may have seemed that way from the outside.
Where I grew up, nerds, dorks, and other kids who had a reputation for being “smart” in school did not automatically become targets for bullies for “acting white,” as the stereotype of poor black neighborhoods portrays it. We didn’t scorn nerds any more—or less—than white kids do. We definitely didn’t scapegoat them for the reasons that some “experts” have invoked to try to explain some of the persisting racial achievement gap in school. We were no more anti-intellectual than the rest of America.
It wasn’t school achievement itself that we saw as “acting white.” It’s something much more subtle than that. And understanding this complexity is important to understanding my story and to recognizing what’s really going on in poor neighborhoods. What was being reinforced and what was being punished was not about education.
Sure, there were some black children who were bullied for “acting white” in the neighborhoods where I grew up. And, indeed, some of those kids were high achievers in school. Some, however, were not. It wasn’t scholarly success itself that made people targets. We didn’t disdain academic achievement per se and we didn’t look down on those who got good grades because of their marks. “Acting white” was a whole different ball game, something that frequently correlated with school performance but wasn’t defined by it.
What really got kids labeled as dorks or sellouts and picked on about their schoolwork were their attitudes toward other black people. It was the way they used language to demonstrate what they believed was their moral and social superiority. The kids who were targeted wouldn’t speak in the street vernacular that the rest of us used, even on the street or in other informal settings. They wouldn’t really deign to talk to us at all if they could avoid it. Their noses in the air, they looked down on us. It was snobbery, not schoolwork, that was “white” to us.
The dorks and L7s (picture it in a kid’s handwriting: it means squares) couldn’t see any value in things that were important to us, viewing us as ghetto, just like white people did. That’s what “acting white” really meant. Kids like this failed to recognize that sports were, for us, often the only way to show mastery. They couldn’t see that leadership—even if you were leading the “bad kids”—mattered. They didn’t respect loyalty, which we learned to place above all else.
All they valued was what mainstream America did. They thought that made them better than us. They sided with whites in the competition we all felt; they thought that this made them winners and us losers. While some of them might have also idolized sports heroes just as white people did, they certainly didn’t want those jocks dating their sisters. A star athlete, as I later became, might have been acceptable when scoring a touchdown on the field or for a quick high-five afterward to show that they knew cool people. But he wasn’t someone they’d consider a friend, let alone as a potential romantic partner for the females in their families. That’s one of the primary reasons kids who had been labeled a dork or sellout might have been picked on.
By contrast, a kid who did well in school, who showed everyone respect, wouldn’t get bullied for “acting white.” Instead he’d get support, along with the good-natured ribbing any children—black or white—give someone who stands out in some way. Indeed, the thugs and roughnecks would often try to protect anyone who was doing well, whether in school or in sports, from danger or from problems with the police or other things that might destroy their future.
In fact, it was just this sort of intervention and protection by people—some of whom ultimately wound up in prison, addicted to drugs, or murdered on the street—that saved me more than once and prevented me from doing some really stupid things. It wasn’t
Where I grew up, nerds, dorks, and other kids who had a reputation for being “smart” in school did not automatically become targets for bullies for “acting white,” as the stereotype of poor black neighborhoods portrays it. We didn’t scorn nerds any more—or less—than white kids do. We definitely didn’t scapegoat them for the reasons that some “experts” have invoked to try to explain some of the persisting racial achievement gap in school. We were no more anti-intellectual than the rest of America.
It wasn’t school achievement itself that we saw as “acting white.” It’s something much more subtle than that. And understanding this complexity is important to understanding my story and to recognizing what’s really going on in poor neighborhoods. What was being reinforced and what was being punished was not about education.
Sure, there were some black children who were bullied for “acting white” in the neighborhoods where I grew up. And, indeed, some of those kids were high achievers in school. Some, however, were not. It wasn’t scholarly success itself that made people targets. We didn’t disdain academic achievement per se and we didn’t look down on those who got good grades because of their marks. “Acting white” was a whole different ball game, something that frequently correlated with school performance but wasn’t defined by it.
What really got kids labeled as dorks or sellouts and picked on about their schoolwork were their attitudes toward other black people. It was the way they used language to demonstrate what they believed was their moral and social superiority. The kids who were targeted wouldn’t speak in the street vernacular that the rest of us used, even on the street or in other informal settings. They wouldn’t really deign to talk to us at all if they could avoid it. Their noses in the air, they looked down on us. It was snobbery, not schoolwork, that was “white” to us.
The dorks and L7s (picture it in a kid’s handwriting: it means squares) couldn’t see any value in things that were important to us, viewing us as ghetto, just like white people did. That’s what “acting white” really meant. Kids like this failed to recognize that sports were, for us, often the only way to show mastery. They couldn’t see that leadership—even if you were leading the “bad kids”—mattered. They didn’t respect loyalty, which we learned to place above all else.
All they valued was what mainstream America did. They thought that made them better than us. They sided with whites in the competition we all felt; they thought that this made them winners and us losers. While some of them might have also idolized sports heroes just as white people did, they certainly didn’t want those jocks dating their sisters. A star athlete, as I later became, might have been acceptable when scoring a touchdown on the field or for a quick high-five afterward to show that they knew cool people. But he wasn’t someone they’d consider a friend, let alone as a potential romantic partner for the females in their families. That’s one of the primary reasons kids who had been labeled a dork or sellout might have been picked on.
By contrast, a kid who did well in school, who showed everyone respect, wouldn’t get bullied for “acting white.” Instead he’d get support, along with the good-natured ribbing any children—black or white—give someone who stands out in some way. Indeed, the thugs and roughnecks would often try to protect anyone who was doing well, whether in school or in sports, from danger or from problems with the police or other things that might destroy their future.
In fact, it was just this sort of intervention and protection by people—some of whom ultimately wound up in prison, addicted to drugs, or murdered on the street—that saved me more than once and prevented me from doing some really stupid things. It wasn’t
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