The qualifications of being considered “black”: #3. Must have lived in the hood
on February 23rd, 2005 at 9:35 amThis is a very common misconception and very self-explanatory. I think that most of us have plenty of stories where someone (maybe even you) was made to feel “less than” because you have never experienced the “hard life” of the inner-city. Inner-city life is seen as a rite-of-passage if you are to be considered to be “black”. Miss this opportunity, and you may as well be wearing your argyle socks and checkered shirts in the tradition with Steve Eurkle to some. Simply put, if you were raised in suburbia, you are soft.
For the many black Americans that buy into this ideology, this is used as a way to eliminate the possibility of parity with other races (i.e. the image of struggle must always synonymous with blackness. Take away struggle we have lost our chance to put “whitey” under our foot. Our very blackness may be at risk as well). When you look at past history in this country, white people have walked on the moon, built great industries, developed ways for us to travel faster from city to city, developed vast communication networks, etc. The one thing that many whites have not been able to accomplish is to survive in the inner-city of today. In fact, they have a name for it, it’s called “white flight”. For people who carry this “rite-of-passage” ideology, surviving inner-city life is the one experience that we can honestly say that we have greater ownership than whites.
In the America of today, there is an increasing amount of black Americans that are born and raised in the suburbs rather than the inner-cities across this nation, however, this rite-of-passage ideology still exist. One place you will see it of course is in much of hip-hop music. Entertainers will boast about their “hard-knock life” in the hood while at the same time spend 12+ songs on their Cd’s trying to convince you that they are still “keepin’ it real” in their million dollar mansions. One of the worst yet amusing examples I have seen this was with my friend’s younger sister. This girl always prided herself on being “down”, however, this one particular day she took it a little to far. One day, all of a sudden this girl from NORTH CAROLINA began to use dialect as though she was from Brooklyn, New York. AND SHE WAS SERIOUS (Yikes)!!! Being from New Jersey myself, I quickly pick up on how she pronounced the word “talk” “Tawk“. Needless to say, I had to tease her about this for days.
Why was this young girl so carelessly willing to trade in her southern dialect for a northern one? Did she feel that she could not be accepted acknowledging her “rural” roots? Now granted, this was a very light incident, however, this is something that is played out in many suburban communities: Kids trying to be “inner-city” on Mockingbird Lane.
There is nothing wrong in acknowledging where you came from and/or being proud of it. Unfortunately, we set up OUR race for further inter-divisions (if that is a word) when we equate “blackness” with a person’s place of origin.
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