Clutch Magazine: Black Girls Do Everything
This Friday for Clutch I write about how your "black people don't" stereotype sausage gets made and how what we often assign as "black" stereotypes are really "American" stereotypes about class and education. Whether or not you like sushi and Italian art has everything to do with whether or not you were exposed to it. Melanin has no effect.
Here's a snippet:
Often the traits black women are accused of having are more so signifiers of class than race. Blue-collar whites are just as unlikely to travel abroad (in a country with a population of more than 300 million, only 30 percent have passports to travel abroad), go vegan, and date outside their race. They also don’t work out as much (as evidenced by the obesity epidemic that is a crisis countrywide, not just with black people) or learn second languages.
It’s not just unique for a black woman to decide to run a marathon; it’s unique for most Americans.
It’s a bad habit we fall into, labeling ourselves by race (and then assigning negative connotations to it), when often what we’re experiencing are simple differences of class, curiosity, education, and exposure. Being incurious and set in your ways is a time-honored American tradition. And black people (last I checked) are the most American Americans running around.
But because white people aren’t often seen as a “race,” they don’t get lumped in. A bunch of overweight white people aren’t seen as “white people sure are fat.” They’re seen as fat “individuals” unto themselves, not tainting or representing the whole. White people (and black people) tend to focus on the coastal, urban, financial, or education-based outliers of the white community and not the large, swaths of white folk in the middle who love NASCAR, watch FOX News, eat at Hardees and favor the Tea Party, Jesus, and American football in near equal measure. Those folks don’t do any of the things black women “allegedly” don’t do, either.
Danielle Belton | 4 Comments | Share Article | Email Article | Print Article | tagged Clutch Magazine, black women, class, classism, education, the snob 
Reader Comments (4)
Thanks for this...as a black person raised in the South (and whose parents are from even FURTHER South) I have to roll my eyes when I hear the black people (usually women) are so fat. It's definitely more regoinal and socioeconomic than cultural, as so many of the things that you mentioned. If you lived in the Deep South or even a lot of the Midwest, you would NOT think that most white people are skinny while the black people are rolling down the street. And for whatever reason, black men get a pass...it's usually "black women are so fat" despite the fact that plenty of black men are quite large.
And if you travel in circles where people have money, the black people are very svelte, athletic, and well-traveled.
I personally think there is a strong tendency to assign a lot of negative stereotypes to black people. Other groups get a lot of "positive" stereotyping which is problematic and racist, but does give them advantages in certain scenarios (in the classroom or workplace for example).
Funny that you'd post this since I JUST saw a posting about the web series ("Black Folks Don't") which was hilarious and touched on a lot of these subjects (saw some college classmates in the clips too!!)
"It’s a bad habit we fall into, labeling ourselves by race (and then assigning negative connotations to it), when often what we’re experiencing are simple differences of class, curiosity, education, and exposure. Being incurious and set in your ways is a time-honored American tradition. And black people (last I checked) are the most American Americans running around."
You said it way better than me. As usual, good post.
Nic thank you for "Black Folks Don't" recommendation. I am enjoying the web series.
To Keep it all the WAY real, I'm only hearing about this mess since the Obamas. I think a WHOLE lot of black people who had been self-segregating THEMSELVES just decided to try new things because seeing a black family on Penn Avenue gave them some "courage". And are now patting themselves on the back like black people just discovered sushi four years ago. What's this lonely only thing? Unless you were from Nebraska, I find it hard to believe that black girls didn't know a SINGLE other black girl in a dance class, Girl Scouts, taking piano lessons, etc... . That right there is more indicative of who your PARENTS associated with and how much money they had to provide for certain activities, not that there were not other black girls taking part in the same activities, even in the same area. Sangria was always fortified wine with fruit to me. Tasty, and it was one of the few drinks I was allowed to sip from adults during the summer. It has ALWAYS been a class and exposure issue for the generation that's 35 and under.
And even when talking about black women and certain activities... people have GOT to be kidding me! There were no other black women you (not you specifically, general) knew who ran? I mean, who was filling up track teams? No one else was watching sci-fi or had a a good taste for wine, or liked to watch tennis? Althea Gibson? I C.A.N.'T. with some of this. It is not that other black women weren't doing things, it is that SOME of ya'll weren't aware.