Overheard office-environment snippet by some 30-something white woman:"This morning I heard on Pacifica radio that inner-city African-Americans hold each other back by accusing their more academically proficient peers of acting...white! Isn't that weird? Why would they do that? Such a vicious cycle...."
Everybody has heard of this phenomenon via anecdote, on NPR, or in the research literature of academia. Oprah probably did a feature on it. It's well documented--and you have probably even explained it to people you felt were less worldly than yourself--that blacks sometimes humiliate other blacks with the accusation that they are "acting white." It's an inner-city accusation that arises at the first signs of assimilation-based achievement. You can discuss the negative outcomes for all parties involved and detail historical predictors and blah-blah-blah. In fact, by explaining all that shit aloud, you are totally acting white yourself. I'm acting very white right now by writing words...on a computer...A MAC...on a topic!! See? That's some rough shit [some prior discussion here].
"Nigga, you actin' white now?" is a typical affront that is immediately replied to with "No I ain't!" Then the accuser and the target immediate regress into the same time-worn stereotypical behaviors that make old white ladies afraid of black people throughout America. Once outed as acting white conversation then refocuses from topics such as what pi might equal, aerodynamics of predatory birds, and the probability that other intelligent lifeforms exist in the universe, to timely and significant topics such as crunk ass shiny ass rims, mad ass dope beats, phat ass bitches, and "making my moneys, playa" and the like. Frontin' for frontin' sake.
Unfortunately--unlike crack babies and profits from credit default swaps--the aforementioned phenomenon is actually real. Black people perform that very behavior to other black people all the fucking time. I've had it done to me many times throughout my life, "There go Ty...actin' all white and shit." Kid shit; just some silly teasing, right? Well, except for the venom and hate-emphasis on the word "white," and how the accusation was meant more as a warning than as a factual analysis, it is indeed just some harmless teasing (sarcasm is quite white).
It's an unfortunate external manifestation of an accuser's inner struggles, suffering, and socio-economic envy, right? It's just a normal lashing-out at a dominant culture from the oppressed you say. "Oreo," "white nigger," "house nigger," "uncle Tom," "sell out," "you can't change your skin," and "forgetting where you come from," I've heard all that bullshit from blacks (and of course, "faggot!"). Sticks and stones, certainly, but it still hurts like fuck and leaves a person at proverbial crossroads of how the rest of one's life should play out.
Let's Make A Deal! One of these boxes contains a happy, long, healthy life featuring family vacations, intellectual stimulation (subscription to The New Yorker), proud colleagues, collegiate alumni membership, and neighbors you trust. The other box contains three-baby mamas and a colostomy bag as the result of a drive-by shooting because you "dissed" someone at the funeral of some cousin (because there are always cousins involved) who was killed at the age of 17. Oh and you're in prison too...with AIDS. For life. Pick one...now!
But even though that's some fucked-up, bitter, self-hate psychology, I never let it stop me from acting as white as Patty Hearst acted on February 3, 1974. As a half-black/half-white/all Jew Californian, I've always felt entitled to act in any mother-the-fuck manner I chose--or, in the case of the occasional fight or flight situation that may arise, acting in any matter in which I need to act. My choice. Besides, I deconstructed the "acting white" 'tard-code as a three year-old and observed that significantly all of the rich and famous and historically significant humans happened, to that point anyway, to be more white than not white. The police were white. The mayor, governor, and president were white. Actors were white. Hugh Hefner was white. The Six Million Dollar Man was white. G.I. Joe with kung-fu grip was white. So, if acting white was gonna be my ticket out of poverty, obscurity, and desolation, then I figured that I'd put on a goddamn one-man show! I got all Stanislavski method and shit. "Hello, how are you doing. My name is Ty
Remember in 2004 when Barack said, "...children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white." Now it's 2009 and Barack Hussein is president of all of this. The President. Mr. President. Our president. Damn, it must be real because Barack said it...and look at him.
And even when Barack Hussein was running for president as a viable presidential candidate, there was still that fake ass debate over whether Barack Hussein was either "Not Black Enough" for blacks or "Just Too Black" for whites. What?! Even when people were giving millions of dollars and volunteer hours to the first viable black presidential candidate's campaign, fucking Jesse "Jealous" Jackson and Ralph "Hater" Nader were still labeling Barack as "acting white." What the fuck? Occidental College. Columbia University, Harvard Law, Illinois Senate, United States Senator, Ivy League lawyer wife and Barack's still acting white. I'd trade for that act in a second.
Oh, but wasn't that the very same Jesse Jackson I saw crying his authentically black eyes out in Grant park on November 4, 2008? And I see Nader wisely just shut the fuck up.
So yeah, black people have got to immediately cease and fucking desist insulting other brothers and sisters who just don't want to be a perceived as or called a nigger anymore with the accusatory, "acting white" drive-by bullet bullshit. In fact every black person in American should immediately begin telling all their black children and friends and cousins (because there are always cousins involved) to start "acting presidential." Black people should demand explanations for when peers are not acting presidential enough. They should warn, "don't do anything to embarrass Barack, start acting more presidential." And white people need to start telling their kids to start acting black...like the president!
Am I still acting white? Do I hate blacks or black culture? No and no, shut the fuck up with those dumb ass questions, don. My office tower colleagues used to love how I could "talk black" to certain support staff. To them I was, what, a white person talking black? The support staff were just proud that I represented them on the billable staff side of the ledger. So I guess I can do it all now. I have all the acts down. Do I look down on my people? No. Do I forget where I come from? No. Do obfuscate notions of how race intersects the majority paradigm? Hells yeah, motherfucker! But I know what I am. I made it and I survived it. People act like me now. I do not want to taste Hamburger Helper or Kool Aid ever again even for some retro-nostalgia bullshit.
Driving a Prius is acting very white though. I'd never stoop that low.
Quit frontin'.
Posts
