We all have experienced this; either you were the judged or the judger, maybe both for some people. My experience with the concept “acting black” started when I was in sixth grade. My white history teacher at that time, she was often judged as “acting black” by the African American students. I still vividly remember the conversation I had with one of my classmates, asking, “Why are some people saying Ms. C is acting black? What is acting black? ” Speaking to an African American female, I can tell she took pride in explaining the concept of “acting black”, she told me, “She’s (referring to Ms. C) not acting like she’s white. She’s not proper like the rest of the white people. She acts ghetto.”
Looking back from my past experiences with that concept, I often wonder, “Is that the standard we used to judge individuals?” To act black, you cannot use proper grammar. You got to talk ghetto. Then I started to link this general belief and compared it with the idea “being black”, and I found both concepts to be vastly different. Obviously, the first one requires individuals to act, to constant perform to the public, while the other one puts no confinement on individuals. You can be you. So now my question is, “Why then so many people, regardless of race, act black if it is such a tiresome performance?” Of course, one can certainly argue that however certain individuals behave, that is entirely legitimate because they choose to do so voluntarily. If so, then those people are not acting black, they are being themselves. However, I would like to focus on the ones that are forced to act black. Like many young rappers that we have seen on the Hip-Pop documentary, many of them claimed that the content of their rap has to be violent in order to get attention from the media, to get accepted. Regardless of who they really are, they have to put on this image: hard, in control, strong, have hoes, etc. So is that the answer for acting black as well? So one could gain acceptance in his community, the hood? But is that worth it truly? If black males in the Hip-Pop industry are victims of this false sense of masculinity, of power, then the individuals forced to act black are just given this inaccurate impression of security, of acceptance. They are, in a way, victims too.
Hannah, I understanding your experience and questions about this phenomenon of "acting black." I am from what you learned as "the hood" or "the ghetto," where most people fought, killed each other, sold drugs, and lived off money from the government. So, because I chose to take myself out of that environment when the opportunity was given to me and speak proper English, I am sometimes called "you are acting white." I don;t think that's acting white because I'm allowing myself to grow and experience life outside the box I was stuck in. It's a shame that the media recapitulates these racists notions.
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