Occasionally my mind goes back to sixth grade, where I am unable to fall asleep at night because I’m stressing over the homework I haven’t completed, contemplating ways to avoid flag football in P.E. the next morning, and, most importantly, considering if I was Black enough to my peers and classmates. There’s this strange phenomenon that transpires during the middle school years. A phenomenon where people suddenly become so meticulous and hyper-focused about the clothes they wear, the shape and appearance of their body, the words they say, the sound of their voice, pimples, dating, the advantages of being well-liked and popular and the consequences of the opposite. At the end of the day, it appeared as though everyone had something to worry about–my biggest worry was if my aspirations, wants and desires on the inside harmonized with the skin color on the outside.
Attending public school in a suburban, homogenous Illinois town led to obvious observations. I was clearly different from most of the student body in many ways–I was Black, introverted, a band kid, more effeminate, and had no sense of style whatsoever (I wore patterned sweater vests daily). The point being, I often stood out. Being noticeable in middle school meant that I was greeted with certain expectations.
For many of the kids at school, their perceptions of Black culture and people derived from YouTube videos, TV shows, and the news. At the time, the media’s representation of Black people was predominantly not well-intentioned and true. This would lead peers at school to expect me to reflect some one-dimensional character they watched online. However, I was just a badly dressed, nerdy, flamboyantly quiet Black kid who couldn’t dance or play basketball–which was more than enough reason for my classmates to consider me less Black. They were surprised and even disappointed when I didn’t meet up to their expectations. I don’t see these interactions as malice because I also rely on stereotypes when entering unfamiliar territory. The issue begins when the stereotypes of a group of people overshadow the characteristics of an individual.
To say these comments wouldn’t get to me would be false. Because I have been and still do want to be liked by people, I felt like there was something I had to change. So, during second-period English, instead of learning and improving my grammar, I was ludicrously asking myself if I was bad at being Black. In a time and place where I was meant to learn and discover who I am, people were already telling me who I wasn’t.
It wasn’t until I gained a little maturity that I realized people’s expectations of my Blackness are insignificant. No one’s opinions of me are more meaningful than my life experiences. My Blackness is not anything I’ll ever need to prove. I wish my younger self would have realized sooner that everything I do, I do as a Black person.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.