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In order to determine that a Black person is a sell out, you first have to define what a Black person should think and do.
Don't believe that's such a problematic thing. The problem comes in when the range of possibilities, the range of "acceptables" are so broad... no one statement can capture the essence. Now, too often that may be the problem: Trying to give a simple, hard answer to a question that is at least as fluid as it is complex (complex in the sense that it's broad and one almost has to speak in broad generalities in an attempt to arrive at definition).
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It was the insult that underachieving Black schoolchildren threw at their overachieving peers.
And honest observations would reveal that underachieving and overachieving weren't the only personality/character traits that defined the groups. Funny how talk about Black Viking's "someone else's stereotype of what we are" remain so conspicuously absent here.
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It is a sneer that Blacks teenagers direct towards the Blacks who listened to "white music" or "talked white"
Same as above. Conspicuously absent is the talk about buying into stereotypes. HB more or less noted that those "Black teens" listening to "White Music" and going beyond standard English to the point of modified inflection to even lisping indicate some level of an inferiority complex.
FRENCHY'S observations about EVERYONE'S personal prejudices/emotions/biases was on-point. For EVERYONE including the author, no swipe against her, and Black Viking's idea of "undermining individuality."
In those instances, Black teens characterized as "Acting White" either by their academic achievement distance (and other perceived distance) from "the group" and those Black teens who tend towards adopting or were raised in an enviroment were they "naturally" acquired certain features of "White" pop-culture can be, even purposely, "betraying" their "Black Selves" and intentionally trying to distance themselves. As I suggested, how they appear can also be the product of how they were raised, what they were exposed to which may be different from "the group" but no less natural.
It is, however, totally irresponsible and biased to act like every such Black "Acting White" teen is "innocent" -- that some, even a great many aren't manifesting varying degrees of an inferiority complex, curiously associating success, good, "the best" with White and all sorts of negatives with Black.
Yes, there are legitimate criticisms of knee-jerk dumbasses who make snap judges about people they don't know. Those who call someone a "Sell-Out", etc. at first glance just because... But there are legitimate observations to be made all the time about people with these inferiority complexes. My own daughter as an example.
We all know about Code Switchin'... Well, needless to say my daughter has a certain circle of Black friends and a certain circle of White friends. She has been in AP classes where she's like one of the only if not the only Black student in her high school classes. Anyway... even she termed he vocal inflections "White Girl" talk as the influences of her White friends, seeing many more positives, on the whole, associated with Whites (more money, bigger houses, more "smarts", etc.).
Who knows what certain kids might say about my daughter but she has always maintained her Black friends even as she's discovered how more and more "White people like" her. (She's been voted to the homecoming court every year with solid White support/popularity.) Maintaining or even having many or any Black friends for a number of "Black teens" who get so characterized is not something that's unimagineable in terms of how some will not and don't.
I have to tell idiotic White people who dare try to invoke "Acting White" that there are TWO SIDES TO A STORY. I don't know why we can't be honest and admit that there are at least both people who falsely accuse (out of ignorance or maliciousness) and people who fit the description who by either purposely gravitate towards "the White", changing their behavior (speech patterns, etc.) in the process, or those who may have a more natural affinity to "Whites" and the "White things" they've been exposed to but don't and even refuse to associate with their Black peers. There isn't anything insiduous about having that as an expectation. Unrealistic, maybe, for some but nothing insiduous.