I’ve always wondered: “Why aren’t there more black actors or actresses?”, “Why are black people portrayed as only murderers and robbers?”, “Why am I the only black person in my graduating class?”, and as I grew older, my desire to find the answers to these questions intensified. Additionally, in conjunction with these questions, I also began to experience gradually increasing anger towards my race, and began denying and stripping myself of my African-American culture, background, and traditions. I didn’t allow the African-American and black racial stereotypes to be applicable towards me; therefore, I initiated a process unofficially known as “white-washing”, a term used to describe a minority assimilating with Western culture; however, in my opinion, a better definition to describe “white-washing” would be “a term used to describe a minority assimilating with Western culture at the expense of purposely denying or “erasing” his or her own culture. I believe this definition is more applicable to modern-day African-Americans. I began only associating with Whites and Caucasians which resulted in my change in behavior, speech, and attitude. In other words, I began act like a typically portrayed “White” person. I hated being African-American, and everything associated with it. I hated our speech, dialect, attitude, mindset, clothing, etc. I hated being black. I began criticizing and begin condescending towards those within the black community and categorizing them based on racial stereotypes, biases, and prejudices. Additionally, I also began praising Whites, and desired so strongly to be one of them and a part of their ethnicity. In today’s society, this is a very strong issue facing not only people like myself, but also others within the community as well. Internalized racism is loosely defined as
I’ve always wondered: “Why aren’t there more black actors or actresses?”, “Why are black people portrayed as only murderers and robbers?”, “Why am I the only black person in my graduating class?”, and as I grew older, my desire to find the answers to these questions intensified. Additionally, in conjunction with these questions, I also began to experience gradually increasing anger towards my race, and began denying and stripping myself of my African-American culture, background, and traditions. I didn’t allow the African-American and black racial stereotypes to be applicable towards me; therefore, I initiated a process unofficially known as “white-washing”, a term used to describe a minority assimilating with Western culture; however, in my opinion, a better definition to describe “white-washing” would be “a term used to describe a minority assimilating with Western culture at the expense of purposely denying or “erasing” his or her own culture. I believe this definition is more applicable to modern-day African-Americans. I began only associating with Whites and Caucasians which resulted in my change in behavior, speech, and attitude. In other words, I began act like a typically portrayed “White” person. I hated being African-American, and everything associated with it. I hated our speech, dialect, attitude, mindset, clothing, etc. I hated being black. I began criticizing and begin condescending towards those within the black community and categorizing them based on racial stereotypes, biases, and prejudices. Additionally, I also began praising Whites, and desired so strongly to be one of them and a part of their ethnicity. In today’s society, this is a very strong issue facing not only people like myself, but also others within the community as well. Internalized racism is loosely defined as