Thread by @GeeDee215

@Smadams1019 the short version:

-people got teased as kids for being awkward around other Black people — "acting white"

-they often internalized that as being about bookishness or good grades and say "Blacks kids said i wasn't Black enough bc I was smart"

@Smadams1019 - that interpretation get cosigned by white ppl, who are of course, vested in the notion that Black ppl have a dysfunctional culture opposed to learning

-the awkward Black kid, now adult, has metabolized the notion that Black people don't like them bc they're not "ghetto"

@Smadams1019 - that person, now adult, is still awkward around Black people but now has created a whole self-aggrandizing and self-fulfilling framework around their discomfort

@Smadams1019 -there are all kinds of Black communities, with all kinds of different markers for belonging — as is true for any space. Someone who has no facility/familiarity with any of those markers can decide to get familiar, or they can say that the problem is that those spaces *exist.*

@Smadams1019 - "Black people don't like me bc i'm smart and different!" is itself the tell; it means you don't have enough ties to Black people or Black spaces to know why it's a dumb thing to say

@Smadams1019 -there has been a bunch of research on "acting white" debunking the premises. For example: Black kids who are high achievers in schools actually report having *more* friends at school, which makes complete sense: the kids who know everyone are the kids who are most involved.

@Smadams1019 - there is a level of academic focus that has negative social consequences for all kids across races — the hyper-diligent student who only studies and never really socializes necessarily doesn't have a lot of friends

@Smadams1019 - some of the "acting white" stuff is about segregation in schools...Black kids are the least likely to be in AP classes (regardless of their aptitude, bc of anti-blackness among students) and so the ones who are have day-to-day social distance from those who aren't

@Smadams1019 -and so some 15-year-old AP kid who never sits with the Black kids at lunch or doesn't hang out with them after school bc she's with her AP friends gets accused of "acting white"

@Smadams1019 -NOT because she's "smart" or in AP, but bc she's choosing not to be in community with other Black people; white kids might even hold her up as how she's "one of the good ones" and she might lean into that

@Smadams1019 - again, there's a flattening of "AP classes" with smarts and not social distance

- some research has shown that the "acting white" phenomenon is primarily a problem at "integrated" schools

@Smadams1019 - the dynamics of performing Blackness at a mostly white school that's more or less hostile to Black kids — more suspensions, barriers to honors course, maybe they're bussed in from some other neighborhood —  is going to be trickier for Black kids who move more smoothly there

@Smadams1019 - you can age that up past HS and apply it to any number of spaces, but that's the basic shit

/fin

@Smadams1019 - one more thing: a lot of this is about individual social dexterity. There are obviously kids who are especially adept at navigating these diif racialized spaces because they're adept code switchers and find ways to be in community with Black folks and their AP friends.

@Smadams1019 -the original convo that kicked all this off was about Obama, who was better at code-switching than Booker or Harris; they have a more difficult time (for diff reasons) conveying their facility with Black folks.

@Smadams1019 - the "corniness" thing is adjacent to the "acting white" thing; it's about the sense that they're *trying* to seem down and that it's less natural

maybe not so bad by itself, but compounded by their policy histories, which many folks feel are anti-Black.

@Smadams1019 *among teachers