Since childhood I’ve heard the same refrain: “You’re different/weird/trying to act white/bougie.” Certain family members and peers were first; the rest of the world soon followed. As I’ve said in a previous post, I’m blind and deaf to the BS. But this sort of talk in particular annoys the hell out of me.
Who says being different is bad? They always say it like it’s a bad thing. And maybe it is, for them: being different and breaking out of somebody else’s mold for you is a threat to the mundane. Being different is also a threat to more than a few people’s egos—especially if you succeed at it. If being different means I don’t have to turn out like them or have their life, then yes, I am all about being different!
A former co-worker around my mom’s age said to me, unprompted: “You’re so weird and wild.” She was looking at the wall stickers with which I’d decorated my small, bland, awkwardly-shaped office space. I don’t see how that’s weird or wild—even she was unable to explain herself when I asked what exactly she meant by that—but again: threat to the mundane-slash-breaking out of others perceptions of what can be and definitely is possible. It also helps that I trust the opinion of very, very few people over 50.
The “trying to act white” bit is a killer: it slays me every time
I even heard this from a white girl* once… sad. And confusing. Anyways, who says wanting something better for yourself is evidence of wanting to be white? No race in particular has a monopoly on success. The very thought is self-hating for those who espouse it. I made a decision very early on to not let the barriers other people put up for themselves—and subsequently try to create for others: misery LOVES company—keep me down.What I think such people are saying when, according to them, someone is “acting white”— that is, when I actually hear them—is that they have never observed someone that looks like them doing big and varied things… legally
That’s sad in and of itself—read a book or something—but if they need somebody to show them how it’s done, I’ve already stepped up to the plate and made my home here. Come visit sometime, but minus that nonsense you be talkin’.Being a young, different, weird, white-acting-to-some-ignoramuses kinda gal, OF COURSE people are gonna think you’re a member of the elite, the bourgeois, the bougie. I actually don’t see much wrong or incorrect about this statement. What is wrong, though, is the implication behind the word: that me—and others like me—think we’re better than others. In my world, there is a distinct difference between those who unapologetically can vs. those who willingly don’t. Whether they realize or not (probably not), there is a choice which camp you belong to. I refuse to be restricted by those in the Willingly Don’t camp projecting their views of themselves and their self-imposed limits onto me. They know good and damn well they wouldn’t tolerate that from somebody else, why should I?
Mind over matter, my sweets.
I never really understood—well, cared to understand—the whole crabs in a barrel mentality. But I totally get it now. If you’re in a bushel of crabs, about to hit the boiling pot, and you see some other, infinitely more fabulous crab near the top on the verge of escaping, hells to the no you’re not going to fester and die alone! I get it.
But I’m not a part of it. I’m too busy getting out.
*Said white girl was also a real, live, in the flesh prostitute (not exaggerating, she was rather proud of it), making her comment even more comical and strange. This is real life, yo! Hoes be losing... hardcore. [back to paragraph]
