Black Girl Stereotypes

I am a black girl who grew up in predominately white areas. Growing up all my friends were white and although I wondered what it was like to have black friends, it never really bothered me. They were my friends, it didn’t matter what color their skin was.

Then in sixth grade, I moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk has a large African-American community and I was excited to have friends that looked like me. However, when I was around the black kids in my school I never felt like I belonged. They didn’t do activities I enjoyed and I often times didn’t know the celebrity they talked about. We had completely different personalities. After multiple instances of being called white-washed or an ‘oreo,’ I tried to force myself to fully embody the stereotype of a black girl at my school to find friends.
Besides fostering self-esteem issues, the quest to fitting in began to impact my schoolwork.
Unfortunately, the popular black kids at my school weren’t notorious for good grades. In my attempts to be accepted, I started to pretend to not care about my grades either. Although I still wanted straight A’s I would pretend that I didn’t do my homework, or that I didn’t study or care about an upcoming
test.

After months of me trying to change my personality, my mom intervened. Once I explained my predicament, she recounted her experiences of being told that she acted white. It was nice to know that someone else had the same troubles that I did. She also emphasized that me there was nothing wrong with how I acted. Through this, I soon came to realize that certain grades, music genres, and celebrities didn’t belong to a specific race. They belonged to a stereotype. And that I didn’t have to fulfill a certain typecast for people to like me. That the best way to make friends that I felt comfortable with was to be myself and find others that shared my common interest, not change myself to match what other’s felt I should be.