because that wasn’t even a concept to me, I just wanted the bullying to stop. Why are you making excuses for this abuse when we’re all telling you as other black people who can confirm the experience, are telling you otherwise? What do we gain to lie about this and how it made us feel and how it affected us? This is a perfect example of a part of the bigger issue: you’re not even trying empathize with what you’re being told, but instead trying to spin a narrative to somehow put the blame on us???
Exactly!
It would be great if you did a full video on this because it deserves to be fully fleshed out as an experience.
I'm glad you clarified this a little more. I do really look forward to any more commentary you have about some black people saying that mixed black people aren't black. Its something that hits very hard for me, as a mixed woman who is racialized as black, and I haven't heard anyone address this in more than a few words.
I'd also like the discussion to mention mixed black people from heritage long past. It's an experience all its own to come from generations of other black people trying to other you, your parents, grandparents and so on.
I grew up a gay blerd which made it hard to connect with other black folks during childhood but thankfully I went to an HBCU. I learned to love my blackness, love other black people, and I discovered by sexuality in a black context. My boyfriend is also a gay blerd that never got that HBCU experience and until very recently struggled with his blackness, until he realized being fetishized was not the same as being accepted but most black men especially never come to that realization.
This comment reminds me of another reason why HBCU's are so valuable (whilst not trying to deny or overlook some of the intra-communal problematics). Living in the UK, we don't have such institutions (at least not at any level beyond what we call the supplementary schooling system which is more for students before they get to University) but gosh am I tempted to hop over and do a PhD...!
I only realized how lucky I am to come from a high school with a diverse space, when I went to a majority white college. My younger black male cousin goes to basically all white school high school on a football scholarship. He recently tried to end his life because of all the bullying, microaggressions, and overall and inability to fit in. I wish my aunt will put him somewhere else, but of course they are there for some of the reasons you broke down in your black athletes video, and he's pretty good. The only time I had to deal with being in mostly/all white spaces were in my AP classes, and that was 1-2 hour day. I couldn't imagine dealing with them overall sense of othering 24/7. I agree with the sentiment that the average school with a deserve range/black kids attending is better than the top school with all/marjoity whites just from lived experience.
Just to add, Love and Belonging is number 3 on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. No child is going to learn at an optimal level if they feel isolated from their peers.
I've been called an oreo by my classmates in elementary and middle school. I've been called an oreo by my family, but I've never been called a sell out. Growing up in an all black area and living in a mostly white area now I get why that can be isolating to so many people.
I got what you meant and I like this debate. Its similar to being a "gifted" student. The benefits of being the only one is clear when you are younger but your mates will catch up to you. Your faster path will have its perks but in the long run if you do not put in effort to develop your "black" side or mature in other areas other than academics(in the case of being a gifted student) you could fall behind. Your head start could turn into a disadvantage.
I feel this I went to three different colleges 1 PWI, 1 HBCU and a community college and by far the worst was the PWI. At the PWI I had a situation with white girls saying the n word in my face and flirting with me based off racial stereotypes and invited me up to their room. That shit hurt. But another thing I think that's interesting is who white people feel comfortable saying the n word around, like I wondered why they thought I would be cool with it, kinda like the episode in Atlanta where the dude would say it around Earn but not Paperboi.
If you want to read something fascinating about this dichotomy, there's a book by journalist Eugene Robinson called Disintegration that discusses this fragmentation of Black people in America in solid detail. There's nothing more illuminating about the 'Black people are not a monolith' reality, than this discussion. Because the irony is, there are Black people who think they have some birthright to gatekeep the Blackness of other people. As if it isn't inherent as opposed to some cultural thing. And the wild thing is, whether we admit it or not, we're ALL GUILTY of this to some degree. We all do this. We have all denigrated someone Black for saying/acting/doing something we felt was out of pocket or contrarian or self serving. But the root of a LOT of these issues is the reality that we didn't TALK about these things. Gen X bore the brunt of an 'accepted eclectic' as far as Blackness and a lot of us bucked against it. Not even purposely, but because no generation IMHO was more individual than Gen X, largely because a whole generation of us were left to our own devices as children growing up. But yeah, as much as I might be bothered by a Clarence Thomas, a Larry Elder, a Candace Owens, a Stacey Dash, and even non political folks...I don't take away their Blackness. Ever. If it was strictly cultural, then we wouldn't trip on the Rachel Dolezal's of the world.
Everytime I need to relieve myself of toxic shit or if i have anxieties about being a black man I come to this man's channel.
I'm glad it has been discussed because not gonna lie the oreo/sell out statement lacked a lot of empathy and brought me back in a time when I was othered for my blackness (still am). I live in predominantly European country so you can see the othering is more intensive since birth.
I sure know you meant well by mentioning it but the lack of input was upsetting and was hard to watch.
I wonder if you could ever share more stories about black Europeans like us and how we have to deal with not only anti blackness but othering within our own community.
I agree 1000%!! I’m a black man who went to all white schools and all black schools. We moved a lot when I was younger. Although the white schools were “better” from all aspects, I hated being the only black kid in class ESPECIALLY during BHM!! Then when I went to the black schools, I got teased for “being white”… smh.. can’t win for nothing!
What are y'all's feelings on how this stuff applies to rural Black people? I live out in Maryland farm country in a 96% white county, and yet there's a small working-class Black community out here that's been here for many generations. The white suburbs are coming to them, not the other way around; a weird mirror of urban gentrification. Racially, it's a fly in the milk experience, but very different class dynamics than the Carlton situation. It seems like a totally different relationship with whiteness, based on how often I'll see Trump branding or hyper-patriotic messages on Black people's T-shirts and bumper stickers. There's a HUGE police and retired-cop population in this county, and I'm sure that's somewhat related.
What do you mean by "the white suburbs are coming to them, not the other way around; a weird mirror of urban gentrification?" That this farmland is being gentrified?
@@andrewteague114 Many younger generations from farming families sell off their land to expensive housing developments. Farming is high risk so most don't want to deal with it. This causes massive gentrification in a short amount of time. Lots of wealthy people from the cities move into the area to have enormous homes and acre to several acre sized yards. Prices of everything blows up but the core community stays poor.
That Carlton trope in Fresh Prince was so damaging!
I grew up in Prince George's County, Maryland and lived there until I was 30 yrs old (before moving to Baltimore City). I've just always grown up around black people who when they achieved a good amount of upward mobility they moved their families from the "hoods" of DC or Baltimore into the black middle class enclave that is PG County, MD. The conversation of black folk moving to the suburbs when they "get rich" means a totally different thing over here than it does in most of the country. There are so many interesting layers to these convos depending on where you live and it's fascinating to see.
Being a sellout is a state of mind. I have lived the "Fly in the milk" and the "Hood" experience and it had no overall impact on my opinion of blackness other than to confirm my belief that it is how you feel about yourself and your people that determines this.
Question, but why is "hood" experience seem to be interchanged with being black? My parents were from the country...like the sticks, lol.😂
@@unicornsrice1667 this is the media projected perception because most of the poor black people they show live in urban areas
I was the only minority in my grade until 7th grade. I was the only African American in my entire grade until I was a sophomore in high school. I was tired of being the only person of color and went to an HBCU. I did not fit in there either. I would have done better in a diverse environment for both primary education and undergrad.
That's a hard transition. I knew plenty of folks who had a similar experience
RE: being the only one of your ethnicity in a neighborhood- I can see it but I also can't. I'm half mexican but look white. I've grown up in predominantly white neighborhoods and been around light skinned wealthy mexicans, never felt comfortable there the way I do with more diverse groups at work and college. majority of my friends are latinos who are darker skinned and grew up rougher than me. white circles, wether upper income or blue collar have always felt pretentious(they think they know everything when all they've done is watch movies and regurgitate things they heard or read) and alienating. In diverse settings I am also set apart because I recognize my privilege and otherness. but I prefer it to being around people who look like me but who have nothing in common with me in spirit.
What goes under the radar is that the internet really throws a wrench in liking “white” things. Like, I’m getting called Oreo growing up in Memphis cause I’m listening to kpop ,watching early minecraft let’s plays n watching anime amvs lol. How the internet affected Black culture specifically is a whole thing in itself
I was like one of three white kids in my class of like 30 kids in 3rd-5th grade, and honestly, I'm thankful for the experience, but I had to unlearn a lot of bullshit. I legit thought "reverse racism" was just as bad as Anti-Black racism because I experienced very mild othering (but to be real, most of that othering was Homophobia/Transphobia). I think it's just better overall if you can have schools being mixed spaces, and I can imagine how damaging it must be to be in the reverse of my situation as the only Black, Latino, Asian, etc. kid in a Majority White class.
I don’t think that the terms “sellout” and “Oreo” should be used interchangeably.
Just because a black person was raised in Anglo-White American culture does not mean that they are sellouts.
Selling out is a specific action or group of actions that someone does.
You don’t have a choice in what culture you are raised in or around.
I’m biracial, so my relationship w/ Blackness is complicated for other reasons, but growing up as The One Black Person in sooo many of my spaces *including* my own home was…honestly, a kind of violence that I’m only just barely starting to realize the scope of. I can relate deeply to the alienation.
Black/Cuban from Capital Heights.moving to Naples,Florida when I was 12 and being the only person of color in two schools was a traumatic change that still resonates in my daily life and I’m in my thirties.
Me and my brothers were sent to catholic school in Minnesota from grade school through High school and we were part of a VERY small group of Mexican students if no the only ones at times, otherwise it was majority white. I used to beg my parents to go to public school because my experience was so awful and alienating, this video definitely hits
F. Spending past few months healing this aspect along with a whole host of other internalized mess (young millenial). Your content has been a safe space for such reflections. Thank you. 💯🙏🏾
F. I was adopted by a single, successful, black mother who wanted to raise me in the Ohio suburbs. I went to PWIs my whole life and as a kid tolerated a lot of microagressions, straight up aggression and anti blackness cuz I thought it would help me fit in. Seeing new Carlton in bel air was cathartic, to say the least. Your analysis and discussion has been so helpful
Ngl, nothing gives me more pleasure than disrupting white spaces with my presence. I was born in a majority white, but rapidly diversifying community. I love being Black, and love representing my community wherever I go. It's been great overcoming the need to conform to any stereotypes. Asserting who we are as individuals is the best thing you can do when isolated racially.
that's pretty pathetic
Love this! I grew up in a white public school and pwi in Texas and it really messed with my mental. Alot of white people questioned my blackness more than black people and it made me think that there was something wrong with me and tried to make me into the image of their ideal "black men". My parents worked hard to move us out the Southside of Dallas and I applaud them for it. Yet I still and working through the years in public school because I harbored alot of antiblack sentiments I had about myself, my peers, and etc.
F
Moved around alot growing up and I always preferred being in the more mixed schools. I've been both the only black kid in the school and accused of being acting "white" because I had the neutral accent and pop cultural interests(type of music, style, etc) not especially typical of black kids in the 90s
I was called an oreo back in the day because when I was in school, I couldn't "do blackness" well enough so I looked to other cultures to fit in. I went to the goths and nerd groups and found people who were ok with me. However when I left the group they were still mad at me because...
1.) I was chewed out for not being black right and suffered every time I tried.
*AND*
2.) I was chewed out for leaving the space and finding a group that took me in.
When I went to a majority white school however, things got both better and worse. I didn't have to try to prove my blackness but parts of my black experience was not understood and even downplayed.
Haha! I was also accepted by the nerfs and goth crowd, for the exact same reason as you. It's sand and kind of funny.
I'm mixed and my gf's sister did not believe I'm black because I don't look or act like what she is used to seeing in the media, since her family is from a different country. my blackness gets questioned constantly because my features look ambiguous. but I have been that only black kid in the white school but it always feels like an othering experience feeling like you have to defend your blackness as a kid when your black parent is self hating. luckily i was raised by the black half of my family later on when i was 8 and older and it helped me realize how important it is to not compromise your personality or individualism just because it doesn't fit a stereotype. my black experience may not have been as othering in some ways, but it doesn't negate my struggles and growth.
Damn I feel most of this. My parent's grew up poor but quickly gained money over time through promotions in their jobs. So I literally had experience with a super poor school in Dekalb County that was majority black, then moderately better schools in Gwinnett County that were pretty well mixed between Black, White, and Hispanic students. And then went to a majority white university. Gotta say the well mixed experience was probably the best imo. Right now I'm doing graduate school in a private university that's majority white catholic, and I have to say that it sucks ass lol.
We have 7 sons and one daughter. I watched the video 3 times in a row. Your best to date IMO.
Great continuation of the original video. I completely agree with everything you said about the Carlton experience.
I LOVE the J cuts. MASTERFUL editing.
It's weird - I randomly found two or three volumes of the "Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys" in my Kansan middle school library in the 90's. Not the kind of place you'd expect to find that. I tried reading it then but I wasn't familiar with enough of the concepts. To hear F.D bring it up 25 years later is weird.
FFF, for every year I was the only Black kid in my grade, and the one year where the only other Black kids in the school were all related to me
Interesting perspective considering I'm a Nigerian living in Nigeria. I've never had to think of my race because tribe and religion is more important here.
Never hated myself, I just found it really weird that people would assume billions of black people on the world millions in the United States and somehow we all fit a very narrow and specific standard of behavior?
I had no idea how contentious school integration still was until I read Kendi. He sees it as an idea mainly imposed on Black communities by white liberals. Meanwhile, Stacy Abrams is still calling for school integration full speed ahead. Could you recommend some books on the issue?
I think a lot of "oreos" and "biracials" have a lot in common around the way blackness is defined in the black community. I'm biracial and my mom was 100% against putting me in situations where i would be the token or the "diversity" so i went to the hood schools in my neighborhood and i'm soo glad i did. I learned a lot about how blackness is defined and preformed in the mainstream. I did get called "white" but i realized the term "white" is a synonym for "weird" "eclectic" "alternative". I was seen as white not based on what i look like but what i was into. It was confusing at first but there was another girl in my school who was unambiguously black who liked anime and Japanese things and everybody called her white too haha, that's when i realized anybody who even slightly deviates from the commercialized mainstream blackness will be seen as other. I think the rigid way blackness gets defined hurts more black people than we think. It also makes it harder for us to gate keep our contributions when in in just a few generations the things Black people invented are seen as "white" by their natural inheritors.
I was told by a dark skin man when I was a child that I wasn't Black because my skin was too light. That and being abused and bullied led to me being anti-black for a long time. I'm still struggling with it as I live in a poor Black neighborhood where Black men have threatened to attack me as well as being treated poorly in Black online spaces. I'm learning to change my mind thanks to college and RUclipsrs like you.
one of my best friends growing up who was Hispanic often had the oreo type label on him by others, and was not accepted among other Hispanic groups sometimes for it, or just laughed at. and he was very mixed in whether to embrace a more Hispanic experience or this more mixed white Hispanic experience where he fit in better among white people who were majority of his friends. and it seemed like a really complicated experience to be in. where no matter what you are rejected by people for what seem like shallow reasons.
Wasn’t the only black person but one of like 3, I’m mixed and I was brought up in a small town as my parents didn’t wanna raise me in London. But I wasn’t taught my culture due to fear of racism and because the other black people are mono and 2nd gen where I’m mixed and 3rd I really had no sense of what it meant to be black and got bullied a lot by them for it and then that basically gave the white people the ok to do the same. Still got fetishised or assumed to be the problem child in a class in the first week, it’s very hard for my identity and what it means to be black.
I spent the early part of my childhood in a small city in WV with a 4% black population. Imma pass on ever living any place with such a demographic again. I've been told I sound white, because I do sound like a generic midwestern white woman, and got a bit of teasing for my taste in music but I've never had my blackness "checked". All of the people I know who have experienced being labelled an "oreo" are the people who gave off anti black vibes or were obviously uncomfortable with their own blackness. I went from a lily white town in WV and often being the only black person in a room; to living in NC and experiencing culture shock from seeing a Black cashier at the grocer store. SO even though I had this "white sounding" voice and was bumping panic at the disco while wearing dirty chucks, I never gave off a vibe that I was uncomfortable with my blackness. I have never experienced having my blackness questioned.
TL:DR Black people know the difference between niche interests and self hate. No one gets called an Oreo for liking "white things" It's acting like those "things" have greater value than "black things" that gets you rightfully called out. It's being a "Black friend" that gets you called out; not simply having white friends.
I gotta agree with all you said.
I remember being the only Black kid that enjoyed hockey before I found football & basketball. I’m from NYC
I think it’s fine line between others questioning something new unfamiliar & challenging ones blackness.
Its crazy because as a Mexican I was in a primarily black neighborhood in CA my minority status wasnt challenged despite being nerdy and being super into books. In fact a lot of my friends showed me a lot of acceptance and praised me despite calling black kids in the same vein oreos. The funny thing to me is that my Mexican as hell family called me whiteboy way more than anyone else in any community. Even coming back from the Army my family told me I "talked black" and seemed "less Mexican". Its always thrown me for a loop because as a result I've always been more comfortable in majority black spaces and some people saying I dont fit there even fucks me up because I'm put in a space like "where do I fit?"
This is interesting. The only people that ever questioned my blackness were a small number people from the hood that I've encountered. Not one of those constant bullying situations. I grew up in the suburbs but it was very diverse. Because of this I'm uncomfortable in all black and all white situations.
My mom is white and my dad is black, so I grew up in an all white family. I'd love to do a podcast with Fiq, from the talk about metal and stuff, I feel like our experiences have many similarities.
Yes man. I stay missing my ppl. 😭
Having grown up in "the country," where there was only one high school, I got that oreo label as well... especially when I found attraction to other ethnicities. I was also that kid who got the good grades, too, so I got a lot of flack for that, too. I think a lot of that was "crabs in a bucket" mentality going on, but that's a rant for another time.
Ive met one girl in my life who was a true Oreo. I went to a suburban private school for two years. Once I got there, some black kids had been there since kindergarten and were from rich familes. I made friends with many black kids who grew up rich and black. One black girl stuck out as an oreo and even other rich black kids called her that. The difference was the other kids had parents who immersed their kids in culture on the weekends and after school. This girl probably didn’t know one black person outside of her family and the kids she met at school. On top of that, my parents couldn’t stand her parents. They said they were stuck up and acted like they didn’t know they were black, so I agree that parenting plays a part.
We were raise thinking "struggle" or poverty is blackness and its not. Most black areas have a poor and a wealthy sections. The shared culture is blackness not the lack of . The point of being closer to your own kind isnt so we all talk walk and act alike, its so you have support in time of need. Black kids been reading comics and talking square for ages, thats not a unicorn and we should stop supporting that narrative that you are special bc you dont consume the common black products or expression. I grew up on NWA and I love Seinfeld. those things are in competition. Ive seen work on the table and I graduated college with honors, those things arent in competition.
Thank you for acknowledging that growing up as a white person in a black community has its own unique challenges
Hey Fiq, thanks for the clarification. You mentioned there are a bunch of studies showing black kids do better when there aren't other black kids around them to relate to. This makes sense to me so I'm definitely not gonna dismiss it on its face. That said, I'm a student studying neuroscience and in one of my classes we've recently talked a lot about the replication crisis in psychology and the social sciences (which also present in neuroscience and most other scientific fields that are more recently established), and how both the academic community and the public at large needs to take a more critical eye to results from any single study or handful of studies that seem to definitively answer a question. So with that in mind, do you think the issue of how to optimize a black kid's education/experience is something we have enough good data on to draw solid conclusions like the one you mentioned? I'm not trying to call out these studies or anything, since I know very little about them and I don't have any background in sociology or child psychology. Just curious to hear your thoughts, or anyone else who has knowledge about this stuff.
Yes I do. The experiences of black students without black peers and teachers is pretty well studied and a common theme is how white administrators and teachers along with their peers create a deleterious environment for them from elementary to college.
@@signifiedbsides1129 Hey, thanks for responding! I really appreciate your perspective. Only just figured out how to actually check my comment history for replies XD. I'm glad to hear this stuff has been studied thoroughly, hoping there are good educators out there trying to do something productive with the results.
Dang, I must’ve been all the way out of it to miss last night’s stream 🤦🏽♂️. That Patreon is looking better and better every week
This from Last week. No stream Last night
@@signifiedbsides1129 Ah, ok. I def missed the first 20 or so min of that, which is likely why I was mixed up and didn’t remember this.
Have you seen the show “David Makes Man”? I LOVE that show, and it is literally like a mixture of Will and Carltons experience from the experience of I think a middle school aged kid heading into high school
Folks need to take responsibility for driving young black folks toward the "Sell-out" mindset. I was raised in a mixed area. But my interests and ( I hate to say it), academic achievement had a lot of my black peers say I was "acting white" or that I was a "Sell-out." Young Me, looking for allies anywhere, fully embraced white culture. SO much so that I became a...Republican when I was old enough.
It wasn't til I was a grown man that I took ownership of my blackness. And I feel better for it. YEars later, a number of my black "friends" from back in the day apologized to me for the way they treated me, and complimentd me for not turning away from my interests in the face of their...no better word for it...abuse.
I feel this man, I never went republican, but I did feel myself getting drawn towards that during my high school and early university years, although I completely bounced the other way and went democratic socialist now lol
A lot of great data on the subject matter captured/translated in Heather McGhee’s “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” ✌🏾
i could say that i’ve been identified or seen as an oreo, but honestly being white passing and biracial i think most people just perceive me as white. my dad was in and out of prison a lot growing up and my family network on his side wasn’t often present and largely wasn’t a big part of my life until i got older. my mom and white step father took me out to the burbs when i was 8 or so and the experience was mostly to my detriment i think. while i did get a good education, made life long friends, and was still in a pretty diverse community, moving me from my family and a lot of the realities of life in the city left me really lost when it came to the world and my own identity. i’ve spent quite a bit of time now to try to find an understanding for myself, but at 22 i’d be lying to say i’m not still left frustrated and confused. i’ve been able to find some normalcy and build relationships that really should have already been there with siblings cousins and my dad as he has been free for 6 years now. i say all this to say that suburbification of your kids in hopes that it will “ get them through doors” in the future is in my experience really misguided and robs them of something a lot more valuable than ap classes. the troubles and stresses of life will follow you anywhere you go, not to be dismissive of situations where safety is a pressing concern, just to say recognize what you’re giving up in ur pursuit of some fairy tale perfect life. love you fd and really appreciate your content.
I grew up with this type of experience . I graduated with 400 kids, there were about nine black kids, counting me, and most of us had the same grandmoms and daddies. We all handled it in varying ways and I was a bit of a loner and probably handled it, self esteem wise, pretty bad, maybe the worst. it is super important for kids to grow up around ppl that look like them who will protect them from yt folks bullshit and the -isms. It's funny that the biracial discourse thing comes up bc I am, technically, but never really identified with that except bc when I moved around all these yt kids they wouldn't leave me alone about being light. I feel like I'm healing from trying to fit into the damn "oreo" thing lmao I guess I did....? but I didn't? long story short, I do really wish I grew up around like a few more families of black folks or something, that shit does matter. big time.
I went to a suburb school and was from the inner city. I never picked up the "kayfabe" of "acting black" so man... being in monstly black areas just led to me getting jumped and how I talked got made fun of.
My parents made the right call for me I think.
I use "Lone pepper n a sea of salt" for this experience.
Great conversation. Originally I came from the hood, but went to a private, almost entirely white, private school that was still in the city. We moved to a super white rural white suburb when our neighborhood became a lot harder as factory jobs closed down. In this school I was labeled oreo by both my white & black friends when busing started in the 80's despite being a fierce defeder of the bused children to my white friends and peers. I must say it took me some years to deprogram any internalie anti-black bias I had developed from those experiences. I always was an avid reader, and took a mad amount of AA studies courses in college in addition to developing many more positive black male relations outside of my family. I know I did an excellent job because when I took those implicit bias tests I was rated as having a slight bias towards black people with no other negative racial biases. This result surprised me because I had developed some hard attitudes against ignorant white folks due to my early educational experiences. I guess I've learned to understand them while also not puting up with much of their b.s. I guess I've developed a way to explain their crap to them in a manner which they can absorb more fully.
I’m in the situation right now! I’m military and the base that I live in is in the middle of a very expensive mostly white area in Virginia Beach. I’m now dealing with my daughter being insecure about her hair because all the other girls in her class have very long straight hair and she has long curly hair that doesn’t style like her peers. It’s extremely heartbreaking to see her go through this because her hair is so beautiful and her mom and I make it a point to tell her so.
I hope you are taking the time you need between these videos Because I personally had to take a break from the tube after your last video. A lot of animal crossing under my weighted blanket.
...Did I not get notified yesterday? I was anticipating it and assumed I was mistaken about streams being weekly.
"Weekly..."
Bussing bridges the gap between suburban black kids and city kids
F just graduated from the number high school in Tennessee.I thought it was cool at first, but in retrospect it eally wasn't worth it. Got some nice scholarships tho.
Watching this in Decatur, well not certain sections, also now I feel kinda bad for going to Mercer.
I was the eldest of the only Chinese family in town. Specifically we were Taiwanese but I learned quickly that I had 1-3 choices on how to describe my race. I am so sad to hear that this is something that other people experience too. I didn't realize this racial trauma was a shared experience... I thought my town was just particularly racist.... ahhhh ..... F
This is the thoughts i’ve been having while reflecting on middle and high school. I hate the fact that I had to grow up around so much whiteness, especially being in the advanced classes. I think that might be why I burned out so much junior and senior year. Coming to college, I’ve had to unlearn so much but to still see people just minimize the actual struggle growing up in white areas has makes it harder.
I have had the full spectrum of this. They only time I felt seen understood and excepted fully was in the predominantly Black areas and the mixed area.
If you travel you'll understand black is a spectrum. Black is not synonymous with just one particular thing. Simplifying or Limiting is what destroys black evolution. It puts a fence around us that helps others who dont have our best interest.
"Fly in the Milk" is the most ignorant phrase I've heard in a while. Moving to a neighbourhood has everything to do with economics, and little to do with colour. Using big words has nothing to do with being Black. Calling somebody an "Oreo" or "Sellout" is not a critique, it's an insult. Sending your kid to a mediocre school when you have the means to send your kid to a non mediocre school is nuts. I can't believe you think every black person in a white neighbourhood has a choice in being there...Therefore "Black excellence" is unachievable. All you've said here is that those who were lucky enough to be borne in a place with a high Black population have more value in their Black experience. This narrative is dangerous.
Thank you man, i thought i was the only one that felt this was slightly off. We're subject to bullshit colorism, ethnic tribalism and racism EVERYWHERE. This is painfully US-centric imo, what about African diaspora worldwide? People move to where they see better opportunities where they can. Fuck any weak ass projection of "oreo" i want better quality of life ffs.
Im half mexican half white and being in an all white school still had me in a lot of weird racialized conversations and questions. And i look white for the most part.
My little cousin is the fly in the family of whiteness, but she does live in an are of rural KY that has a fair about of black folks. So that's good. Besides helping me I hope the black leftist YT community that have familiarized myself with will be helpful to her once she is old enough for this level of discourse.
A thought occurs, anyone recommend any teen/tween focused black experience content creators? I don't know how big of an ask that is.
I'm a metal fan and I've made friends over the years with some black people who liked metal who often got accused of being an "oreo". It bothered them a lot, but not being black myself I never knew what to say. This was back in the 90s, though, things seemed to have changed, there are more black people in the metal scene now.
Oreo has become slang for "I'm too broke(n) to experience the world outside of my little sliver of safe-space"
when i was going into high school my mom moved just 25 miles in LA from reseda to santa clarita. having a fly in the milk experience for 4 years, especially not having grown in that environment, i was doubly ostracized for not being white and my disdain for car dependent white suburbia.
I think that some of the experience in the video is regional. I grew up in well off neighborhood that is historically known for its racial diversity. My parents sent us to private school in the more affluent neighborhood next to us, not because they thought the white man's ice was colder, but because they wanted the best education for us. My school was very small, my graduating class was 58 people. 5 of us were Black (4 of us from the neighborhood that I mentioned). Our parents were doctors and dentists and lawyers (spare me the Cosby jokes) the same as the White kids' parents. I moved to the suburbs of my city so that my daughter could get the best education. My daughter was far from the only Black student in her class. The school building that she was in when she graduated was one of two $100 million high schools the district had finished in her freshman year. Not everyone sends their children to certain schools for proximity to whiteness.