Race, Interest, and Intelligence

Stop Telling Me Who I’m Trying To Be

I’ll say this straight out, what I do, the shit I like has nothing to do with race! You got that? For the cheap seats in the back, I’ll say it again, NOTHING. TO. DO. WITH. RACE.

I like R&B, I like hip hop. I like traditional African music and literature. I loved school. I love books. I love learning. None of these things make me Black or White. And none of them mean I’m pretending to be either. I’m biracial. I’m a person with my own interests and strengths and weaknesses. That’s it, that’s all.

I just read a story by Jasmine Dudley that got me thinking. It was about Black “nerds” and the accusation that they’re pretending to be White. This got me right in the feels because it happens every day. Here’s her story. Read it, it’s good:

I remember this kind of treatment. I remember the feeling of being alone and ostracised. And here’s the thing, I wish I didn’t have to do it, but I do. I gotta call my Black brothers and sisters out on this.

I grew up as a biracial child (Black father, White mother) raised in a Black home. My father had a 4th-grade education after having quit school upon failing the 5th grade. Their dream for me was to get an education so I could have better than they did. They saw I was a smart kid. And isn’t that what every parent wants, better for their child?

As a teenager and younger adult, I became accustomed to White people sneering or scoffing once they found out who my parents were or about my lineage. I never hid it, I was proud of it.

I once had a teacher in high school (not a teacher I had, just one there that my brother had 15 years prior that happened to still be there) tell me he knew my family and knew I’d be nothing, just like my brother. He taught Geography, I never took his class.

I also had a teacher once tell me he was surprised I could write so well, given my “circumstances.” I had no circumstances, just a decent home with a Black mother and father.

I got used to people coming over and incredulously saying, “You people can play chess?” or “you like Shakespeare?”

I got used to people telling me maybe I should set my sights lower. Perhaps a degree in Phys Ed, not Business. I was good in sports, but aren’t we all (no, no we are not).

Those were White people. What shocked and hurt me most was my Black family. The first time I experienced it was when I was 16. My father had been to Halifax for a kidney transplant and over the course of his visits with his brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews, my high school education came up.

He was proud of me for doing well and being at the top of the class. I’m sure he did brag insufferably. It was a habit of his, gymnastics, track and field, and school, he bragged to anyone and everyone about his girl. But, the Johnson family hotline took his pride in a way I didn’t expect.

Suddenly, there was “talk.” I was “pretending to be White.” I was “acting White” by going to school. I was “that girl.”

I spent the following summer with my father’s family, having been secretly (not so much) dubbed “the White Bitch from New Brunswick.” I was ridiculed, excluded, and just endlessly berated for having a keen mind, a love of learning, and yeah, kinda geeky stuff. I loved math. I loved the idea of higher learning.

And I was punished for it. It hurt and confused me as a young person. I got what the White people were up to. I didn’t get what my Black family was trying to accomplish. I still kinda don’t.

And it went on into later adulthood. I graduated from law school when I was 37. My aunt, my own father’s sister, on Facebook started calling me out, and saying she did a “full-fledged” investigation and I did not attend, nor graduate from law school. I did, I know, I paid the tuition. I was there. I walked across that damn stage. I raised 3 boys, worked and went to school, and worked my damn biracial ass off! Do not tell me I didn’t do it! Don’t minimize me!

I’m sure there are other variables. I understand that I look White. I get I have a privilege that goes with that. But I also have family that are darker, that are brilliant, that have gotten the same admonition. Sorry, my niece can like Anime and whatever and still be Black. She can like anything she wants and still be a beautiful, intelligent, black woman.

Do you have any idea how that hurts? Do you have any idea what you’re doing to our young people? Stop. Seriously, for those that make fun, that tease people of colour for having interests and inclinations outside the stereotype, knock it off! It’s not productive. It’s not helpful.

Don’t diminish us. Don’t poo-poo our accomplishments. Don’t treat any of us like we’re less Black or whatever. And don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Intelligence and interest are not race-based things. They’re human things.

Those of us who are people of colour, at least from my perspective, desperately need to see ourselves in high places. We need to know, our children need to know that they can take on whatever they choose and excel. An interest in something isn’t a rejection of the community, it’s a strength.

I’m not even sure if this is still happening. But it was at least 13 years ago. And it’s not cool. We can’t fight the things that need fighting when we divide ourselves. Intelligence and strength are some of our biggest assets, let’s embrace them for all of us.