Do you avoid your peeps like the plague? If so why?

In My Humble Opinion
81

Now that you mention it, there probably was a conscious choice made by my grandmother when she, as a newly widowed young mom, moved to the north with her toddlers to live near her sister-in-law. She would have had to drop a lot of her black southern mannarisms to help her kids assimilate. It’s weird, I’ve always sort of taken it for granted that Grandma is so different than her siblings, but she must have spent a lot of time changing her speech, and behaviors. It’s so obvious, but I’ve never thought about it. Thanks for bringing that up for me. It helps me understand a bit more about her. My mom and aunt were enrolled in Catholic schools and grew up as the only blacks in the neighborhood, so apparently the whole thing was just natural for them (my aunt says she first realized that she was black when she was ten, so I guess it just wasn’t a big deal). When I was born, I was taken to the house my parents had purchased in what was an all white neighborhood (except for us). My parents are still there now, and they’re still the only ones. Of course, I went to the town’s mostly white school. So, that’s pretty much how the connection was broken for me.

Well, I’m a child of the 80s and 90s, so those bands aren’t ringing a bell, but I get the point of your question. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to my dad’s music and singing along with Springsteen, Genesis and Skynard. Now my dad is black, and was raised with blacks, but that’s the kind of music he loves. My grandma does cook soul food every once in awhile, so that’s familiar. Oh, no black magazines either. So anyways, back to the point. I missed out on a lot of black heritage. Kind of makes it hard to reminisce about the stuff folks think you’ll be familar with, but hey, what are you gonna do?

I can see where you’re coming from. Perhaps if the ethnic peer pressure had come along strong enough, and soon enough, I’d be a different person. Sure, there was the occasional comment when we’d go to Florida to visit my dad’s family, but my parents brushed it off as being a “southern” thing. Since there were other blacks in my town who were just like us, there was no reason to believe differently. I was in my mid teens (and happy with myself) before some blacks and whites started really pushing the point that I was doing something “wrong”. I could start trying to change my behavior now, but honestly, it would be fake and I’m still at the point of being mostly happy with myself.

I’ll agree that the fact that my family’s choice of hobbies, home etc. are the result of some choices, but I wasn’t the one doing the original adopting and rejecting. It is partly my problem that I’m not totally comfortable with blacks who embrace their heritage. I did try to embrace it a bit in college, but the whole idea of connecting myself to others based on skin color first, then looking for other things in common is weird to me.* The college I went to had a floor for people who were into black culture to live on. A floor for blacks just seemed so strange. I went there a few times, but again, wasn’t comfortable. I do understand the need to be with “people like you,” but for me, “people like me” was defined more by hobbies, and experiences than racial heritage. This landed me in the position of being the only black on the ski club, for example, but who cared. I’d been the only black person in class, or in a club before without incident. I am working on learning to feel more comfortable around blacks who embrace their heritage.

Archmicheal is right. You get it from both sides. On one hand, you have some whites who say that you’re the “whitest black person they’ve met,” or who casually use the “N” word, then say, “oh but you’re not like the rest of them, so no offense.” Then on the other hand, you’ve got some blacks who think I purposefully decided to behave a certain way because I hate myself, or because “I think I’m better”. A lot of people don’t seem to get that I’m just being myself, for better or worse.

Thanks.

*Now of course, blacks who connect with each other often have more in common than race…there’s that whole “h” word again…

82

I, too, disagree with my husband’s assessment. I think he’s been put into an environment (large corporations) where doing great work isn’t necessarily rewarded much. And the people around him in that environment happened to be Indians. The corporation he was part of is one of those that is even now growing, despite the recent recession. They’re still getting in as many warm bodies as possible, have awful politics, and many of the social conflicts within the company prevent anyone from getting any actual work done, regardless of where they come from.

I think the problem he faced there was corporate culture.

83

It’s not like I actively avoid them. I often try to make friends with the Polish people I meet. I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the mother country or even in the Polish community around here, but I’m always curious to find out as much as I can. The problem is, eventually my new Polish friend will feel comfortable enough to get onto the topic of race and nationality, and it’ll get uncomfortable and ugly. I have a hard time talking normally and casually to someone who refers to black people as “monkeys” and rants about how the Chinese are invading and corrupting western culture. It’s maddening as hell, because this junk will come out of the mouth of people who I was just a moment ago liking very much and getting along with famously. So I guess it’s not so much like I avoid them, but there is a certain incompatibility between me and my peeps.

84

I’m Jewish and no, I don’t avoid my peeps.

To add to the conversations about Asian immigration, though, my best friend for a long time was (and still is, I imagine) Chinese-American. She was born in China and came to the US when she was eight or nine not speaking a word of English. I met her when she was sixteen and I was fourteen and we were friends for months before I learned that she wasn’t born in the US - she was totally acculurated, although when we became closer and I would go over to have dinner at her family’s house, I learned how bicultural she really was. Her parents didn’t speak English well, so they subscribed to Chinese newspapers and watched Chinese TV. I learned to use chopsticks at her house because they didn’t have any forks.

We grew up in the Bay Area, which has a huge Chinese immigrant population, but our town was not really a part of that. It was easy enough to drive into the city or to Oakland and find lots of Chinese people, but my friend was one of a very few Asian people at our school (about 80% white, 15% Latino, 5% “other”). She always thought of herself as an outsider because of this, and when she went to UC Berkeley (which is like, 55% Asian), she was thrilled that she’d be around lots of other Asians.

That lasted about ten minutes. A lot of her classmates were much much less Americanized than her, and yup, pretty soon she began to actively avoid her “peeps”. In high school she had talked about how she wanted to marry an Chinese man. By the time she graduated college, she said there was no way she’d ever marry a Chinese guy unless he was, like her, CBA - Chinese Born American. ABC (American Born Chinese) was absolutely out of the question. She’s still very much Chinese-American, but with an emphasis on the American.

85

I’m half black, half German, and I don’t really avoid any of my peeps.

To elaborate, I grew up in a mostly black neighborhood, but went to a mostly white school. Until I entered middle school, around 85% of the people I knew well were white. Now that I’m older, it seems like I don’t have that much in common with most of the black people I go to high school with: I don’t listen to rap, I’m mostly attracted to white guys, and I’m not that “black” in general. It’s not like I don’t have any black friends, its just that I make friends based on what we have in common and how we get along. In the environment that I’m in now, this means I have more white, asian, and hispanic friends than black friends.

As for Germans, I don’t think I’ve met any besides my dad and grandma.

What are thug liferz?

86

Perhaps, I should let this go, but I’m not going to. I don’t appreciate the implication that I think I’m special just because of my personal tastes and behavior. You won’t find any part of my post that says I look down on blacks who are different than me. Don’t put words in my mouth, and don’t try pushing your prejudices off on me.

87

<blink, blink>

He would have serious trouble with me. I will make my husband coffee, mostly because the last person to finish the pot always makes a new one, and he and i drink a lot of coffee together…and if you are family, you get aimed towards the kitchen and told to forrage for your own breakfast and lunch, though I will make dinner [unless it is mrAru’s turn on his weekend days and he wants to cook.]

Crap, his father came over from the west coast to visit [he actually rode the submarine up from fort likkerdale with rob, is called a ‘tiger cruise’] and I picked them both up and dropped his dad at a hotel. Of course I was doing that nasty liquiprep stuff because I was getting barium in a very uncomfy place at 7 am the next morning, but that entire week that aruinlaw was visiting I was getting ready to get a tumor cut out and I was not up to being social in any form.

88

Though Omega Glory has already answered, and better than I’m going to, my answer to all your questions is “no.” But I disagree that it was a concious choice by anyone.

My parents were/are not into the celebrity watching, hollywood gossip type of thing. The only magazines I remember getting were “The New Yorker,” “Atlantic,” and (from time to time) “Bon Appétit,” not “People,” or “TV Guide.” They weren’t audiophiles, I don’t remember them listening to music much at all, so when I did start listening to music, it was the music that the kids at school were listening to - 80s pop, hair metal, alternative, and grunge. (I recognize the groups, but when I was growing up, no one I knew listened to them) And when we were growing up, my mom was into health food. A lot of health food. I have nightmares about carob and various forms of whole wheat bread products. There was occasionally soul food, but not really, and not to the extent that I consider it comfort food. I don’t think they conciously made a choice not to do things that they weren’t interested in and didn’t like to do in order to disconnect from anything.

Like many people, regardless of color, I spent a lot of time in college trying to figure out who I was. And after a very painful collection of experiences, I figured out that I had (at the time) twenty years of experiences and influences and that my world and my life were valid. And mostly that trying to trying to erase and turn my back on everything that had made me me in order to substitute it with someone else’s ideal for who I should be would leave me groundless and rootless and was, for me, a bigger, more destructive act of self hatred than what I was being accused of.

I don’t feel necessarily uncomfortable around black people who have embraced “black culture,” but I do find myself on the rejected more than rejecting.

89

overlyverbose…I don’t think it’s just your husband’s dad. Men in India tend to be extremely coddled from a young age. I have seen the way my parents’ brothers and in-laws behave in India-they do almost jack-squat while their wives and female children (all working professionals, I might add) run around doing everything. There are a few exceptions within my family, but not many. The last time we were there my father got up to help the women clean up and my male relatives mocked him as being “less than a man.” I think their heads would explode if they knew he was a stay-at-home father to boot. Or that he doesn’t wear the brahmin string in the US.

In addition to this there is a tradition called “agraha” which sort of roughly translates to “hospitality” which is basically excessive waiting on hand-and-foot on your guests etc. etc… When my parents or their friends visit me I am very respectful, ask them if they want tea/make it etc. etc. but my parents taught me to abandon the whole agraha thing which is to basically allow your guests to be boorish freeloaders whose every need you are supposed to anticipate.

90

You’re right. Sorry. :frowning:

91

Omega Glory. My maternal grandmother is the only one of her eight brothers and sisters to attend (what amounts to) a Negro grade school academy with an assimulationist curriculum, a historically black college and an integrated graduate school. My great-grandmother, who never made it past grade school and raised eight kids, buried two children and three husbands sometimes referred to her as “my strangest child.” It didn’t occur to me until I was in my thirties how different my grandmother’s lifestyle was from her mother’s, brothers’ and sisters’.

Typically Sunday. Thug liferz: Thugs for life, or career gangbangers. Tupac reference. But a lot of wannabe thugs who never spent a night in jail think getting a tattoo and dissing Sean John clothes for Rocawear is being thuggish, so – whatever.

amarinth. It’s easier to tell in Omega Glory’s case because it’s happening in his family for three generations now. If the disconnect in yours is merely your parents and you, it might not be so obvious. But any long-term disconnect is largely a conscious decision. WHY that is may or may not be known or concern you, but it’s my observation that the disconnect with one’s ethnic heritage and one’s own extended family usually goes hand in hand. I notice it usually comes down to money and social access, or because it’s somehow better for your emotional well-being.

In our generation’s case, (I assume you’re in your mid-thirties and younger, like me) we’re the first generation of African-Americans to grow up when segregation and overt discrimination practices are illegal. We have choices for working, loving, living and socializing our grandparents never had, far more pronounced than even the choices our parents had. Black culture in America – never really that monolithic, is much looser and has less cohesion than ever.

I enjoy hobbies, music, movies, books, and friendships my grandmother looks on with bemusement. But I also consider myself undeniably a “race man.” I’m more tolerant of blacks who aren’t as in love with African-American history and culture as I am, but I appreciate the difference between disinterest and disdain-- but I’ve had to work at that. (I did almost call **Omega Glory ** self-hating.) Basically I’m good to go with anyone who isn’t looking down at me from a delusional superiority complex and talking out the side of their neck.

Sorry if any of y’all ever feel rejected by other blacks because of the differences in your upbringing. All I can say is – ya hanging out with the wrong black folks! And if mainstream black culture isn’t to your liking sample other parts – cooking, theater, African-American poetry and literature, neo-soul music, what have you.

92

I had the same conversation with two young men I’ve been dating, both of whom are Chinese (one from northern China, one from Taiwan) and who are in Canada studying.

me: So you’ve been travelling in Canada as well?**
David/Dennis: Yeah, I went to [Toronto/Vancouver].
me: Did you enjoy yourself?
David/Dennis: Not really. There were too many Chinese people.
me: puzzlement, smiles and nods

What makes this odd to me is that both of them hang out a lot with other Chinese people and have lots of Chinese friends at school; Dennis went to Chinese New Year’s with the Taiwanese students’ group.

I dunno.

93

Here’s another one: gay people who hate hanging out with other gay people. Not that it’s required or anything, but girl, how do you get laid?!

I do draw the line, of course, at active disdain for Queer culture. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want - not every Canadian has read Atwood - but don’t go shitting on it, thank you. Many of us find our culture and history important.

94

You’d be shocked at the amount of black people I’ve met who’ve said they like Atlanta, except there’s too many black people.

95

[QUOTE=amarinth]

Like many people, regardless of color, I spent a lot of time in college trying to figure out who I was. And after a very painful collection of experiences, I figured out that I had (at the time) twenty years of experiences and influences and that my world and my life were valid. And mostly that trying to trying to erase and turn my back on everything that had made me me in order to substitute it with someone else’s ideal for who I should be would leave me groundless and rootless and was, for me, a bigger, more destructive act of self hatred than what I was being accused of.

Both of these quotes pretty much describe my experiences as well.

Apology accepted.

96

Sorry for the coding error. The “apology accepted” went out to pizzabrat, not amarinth of course.

97

Actually in this thread thug liferz seems to be an Indian term for the Indians that buy into the yuppie life plan that all good Indian boys and girls are supposed to follow.

Which is a confusing nickname, and probably has an interesting origin.

98

Thug Liferz in terms of Indians as my friends and I use it refers to the Yuppie Indian children who run the Indian/Asian clubs at school. Typically they are very wealthy, spoiled, hang out together in gangs and borrow “thuggy” fashion statements from the rap artists they enjoy mixing with Hindi filmi music at parties where they drink a lot and hook up with one another. It also implies those groups of Indian kids that Aanamika is complaining about being “judgey” that is-thug liferz, despite the fact that they drink and hook up at random prance around acting like the “good indian kids” in front of Uncle and Aunty simply because they are pre-med and running the ISA and putting on “fashion shows” and have a pretty nasty attitude towards Indian kids that don’t fit the mold-whether or not they have yuppie careers or not. If you attend either UC Berkeley or MIT you will know exactly what I am talking about. Or most other big universities with a significant Indian population.

99

This is an example of “talking out the side of their neck.”

I want their names. This won’t be pretty.

100

:confused: