What is "Acting Black."

I came across a post from a lady on imdb who was discussing about 90210. To those who don't know, this show provides a unique experience behind a black kid who is adopted by a white family. It was an unfortunate event however, when she labeled Dixon as being a "White-Wash Kid." Of course, I responded back in an attempt to correct the errors of her ways, but it got me thinking into discussing these ridiculous terms such as "white wash" and "acting black."



"Acting Black" follows this strange notion that all black people has to act a certain way, anything outside this spectrum is considered "white wash" or "not acting black." What's even worse is that "Acting black" is always accompanied with rather negative stereotypes. He has to wear hip hop clothes, must love rap, hate white people, think the system is trying to keep them down, do horrible in school, and perhaps been in jail a few times. Often when I was living in michigan, I was claimed as acting white solely because I enjoyed Rock n Roll, not just hip hop, and because I wanted to do good in school. For some unexplainable reason, getting an education means you want to be like white people. I could never figure out for the life of me where did they get this rather ridiculous notion. But after a while, I did not care. I wasn't going to fit inside anybody's bubble, I was just going to be me.



The sad notion is the more I became myself, the less black friends I had. It was as if I could not be accepted if didn't fit inside their idea of what a black person is suppose to be. In essence, it's a shame that after all americans of african descent been through to remove labels of the past, that some are now imposing labels on ourselves. Only if we can accept our differences can we move forward towards the next step.

Double Standards on Both Sides of the Front.

Sorry everyone for the non-activity. Life has just been very busy as of late. I for one would like to give a late congradulations to Senator Obama for becoming president of the US. May he bring great things to this country. With that out of the way, I just wanted to discuss about Double Standards. Double standards is strange exhibited behavior that is not exclusive to any race, gender, etc. Such as lesbian couples being seen on television much more than their male counterparts, as males seem to have a much more difficult time accepting gay partnership than women do.



However, I'll be specifically talking about race in this remark. I was reading an article from the blog racialicious, dedicated towards writers and non-white authors not being seen much. You can locate the article here. http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/08/on-race-and-ya-lit/

The author goes through this long discussion about the lack of non-caucasian presence within the book community, as most non-white writers are usually seen in the ethnic section. One of the comments give reasons as to why there does not seem to be too many non-caucasian writers. But another person comments stating that these are merely excuses and doesn't justify the lack of writers. She, of course, comment back, saying that to examine the reasons means a possible solution can be developed. Which would be a lot better than just believing that all white people are racist.



Now the strange part from this example is that no one but the originator of the commenter attempt to defend her remark. She was left all alone to respond to this remark in the defence of white people. Everybody was perfectly fine with believing the impression that frankly put, all white people are devils.



Now previously in this blog, they were discussing how Americans of African descent were being blamed for the passage of prop 8 within california, as over 78% of Americans voted for it.

However, they vividly struck against the notion of merely blaming Americans, and instead should focus on the reasons as to why the situation happened. And anyone who rebuked the reasons as merely excuses were falling into the trap. They recently posted a article furthering continuing the discussion. Here is a quote from their piece.

"This was drawn into crystal clear focus with the recent passage of Proposition
8 in California. The aftermath of the proposition was an exercise in laying the
blame, with blacks bearing the brunt of the fury. The idea in many sectors was
that black homophobia was to blame for the passage of prop 8, and many
comparisons were drawn to the Civil Rights Movement and how blacks “owed” gays their loyalty - after all, we did just elect Obama. As explored in editorial
after editorial, the narrative eventually emerged that there were too many
assumptions on all sides: that blacks would automatically recognize the movement
for gay rights as kin to the struggle for civil rights; that an exit poll taken
in California could explain the machinations of all of black America; that
counter marketing to the Yes on 8 campaign was done on a limited scale, while
the Yes on 8 campaign had been advertising in targeted media for over a year;
that one group can owe another anything, politically - especially when this
trade off was not discussed before hand by organizers of the respective
communities, nor was there an alliance made where we would be expected to stand
together. (And obviously, basic human decency doesn’t count here - if more
people believed in basic human decency, there would be no need for this site.)"

You can find the rest of the article located here:

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/09/series-introduction-the-things-we-do-to-each-otherthe-things-we-do-to-ourselves/

Now I definitely agree that examining the reasons to a problem is a much better idea than merely saying something is wrong without a possible solution. My problem is that this type of thinking was only seen of the group in question are African with American Descent. If the group was caucasian, they are merely labled as evil devils out to destroy the world, and a mindset like that would harm race relations, not help it. But than again, racialicious is not meant as a blog to bring racial harmony but merely a blog to discuss racism against non-caucasian Americans. Unfortunately, this type of double standard is seen quite common in certain parts of the community, especially by those who "claim" for equal rights. But this type of behavior is certainly not seen in just one race.

Racialicious also brought up an interesting take on a new video came out called Black College Football, the first ever console game developed by an African descent maker. Racialicious gives remarks that already people start saying where is W.E.T and why it's racist for this game to exist. It is interesting to note that over 95% of video games that come out have caucasian main characters, and less than 50% of video games out possess minority side characters. Unlike television, which continues to make strides in the diversity department, the video game industry is still portrayed as if caucasians are the only race. Yet very rarely does our caucasian brother and sisters stand up and fight against the blatant problems that exist within the gaming community.

Overall, double standards are definitely running rampant in the USA, and until they are acknowledged and examine, they will continue to remain and deprived this great society.