Redefining Black Identity Beyond Media Stereotypes
By: Ka’Meya Ingram
From listening to Ariana Grande to binge-watching 2 Broke Girls, I’ve always been judged for the media I consume by other black people in my life. I’ve heard the words “you listen to white people music” or “you like that white people sh*t” more times than I can count. It's degrading and hurtful, especially when you hear it mainly from your family. They never gave the things I liked a chance, and they made it seem I was less black, or I wasn’t even black at all. And due to all this, I started to believe the media I consumed severed the connection I had with the black community.
When I was three to four years old, Beyoncé was my favorite artist. Every morning on the drive to pre-school, her song “Love on Top” was playing in the car; it's how I started my day. It didn't start without it, but then one day in the blink of an eye, it changed. Soon it was Taylor Swift, Meghan Trainor, and my favorite artist, Ariana Grande. The pop music genre had come into my life, and from then on it’s been my favorite one ever since. But with such a wonder came people who couldn’t understand why I liked it so much and thought it was strange for me as a black girl to like such things. My family especially didn’t understand it, and my older siblings even said I was a “white girl.” I couldn’t enjoy the simple things I loved, like music, due to the fear of being teased and not being accepted by a community I am a part of. I started to pretend to enjoy media that was gathered towards the black community: rap and hip hop music, and more black TV shows like Empire or Power.
In the “This is America” podcast, we learn that Zora Bikangaga pretended to be from Uganda when he arrived on his college campus, and in doing so, he gets treated a lot better by his peers and is almost seen as a real human instead of just a “black kid from Healdsburg, California.” Zora states, “I could be extroverted. I could be open and friendly and talk to a lot of different kinds of people and be gregarious and funny, make people laugh. And people loved this guy (his adopted Ugandan persona). And as it went along, I felt conflicted about it. But I was also kind of like, this guy is me. There's a part of me in this guy in that whatever people love about this guy, they love me.” He finally felt loved and appreciated for “who he was.” He was being himself or someone he always wanted to be, but couldn’t because if he did, it would’ve been perceived differently because he’d be just another black guy and not an international student from Uganda.
Though this may not be the case for everyone. Many black Americans believe it's better to consume media that comes from the black American point of view. Listening to artists like Ariana Grande or watching shows that aren’t centered around the black experience can seem like you’re distancing yourself from your racial identity. I understand why many think that way because there is much importance and value in supporting black artists, music, and shows that were created for us. Growing up, going to my dad's house, I watched shows like The Cleveland Show and movies like Norbit and Fat Albert, and these are some of my favorite childhood films and TV shows. Many Black Americans, including myself, connect deeply to that kind of media because it represents our culture and shared experiences.
But at the same time, this way of thinking can turn into putting people in a box, making it seem like there’s only one “right” way to be black, when in reality, identity isn’t defined by the type of music you listen to or the shows you watch. Talking to Co-op theatre teacher Ms. Gay, she states that she was a bit conflicted on who she was supposed to be due to her not being allowed to consume a lot of black media classics. She stated: “Like Friday or Barbershop or all those black hardcore movies that hit home, you get your 'black card' for, you know what I mean? I still haven't watched them because my parents won't let me watch them. But at the same time, they would be questioning me why I don't know those things about that culture. So I'm like, I can't. I can't do things that I'm not introduced to.”
At the end of the day, the media that I – or anyone – consumes shouldn’t determine how connected they are to their race. The media I enjoy doesn’t define my blackness; it just reflects who I am as a person. I shouldn’t have to pretend to like certain things just to be accepted into a community I’ve been a part of since birth. No one should have to change themselves to fit into their racial identity. If we continue to push these expectations within communities of color, it only creates division and pushes people away from the very community they should feel accepted in.