Things You Had to Deal W/ As The Only Black Kid

UsedToBeHusky

Thanks. I'm sending this to my ex-boyfriend (we're on good terms). He was the only black kid at an all-white private school growing up. He finished top of his class... out of 6. :laugh:

DandelionCupcakes

The one that I STILL get is, "You don't sound black." -- annoys the crap out of me. Uhm, I'm sorry that I speak clearly and have an education? The only other thing that I could probably live without are looks and comments I get when I'm out with my BFs (interracial couple). All of them have been outside of my ethnic background -- really people? Oh well. Shame on them.

Mostly everything else I just laugh at because I find their ignorance as humorous.

I had a friend who got that all the time It really bummed her out. For several reasons! She hated the idea that to sound her race she was expected to speak incorrectly, and also that it was just a terrible, rude thing to say. She always said "Sorry I didn't know that colors made sounds...?"

lithezebra

I was the only American Indian kid. There was an only Black kid, who was super popular, whose dad was an attorney, and an only Mexican kid, whom everyone made fun of because her dad was a garbage collector. In the suburban hellscape in which I was raised, your dad's profession mattered a lot more than your race. My dad was a scientist, so I was off the hook.

fishgutzy

The teachers assumed I wasn't very smart and that I might be some kind of delinquent. When they realized how smart I was and that I wasn't one of the many rotating foster kids from the big city, they were taken aback.

I worked with an engineer who went to Michigan State on a football scholarship. He was hit with the double dose of low expectations prejudice and racism. Black and football player. When he got A's without the help of tutors he was accused of cheating. Even though his academic performance never wavered from dean's list level, he continued to be accused of cheating every semester. So much for enlightened academic liberals being tolerant. It seems they are only tolerant of those who live down to expectations rather than defying them.

My wife was an urban middle school teacher. Unlike many of her peers she did not settle for low performance from her students. She was tough but fair. She called parents when student misbehaved. She set high expectations. The result? Her students outperformed the rest of the city on city wide exams. So the teachers union tried (unsuccessfully) getting her bumped out. No good deed goes unpunished.

ScatteredThoughts

The one that I STILL get is, "You don't sound black." -- annoys the crap out of me. Uhm, I'm sorry that I speak clearly and have an education? The only other thing that I could probably live without are looks and comments I get when I'm out with my BFs (interracial couple). All of them have been outside of my ethnic background -- really people? Oh well. Shame on them.

Mostly everything else I just laugh at because I find their ignorance as humorous.

I can relate. I was once told "You sound like a book.".

Sorry for actually pronouncing words correctly. :grumble:

MorgueBabe

LOL I read this earlier today, hilarious.
I went to middle school where I was the only white kid or one of maybe 5, then I moved and my HS only had one black kid. Man was I an outcast.

One_Last_Time

When I was 9 I moved from a very sheltered, white community in Northern CA to a suburb of Philadelphia. Once there, the boys were generally all very nice to me, but the girls weren't so welcoming. I got teased a LOT about my accent (though I still think of it as a lack of an accent, haha!) and I got teased a lot about my "green" hair. My hair was very blond as a kid and it'd always get a green hue in the summer thanks to chlorinated swimming pools. One group of girls actually attacked me once and tore my clothes off (luckily I was close to home). Not to condone combating violence with violence, but after I retaliated by throwing a bunch of worms I'd gone and collected on them, they stopped bothering me.

HAHAHAHA I live in philly now. I think if I threw worms on someone here i'd get shot. I'm in the city not suburbs. I used to get picked on for having no butt....still have no butt. my best friend is mixed and she calls me snowball. It's kinda cute though. I call her milano.

iWaffle

The one that I STILL get is, "You don't sound black." -- annoys the crap out of me.

I lived in Kenya for a couple years and as you might know it was a British colony for years. When people speak English there by George they speak the Queen's English. The better their English is they more British the sound. These guys sounded like they could be having tea at Buckingham Palace.

lisamarie1780

Yeah people always had a problem with me as a kid because I was mixed race and had a little afro but had blue/green eyes and fair skin... they couldn't get their heads round it, it gave them a real headache

It was simple to me.... my mum was brown and my dad was white

srcardinal10

The one that I STILL get is, "You don't sound black." -- annoys the crap out of me.

These guys sounded like they could be having tea at Buckingham Palace.

LMFAO!!!!!

SF2514

People thought I was racist for a long time lol. I'm not of course. I always wore black and was very pale. Plus there were very few black kids at my school and one of them was my neighbor who started the whole racist rumor in the first place. We never got along, but not because he was black. He always made fun of me for being the fat, flat chested girl. I had plenty of white, Mexican and Asian friends though lol.

neacail

I'm horrified. I actually do one of these things to my Nigerian colleague. :embarassed:

I can't help it . . . she has the most stunning, amazing, hair.

neandermagnon

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

srcardinal10

The teachers assumed I wasn't very smart and that I might be some kind of delinquent. When they realized how smart I was and that I wasn't one of the many rotating foster kids from the big city, they were taken aback.

It always amazed my classmates more than anyone, when I was younger in elementary school, that I was intelligent. As I became older that seemed to fade away because once I was in 5th grade, I finally stayed in the same area until I graduated high school. This was then repeated when I went to college in San Diego. Not too many African-American individuals there. Most of the people who were African-American, were athletes and hung out at a particular place that I overheard MANY people refer to as "Little Africa" (cringe). My group of friends in college was quite diverse and open-minded luckily.

TeachTheGirl

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

This was in the UK. And sadly, no.

I think we spent the most time on learning about Nazi Germany and orphans in China during History...

neandermagnon

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

This was in the UK. And sadly, no.

I think we spent the most time on learning about Nazi Germany and orphans in China during History...

**** even more shocked **** In my school we learned about the holocaust and the slave trade all in one classroom. Even in English we studied a lot of books like "to kill a mockingbird" that dealt with issues of racism in the USA. Actually of all the books we studied in English, that's the one that's the most memorable. Very sad and thought provoking story.

sorry I thought you were American because you said "friends of color" even spelled the American way....

TeachTheGirl

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

This was in the UK. And sadly, no.

I think we spent the most time on learning about Nazi Germany and orphans in China during History...

**** is even more shocked **** I'm not even joking. In my school we learned about the holocaust and the slave trade

sorry I thought you were American because you said "friends of color" even spelled the American way....

I immigrated to the US 7 years ago. I've just gotten used to that way of spelling. XD (Plus autocorrect likes to tell me off when I don't use the American spelling of certain words...derp.)

dorianaldyn

When I was 9 I moved from a very sheltered, white community in Northern CA to a suburb of Philadelphia. Once there, the boys were generally all very nice to me, but the girls weren't so welcoming. I got teased a LOT about my accent (though I still think of it as a lack of an accent, haha!) and I got teased a lot about my "green" hair. My hair was very blond as a kid and it'd always get a green hue in the summer thanks to chlorinated swimming pools. One group of girls actually attacked me once and tore my clothes off (luckily I was close to home). Not to condone combating violence with violence, but after I retaliated by throwing a bunch of worms I'd gone and collected on them, they stopped bothering me.

HAHAHAHA I live in philly now. I think if I threw worms on someone here i'd get shot. I'm in the city not suburbs. I used to get picked on for having no butt....still have no butt. my best friend is mixed and she calls me snowball. It's kinda cute though. I call her milano.

I'm showing my age here, but this was circa 1983-1984 when I lived in PA. Those were the days of playing Michael Jackson on the "ghetto blaster" (such an awful term, but that's what we called them back then) and everyone would come over and listen and try to do their best moon walk.... the early days of MTV when they would announce exactly which times of the day they'd play the Thriller video. Life was definitely different back then - but yeah, the worst that happened to me was the tearing off my clothes incident. Another kid once through a big piece of cement at me that hit me in the head - but I honestly don't think he realized the magnitude of what he was doing and it couldn't have been that hard because I was fine. Oh! and for the record, I'll never get teased for not having enough butt! I may be clinging by a thread to my B-cup status in front, yet there's still plenty of padding in the back. Maybe that helped me back in my brief stint as a PA resident.

neandermagnon

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

This was in the UK. And sadly, no.

I think we spent the most time on learning about Nazi Germany and orphans in China during History...

**** is even more shocked **** I'm not even joking. In my school we learned about the holocaust and the slave trade

sorry I thought you were American because you said "friends of color" even spelled the American way....

I immigrated to the US 7 years ago. I've just gotten used to that way of spelling. XD (Plus autocorrect likes to tell me off when I don't use the American spelling of certain words...derp.)

I can sympathise... my husband's American and I sometimes find myself speaking and typing in Americanised English... and my spellchecker is in USA English too, there's a red line under sympathise and Americanised because I utterly refuse to change the s to z lol

KittenTikka

It both delighted me and upset me when it came to History class and my friends 'of color' got to go to separate rooms to learn about their ancestry and the white kids got to learn about German history or somesuch. I would have loved to know where I came from, even though my history probably wasn't as difficult as theirs.

What???!!! American schools racially segregate kids for history lessons??? woah!! *very shocked* Can't all the kids learn about each others' ancestry all in the same classroom?????? *speechless*

This was in the UK. And sadly, no.

I think we spent the most time on learning about Nazi Germany and orphans in China during History...

Really??? I have lived in the UK all my life and have never come across this - and no-one I know of has ever reported this happening. Personally I don't believe this....although it makes me wonder which history classes my mixed-race nieces would have ended up going to!
The only "segregation" I came across was that kids from Muslim or Jewish backgrounds didn't attend morning assembly or curricular Religious Education lessons - as requested by their parents.