Shades of black:
Ethnic background and culture are not synonymous
Skin color is not determined by where you live.
In today’s society, skin color knows no boundaries.
Black people are not confined to the slums and ghettos of the inner city, and the white population doesn’t always live a lavish and comfortable lifestyle within the borders of the suburbs.
I am living proof of this as I am black and, you guessed it, from the suburbs.
I am very proud of where I come from, and I feel fortunate that my family was lucky enough to live a comfortable life.
However, it is a shame that families like mine are stripped of their identity just because of their address.
I have heard too many comments like, “You’re not black, you’re from the suburbs.”
Why not? I couldn’t possibly be black and live in the suburbs? In order for me to be black I have to live in the slums of the inner city? Not all black people are poor.
An affluent black person is not synonymous with a white person.
Likewise white superstar rapper Eminem is not black.
The fact that he grew up in the slums of Detroit and is popular in a genre of music dominated by black people doesn’t make him black.
This blame of ignorance can’t be pinned onto the general public alone — the media shoulders some of the fault as well.
The media shares in the blame because they only depict a certain kind of black person on television, radio and in movies.
The media seems intent on showing black people only as impoverished drug dealers, if they show them at all.
People with little access to the black community come to believe that this is how all blacks are, impoverished drug dealers who dance well.
This view puts a lot of pressure on black people who don’t necessarily fit that mold.
Blacks are often pressured into becoming somebody they aren’t just to match the general public’s view of black people.
They change their actions, dress and even speech just to keep their identities as black men or women.
It’s time that people start to recognize that there are different shades of black people.
We dress differently from one another, speak differently, and live in diverse locations.
We are not all gangsters or drug dealers.
It is time that the media portrayed this so people who aren’t around many black people can see that.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum