5 Phrases I Didn’t Need to Hear as a Black Kid

Some phrases just shouldn’t be said to Black kids.

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

I grew up in the suburbs where everyone around me was white. From the time I entered kindergarten to the time I graduated from college, I was always able to count the other Black people in my classes. It almost became a right of passage to become friends with the other few Black people in your classes to remind the others that you weren’t the exception. However, commonly being the only Black person in white spaces comes with uncomfortable reminders that “other” you. You may be sitting at their table, taking the same exams, applying for the same colleges, but you will always be reminded that you aren’t one of them.

1. “You talk like a white person.”

Around the time I entered middle school, I would commonly have my white friends come up to me and say that I spoke like them. At first, I assumed they were referring to my mannerisms or the fact that we all grew up in the same areas. They weren’t referring to any of that. They were associating the way I articulated myself to whiteness. The fact that I wasn’t actively participating in AAVE or performing mannerisms that more closely align with Black culture meant that I was trying to be white. I talked like a white person to them because everything they associated…