2/28/2024 0 Comments Growing up black and white![]() Depending on how effectively the Black person performs or negotiates, he may “pass inspection”. This performance can be as deliberate as dressing well and speaking in an educated way or as simple as producing an ID or a driver’s license in situations in which this would never be demanded of whites.Īlmost by definition, the Black person performs before a distant, judgmental, and unsympathetic audience of gatekeepers – distant because of the extant racial divide, and judgmental and unsympathetic because their minds are typically already made up about the Black person’s “place” and the threat they believe he or she poses to the white space, and perhaps to some of the people standing in judgment. Strikingly, a Black person’s deficit may be minimized or tentatively overcome by a performance, a negotiation, or what some Blacks refer to derisively as a “dance”, through which individual Blacks may be inclined to show white people and others that ghetto stereotypes do not apply to them personally in effect, they perform for credibility or for acceptance. Thus, such a Black person is burdened with a deficit of credibility, especially in comparison with their white counterparts. In these circumstances, almost any Black person can experience distance, especially a young Black male – not as a measure of his merit as a person but because of his Black skin and its indication of “outsider” status in the white space. When the Black person is unknown, stereotypes can rule perceptions, creating a situation that can estrange the Black person. ![]() When an anonymous Black person enters the white space, often the people there immediately try to make sense of him or her – to determine “who that is”, or to figure out the nature of the person’s business and whether they need to be concerned.
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