Am I Black Enough?


By Jamel McFarlane 


Do you have a white parent and a black parent? 


How do you class yourself as black when your skin tone is brown? 


Your family heritage is from Jamaica so you must love Bob Marley and smoke weed, right?


What’s your favourite rapper? - You like black music, Right? 


And probably the most famous one that most people of colour have unfortunately faced. 


Where are you from? I mean where are you really from? 


Here is a few statements/questions that I used/still to face as far back as I can remember. 


Being a young black man growing up in a predominate white town was a challenge. I moved from London to Ashford around the age of 6 and while I was in primary school I don’t remember having any close black friends. Although were people of colour (POC) in my class. 


Obviously, I had the incident in year 5 (see one of my articles). https://letstartsomewhere.blogspot.com/2022/08/at-what-point-do-you-tell-your.html 


Growing up, I used to watch TV programs and look for the black people as there wasn’t many on TV. It's funny because most of the characters had an attitude and were what you called a stereotypical black guy. I looked at them and compare it to what I was like and realised I was so far from what I was meant to be as a stereotypical black man. 


Here are definitions of stereotypes. Stereotypes are "cognitive structures that contain the perceiver's knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about human groups" (Peffley et al., 1997). These cognitive constructs are often created out of a kernel of truth and then distorted beyond reality (Hoffmann, 1986). Racial stereotypes are constructed beliefs that all members of the same race share given characteristics. These attributed characteristics are usually negative (Jewell, 1993).




















This is especially an issue for ethnic minorities because people here these stereotypes and believe them. 


Even now when I watch programs or go into London, I think to myself am I black enough? 


From the age of 7 I have been involved with the game of rugby. During my time playing I have received many racial comments. One of the comments that stuck with me was this. You're the slowest black guy I have ever seen. What did they expect me to be like? Why does being black and a winger mean I must be a certain speed? This a comment that knocked my confidence but weirdly I sometimes used to think about this comment before games to make me get pumped. 


Even writing this blog was hard for me. It has opened up about the battles that I have faced throughout my life. The battle to try and fit into the so called black man stereotype. Or trying to be what people think I should be like. At times in my life I have struggles with fitting in and even sometimes wished I was white so I did not have to go through the struggles. 


On the other hand my parents have ingrained in me the statement that you have to work twice as hard as the person next to me. And not matter where I am, that comment/phrase stays with me. Why should I have to work twice as hard to achieve? Why am I starting 5 steps back from the start line to try and win the race? 


At the same time, I always felt there was a burden on me. To show the world that I could buck the trend of being a stereotypical black guy. This became obvious when I got to secondary school. I was one of the four people of colour in my year. I always tried to be this perfect kid and always show leadership. There were other black kids that were in lower years than me. They looked up to me.  When they used to misbehave I used to think, that they were making ‘us’ look bad. You are acting like the stereotype rather than being good. You are giving us a bad name. Upon reflection this is a mind set that I wish I didn’t have.


Someone once said to me that ‘your black on the outside but white on the inside’. At the time I did not understand what they meant. I said to them they cannot say that and said some rude stuff. Looking back I probably did not handle it in the best way. It was not until I was reflecting on it that I thought/guessed what they meant. I guess it is because I do more typical ‘white things’ than the stereotypical black things. But why does doing certain things make you white or black? 


Throughout my life I have battled with the fact that my skin pigmentation is much lighter than some of there people around me. I have felt inadequate because I feel like my skin tone makes me feel like I am not normal. There was so many times that people assumed that I was mixed race. Not that being mixed race is an issue but why should people assume based on how I look. There was times I was even called  half - cast. 


As the definition said earlier racial stereotypes are normally negative and you can see this in how the media view us as black people but also how people in society view us as well. 


You may be thinking so what can I do? 


Well here is some advice. 


  • Keep educating yourself by reading books, listening to podcast and definitely engaging with our Instagram and blog ( if you are reading this then keep reading our blogs). 
  • Change your mindset - Just because you see a black person does not mean we are all the same. We have all had different experiences. 
  • if you make any comments that are inappropriate or if someone calls you about your comment or behaviour just apologies and try to be better.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reality of Being Physically Disabled

Image
By Théo Rogier  Disability, by its very nature is broad and expansive. That being stated, the growing sentiment within the community is one of frustration. Our mutual frustration is one of ignorance and the fading acceptance that we have in general society. Even though, we are still physically present.  In general, my intentions in writing this come about from having a need for greater acknowledgement about disability and our presence as disabled people in society. The disabled reality is a struggle. A struggle, in the sense that we are present but we are put aside as an access issue or an inconvenience administratively, physically and from the perspective of government. Even in social settings, the disabled reality is still an issue. Social Setting and Social Interaction  For readers that are able-bodied, let me ask you to think about the times where you have interacted with someone who is physically disabled. In those situations, if you aren’t familiar to the person pri...
Read more

Operation: Perception and Representation

Image
Written by Moyin Ekundayo  Representation, 'the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way'. In many ways, representations are like using stereotypes. I will be trying to talk about the representation of black men in society, a bit of a difficult one to do, really. There are millions and millions of black men out there in the world.  That last statement is a perfect place to start. I want to ask you to close your eyes and think, what does a black man sound like? What does he look like? Is he tall? What sport does he like?  See, this topic is very complex, and I can only write and verbalise the stereotyping/distorted representation of a specific group of people. A little self-indulgent but obviously straight black males, I might include some different examples that do not fit this category. However, my goal is to get other people from different demographics to write about their experiences on this similar topic to give a more rounded perspective....
Read more

“Early intervention is tragedy prevention”: what losing my best friend at 14 taught me about mental health.

Image
By Ray Munn For many children and teenagers, the most difficult thing they will deal with whilst they are growing up is the death of a loved one. When I was young, I always assumed that, naturally, I would first deal with loss (outside of pets) when my grandparents would pass away. I never thought that at 14, I would deal with one of the most emotionally taxing types of bereavement there is: bereavement caused by suicide.   At 21 years old and seven years later, I’m still coming to terms with the choice my best friend made that day. Bereavement through suicide is a special kind of grief: the questions that remain unanswered scream and demand to be asked, some of the most difficult, complicated, and painful questions someone can ever ask. What happened to make them feel this way? Why didn’t they talk to me? How did they come to this conclusion? How long did they feel like this? When did they decide that this was the solution? This list goes on forever. For many of us, the idea of ta...
Read more