what is it like to go to school in a very white community and have to deal with racist misconceptions and stereotypes about black woman and girls? what micro aggressions bother you most, and which do you feel empowered to tell white (and not super aware POC) people to change? also i love you and you are brave.
ahh so excited bout this question!!
so, i started going to a white-high privileged middle classish, type middle school which was a huge culture shock, because the year before I had went to an all black elementary school. I was really confused my first couple of weeks bc i didn't see what they saw. I had never really looked at race that deeply, i mean i was still pretty young, but i never let color judge how i treated people (i wasnt raised that way) and some of the parents, and ignorant students at my school did and i was unsure of how to deal w that-- but i got over it, because i did not see race like that and i let their dumb ass comments roll over me w/o saying much bc i just didnt get it i mean wth i was like 12?? anyway so being in a white community is something im very comfortable w, i think what i have a problem w is wealthy white kids, some of them are the most ignorant people ever. my first year of high school i went to forest ridge which was not only a culture shock from my middle school, but a financial culture shock, bc not only were these kids richer then the girls at my small ass middle school they were even more ignorant. so basically all these dumb ass white girls were afraid of me and the other 10 or so black kids in our grade, well at least me, bc my middle school was actually really dope, and SUPER liberal and this school was not, so i was just a v loud person, really "black" you could say and they were afraid of that idea,they didnt want to be my friend- no matter how hard i tried, and i wasnt about to assimilate for them so they would feel comfortable so i was the most obnoxious person ever bc i was mad- and this is when i understood what it meant to b white and how i was viewed in the world
some girls would say stuff like
"i heard you shot your grandmother"
*when on the subject of race in english* "Garfield and schools in seattle have a lot of poor kids, and we should be lucky to go to school here"
*when i was talking about racial profiling on me in stores* "I think all teenagers get followed around in stores, not just black people"
AND THE TEACHER DIDNT SAY ANYTHING
and i knew these things weren't right but i didnt know how, why or if i could say how i felt w/o people making me feel like i was wrong, but i said as much as i could. --anyway i wrote a paper on fr and this so i can send it to u later
so in terms of saas i feel v safe and okay and when people say stupid shit i call them out, or i am more used to the ignorance, i am used to the microaggressions, i am used to people touching my hair, i have some how found empowerment from it.. but the worse microaggressions i get is the way i talk and act... if that makes sense. i some how feel shamed for being "black" and embracing my culture and i am labeled ghetto i feel like- or i used to b, bc of the way i talk, i mean you know how i talk, its pretty "white washed" but theres a lil slang in there from time to time. like i feel like i have been taught that talking the way i do sometimes in--ebonics-- is labeled stupid--and talking "white" is labeled smart
see how thats fucked up black people talk wrong, white people talk proper and thats something iv had to deal w my whole life.
---what i think i would tell white people to notice or stop, is culture appropriation, esp in the black culture. khari and i talk about this all the time white people STAY taking our culture and claiming it theirs, it becomes glamorized when they deiced they want to claim it, thats the shit that pisses me off. girls wearin cornrows and shit, young privileged white boys rappin and shit actin like they really know about what HIPHOP, throwin up gang signs n shit while they ridin their parents car back to madrona, and wont get pulled over by the police bc they white that one simple fact.
and how can my people need to change. wow to much to even say i feel like i wrote a novel but if you wanna know i will tell you i just feel like this is a lot! thank u for the question :*
sidenote: izie and i went to gay meeting today!! v informative !!!
