I appreciate hearing and seeing the black male perspective on this topic that isn't the one hurled by The red pill/ alpha male community. I want love and protection for black women and black men that isn't intertwined with violence.
For the longest time, the only sources who would even tangentially approach these issues (without the veil of weird white knighting) was the Jordan Peterson or Thomas Sowell crowd, hoping to capitalize on all these gross misrepresentations. Thanks Fiq, for another excellent and powerful insight
The red pill community isn't pro violence on woman. Maybe you've listen to the wrong ones. The legit black ted pillars are. BGS ibmor, Green gorilla. Not fresh and fit b.s.
Being reminded of the normalization of black death in America, I couldn't help but connect it to the conflict in Ukraine. Hearing so many american reporters and media outlets openly stating how unusual it is to see so many people that "look like them" die or engage in/with violence... The lack of self awareness across the board was very telling to me..
That juxtaposition has been so jarring…especially with how allegedly aware and conscious mainstream media have been these past few years relating to issues of bias in coverage and racism. They so easily slipped back to their old tricks.
As someone who has been following not only Wills movie carrer but his documentaries as well, I could instantly tell that The Slap was the culmination of years of 'letting things go' until he could no longer do so. I have no idea why that night was THE NIGHT he was no longer able to let jokes slide or insults bounce off, but we all have moments where we forget were we are and go into attack mode. Only difference is that His moment was in front of cameras and nobody realized what was happening until it was too late.
I think the fact that it was supposed to be a night of honour for him, being awarded the ultimate respect of winning an Oscar, and that same night being disrespected by having a fellow black American man (who should be cheering him on and lifting him up, imo) insult his wife.. it's quite galling when you look at it that way. I can totally understand why he did what he did. Fuck Chris Rock. The guy has not been funny for a long time. Dunno what the Academy were thinking hiring him to MC the event. Kind of seems like deliberately creating a perfect storm to generate publicity for to boost their flagging viewership and waning relevance.
@@rhythmandblues_alibi was the joke even that bad? I understand it was a boiling point for will smith, but Chris Rock doesn’t seem that bad in this situation
@@cantthinkofaname5046 it doesn't need to be 'that bad' I think. We're talking about a last straw after years of taking it on the chin and letting it go. Typically when you've suppressed reactions so long the last straw won't be big on its own, that's why it's hard to anticipate the person's breaking point. Have you never, on a smaller or different scale, just snapped at something innocent someone's said or done that you normally could shrug off but that day you'd already shrugged off more than you could take?? I know I have. And I've been lucky it's not been in front of cameras, and I could apologise to the people I snapped at and work with them, myself and help to understand why I got triggered and hopefully manage it better in the future. I was also lucky to be met with kindness and empathy in the aftermath, and not 'but I didn't do anything that bad'. I hope I'm making sense and I'm not too far off the mark.
@@stephr2980 do you slap a person? Or hit them? Assault them in any way? Or just blow up? Will is black but so is Chris! And will isn't the victim in this. He's not a victim in any way.
Growing up as a black boy I struggled a lot with my identity, especially being an immigrant black boy. I was tall and dark, to a lot of people that was intimidating. Slowly the social barriers that be forced me to fit a mold of “black swagger”, as I started to embody that swagger people became enamoured with my character, I became more popular, and overall my social life became way better. I’m now only realizing why I forced myself to embody that caricature of black charisma. I’m also reflecting on why I am the way I am today, and the conformities I made to appease my white counterparts. This is so powerful unc. I’m only thirty minutes in and I’ve cried a hell of a lot.
I relate to this comment so much. For my entire life I have had “no rhythm “ and social anxiety and so it’s been so difficult to “fit in” with other black people. As if being cool was paramount to being black and that always caused problems for me when it came to finding my identity. The other side of it being a black boy who is more timid and passive has been one of the biggest struggles in my life having the message that I’m “too soft” continually beat into me by every environment I’ve been in almost like it’s an inescapable stereotype that I should just give into. All of that has caused me to feel othered and less receptive to engaging in black culture.
I have a different black experience from you but I still forced myself to adopt the "black swagger" but for different reasons. Same thing goes for forcing myself to conform to white society. I'm 32 minutes in and this is the third time I've had to pause the video. It's way too powerful. This video is so much, it made my wife cry through second hand exposure through me.
I am asian, but I grew up in poverty, and my father was absent, and abused me growing up. I used to eat ramen 7 days a week, and lived in motel rooms at times in my life. I find often I have to hide behind the stereotypes of my culture. When you said, "black boyhood is hell", I started to cry, and I wasn't sure why. I felt there are many aspects of my childhood experience that have amalgamated itself into my personality in ways that naturally harbor many negative feelings. It's hard to deal with many days, and many do not, or cannot, understand. I guess I just wanted to say thanks for making this video. It is nice to understand the self through thorough and fresh perspectives from other cultures. It makes me ultimately understand my own sense of manhood in a more layered way, that genuinely makes me feel strangely less anxious. Thank you.
@D S, definitely can understand that. A lot of topics mentioned in the video intersect with poverty and classism. Even though we don’t look the same, we go through those issues.
When you talked about how scarce are young black men representation, I immediately thought about "Everybody Hates Chris". This show is SO big in Brazil that you can't imagine. Everybody knows the characters to the point of quote the show in casual conversation. And I believe that it's because much of that representation echoes in brazilian real experiences, much more than even the entertainment generated here, that has a strong white middle/upper class perspective. Yeah, I know that people harass poor Tyler James Williams a lot on the internet, but it's only to catch his attention. If he came to Brazil to a convention or something, people would go crazier than when Backstreet Boys came, he is kinda of a superstar here.
I got some numbers about Everybody Hates Chris. The channel that he was on has an average of 4,5 points of audience. When Everybody Hates Chris starts, it goes up to 7,9. In fact, it's the most watched thing on the channel, tied with their most important news program. And Everybody Hates Chris goes at 11 a.m., while their news goes on prime time. Tichina Arnold, that we know as Rochelle already came to Brazil, and Terry Crews (Julius) also recorded some messages. And I get to say that I still call Abbott Elementary "the new Chris's show".
As a black kid that always seemed to be accepted more by non-black people (I was the "black nerd" or "the outcast" growing up), I felt that, in order to keep those people around, I had to accept things I wasn't comfortable, like giving n-word passes. There was a point where I even convinced myself that it was okay and that the word "should have no meaning". It wasn't until I found genuine love and friendship in other black people that I regained my sense of self, but even to this day I don't think they can understand the level of disassociation that came with that and why I felt that it was necessary. So, with that, I appreciate that you can show empathy to that perspective.
I’m no nerd and always stopped racism, but I was always the one giving it to my own family. It was such a weird space. I listened to Queen B’s Lemonade Album and gainer my sense of self. Lord it was a dark place.
I've never had a close black friend, thinking about it now, that's kinda weird, all my classes had like 1 or 2, maybe 4 (including me) black people, so I never really got to know another black person, to the point where seeing another black person so into their culture and knowing all these prominent black figures is extremely jarring, I just don't have the same emotional connection as they do. I guess that's growing up in a European country.
@@s0ne01 where I'm from in the states, black culture is abundant. But if you're the "other" in a black community, you're not accepted as much. And that was my experience. So, we have or had the same kind of dilemma in different ways I guess
Had the privilege of editing this video and damn all I can say is that experience was an absolute dream! Especially being able to work on a project where Fiq was able to take what could initially just be seen as a gossip column moment and turn into it a deep nuanced analysis worth every moment of work. Thanks again fiq!
Needless that new bel Air ain't it fam its alright I could do better like growing up as a young black man I had to grow up fast I was a man before I was ready to be one sending get to process like emontions like I got called corny lame boring it hurt that people that looked like me thought this .all because I liked other stuff and I dated white women
I needed to see this video. I am a middle aged white female who teaches in a predominantly black school district at a middle school that is 95 percent black. I am in no way qualified to have conversations with boys about masculinity, much less about the complexities of black masculinity in America. This year, my students really needed me to. Some students would approach me directly and tell me they needed to talk about the thoughts they had been having. Some would try to draw me into a conversation indirectly. For example, one day I came back from bus duty and found this question written on a small dry erase board and placed on my reading table: What is a black man? I wrote a pat answer: a thinker, a doer, an artist, a creator, a dad, a son, a husband, a giver of love, a receiver of love, the future. The girls read it aloud to each other as they walk into class the next day. They liked it. The boys looked at it, said nothing, and moved on. The answer clearly fell short. This year my boys were boisterous, radiant, charming, aggravating, funny as hell, into girls, and almost always smiling, but underneath I could tell some were staring into the void. I understand what might be lying beneath much better, now.
Yeah. As a black 21 kid about to graduate. That nihilism is real. I'm about to graduate as the highest ever achiever in my departments entire history and I just don't care. It's just depressing. Nothing matters. I didn't grow up in the hood. I grew up as the only black person in what would become a posh suburb as working class. I didn't out up with the white gaze and suffered for it. I was constantly fighting, physically, mentally, emotionally. Bro why am I even writing this or getting emotional. It's weird but, it is what it is. Applying for a masters. I like my course but don't plan to be around long. Under 27 or under 25 at this point. I don't even care anymore
I feel you, cause I came up almost the exact same way, even though I got 17 years on you. Working class kid that got into a private school, both as a charity case and through my own merit (jumped a year forward). The place I came up in was small, you could count the amount of other black kids in the city on both hands and I was only one of three in my entire school. This other black person who happened to be in the same year as me was THE over achiever and kept up with it throughout school. I, on the other hand, started slipping, the social anxiety that comes with dealing with all that was getting to me and I stared to act out. My grades started slipping, I started drinking, partying, as early as 14 years old, just generally being a problem which eventually led to me being expelled, all while I was encasing myself in this armor of the kind of nihilistic apathy FD talks about here. Wasn't till my 30's till I started figuring this shit out and I'm still at it. There's so much more I wanted to say but I'm getting too chocked up myself. I hope it doesn't take you as long as I have to come to some sort of peace with it all. Take care of yourself.
@@RandroidPrime bro it's like you're speaking my language. I was in gifted programs, magnet programs, surrounded by the "smart" white kids, struggling to keep going. When my grandmother died I just gave up. Test scores in the stratosphere but I graduated high school with like a 1.6 gpa. I just didn't care. Started partying and didn't stop for damn near 10 years. Now I'm within spitting distance of 40 and trying to pick some stuff up, it's hard. I'm glad to see more people with "atypical" life stories and paths reaching out and relating to younger folks, I can't imagine how valuable that would have been to me coming up.
Counseling and support groups helped me get past it, the things I thought I was supposed to care about werent the things I actually cared about. I just kept hunting for answers and the more i search the more that numbness goes away. It also helped me trying new things that were way outside my comfort zones and were drastic shifts from what i was doing, even moving and travelling can help just broaden your perspective. I can totally relate to the white gaze thing but i feel like i learned from it more than suffered from it. (Even though people tried to make me suffer from it, i just stopped giving a shit at some point). But idk all of that is hella relatable dude but i second fd, gotta talk to someone
52:30 black person that grew up in an white community here 🙋🏿♀️this is an excellent point. We end up compromising in degrading ways in order to survive. Not having a black community to fall back on and support you causes a kind of trauma that isn’t discussed enough.
@@dude9318 when the experiences are *so* different from one another, it’s almost impossible to help another person relate and be all the comfortable in that area
Growing up as a Black boy in Essex, England, so much of this video provides the language and framework to better understand myself. Thank you for treating Black boys as worthy of love.
As someone who was called an Oreo or a "white girl trapped in a Black's girl's body" throughout her youth, I'm def here for more of that breakdown and conversation. This video convinced me to watch the reboot. Thank you!
I'm glad FD made the distinction here that having a unique personality or being different is fine and not a bad thing, your just being yourself. Your not a Oreo even if people say you are, he mostly defined a true Oreo is an black person who's anti black and actively doesn't support black people at all with pride, like the lady he brought up in the video. So don't worry about it, as long as your a decent person and not terrible like her your cool. Just be yourself.
Haha! I was called this in school too. Or called out for being a valley girl or “proper”. It’ll be a benefit when you’re older…. Which reminds me TK (the rapper) grew up where I did. Super affluent area, yet somehow he grew up wanting to play with guns and rap. A lot of kids did in that area, white included. Parents threaten them with military or rehab. They would clean up their act, take the SAT and went to the “Ivy leagues” of the south. Started over like nothing happened, myself included. The biggest difference between those who make it and those who don’t is their parents giving a damn. That simple fact will never not bother me.
I remember choking a white guy in a mostly white suburban high school I attended who called me the n-word and I thought I was going to be suspended but to my surprise, the the teacher was also highly offended and gave me a pass and even chastised the other guy
Lucky thing to have a nice teach like this,I had it worse. Even though my transition was about 5 years ago when i was at school I snapped and beaten up a bully,when I was trying to justify myself to the principal he replied : "If you stopped being all girly maybe people wouldn't mess with you."
Damn, no parents Ronald? If you had a real one you'd know violence earns violence. For a word some ignorant fool said you'd risk your entire life and create a criminal record? Cmon man
Man. Speaking as a black kid who grew up too black for the white kids and too white for the black, never really feeling like I fit in because of the way my folks had to move around throughout my childhood and how their labor allowed us to live pretty well once I hit a certain age, in one of the most black cities in the south, this really spoke to me. I won't say that I understand everything as everyone's experience with their identity is different and their are definitely some blind spots I have, but I get it and I appreciate the work that was put in here.
Will Smith is an example of how being the “safe” black person ultimately doesn’t matter. It simply becomes a silent countdown to when you finally do something the people who merely tolerated you don’t like before they want you gone. I’m not saying he should have done what he did, but I’m speaking to the hypocritical and, frankly, racist responses his action has gotten (outside of general dislike/concern, respectability politics from non-black AND black folks, etc.). The Academy has awarded white child predators, abusers, and all manner of people. But it hits different when the person is black. And that’s something for any black person trying to get validation in a largely non-black space needs to keep in mind. Because, while I’m mild mannered and have never popped off like this or otherwise, I have had more than one experience of thinking I was friends with a non-black person only for me to do one thing they didn’t like (not even something bad/rude/confrontational), I was suddenly persona non grata to them. It could be disagreeing with them on their assumptions about race, telling a harmless, generalized joke about them after putting up with multiple race-based jokes about me, suddenly being blacker than they realized I always have been, telling them not to touch my hair, etc. Don’t value that exceptional status (not saying he did, nor am I saying I did, as I didn’t realize the status until it became apparent), because it is wont to change.
FWIW, you don't have to be Black to be ghosted like that. The "status" can be revoked from pretty much anyone with a visible "minority" (racial/gender/socioeconomic/neurological/etc.) identity or otherwise weakened social status in a group. Not saying it doesn't happen FAR more easily or frequently to Black people, especially Black men, but there's a reason we have so many movies like Mean Girls out there. American society is a bunch of piranhas. I think the biggest trick that powerful white men pulled was in generating the idea that cliques are a "girl" thing, as if those country clubs and private getaways and secret societies were... someone's wife's idea?
@@vt3039 the good ol trick of painting every fucked up thing feminine so the patriarch can do the same and not be scrutinised. Same method with the dominant classes with the poor classes. Seems paradoxical but it works so often I don't know what to say
Well, sure, there has been plenty of horrid racist crap, but even if Clint Eastwood or Tom Hanks walked up and smacked a man in the face I think its fair to say they would suffer heavy criticism. I do think its sad that people seem to think its OK to say horrible stuff about them because he did something wrong. They are still human beings
I was the "white girl in a black girl's body" growing up in white suburbia. My father grew up in the same suburb during the race riots, so he chose to raise his kids in the same town he grew up in. I have some advice for those like me who grew up in white spaces. If you want to go to college, really REALLY consider an HBCU. Yes, you are black enough. You will find a group of black nerds, outcasts, and weirdos like yourself and you will fit in just fine. There is bound to be an HBCU that offers the academic programs you are looking for. HBCUs other than Howard, Morehouse, and Spellman exist. No shade to those three schools. I love them to death, but there are 107 HBCUs out there and they all need support and love and recognition.
@@laymonsavage2825😂I'm an HBCU grad and I agree about the first part but disagree on the 2nd. 😅There are some HBCU girls like that but most are wild afffff.
@@laymonsavage2825 ''street dudes'' smh. This is the problem. You making her believe that college girls are meant to be for street dudes and the other problem is, graduated women fantasizing about this. It's a crazy world, it don't make sense! This is how we get broken homes and fatherless children over and over again. But hey, I can't stop people from being attractive to what they are attractive to, so I don't know why I bothered commenting 😂
I live in Memphis, Tennessee. I was in the DMV waiting to be called to get my license, and behind me were a father and a son. Dad said to his son, "If you can survive South Memphis you can survive the military. I did it." It broke me. It broke me in half and I was in public so I couldn't cry, I couldn't turn around and be like that's not right tho. You shouldn't have ever been forced to live that life, to struggle like that because of the lack of resources, leadership, and genuine love for the poorest peoples in Memphis. I'll never forget it. I wish I could show them this video. Our black fathers, sons, daughters and moms, everybody, all black people should never have to tell their children that in hopes of bolstering them against the world they know is vicious towards their children. It will always hurt.
34:00 this part hit so hard. I remember being in a bookstore at age 12 and then suddenly realizing that the employees were following me. Honestly that moment traumatized me so much and that's no were close to being the worse thing that happened. It only set the stage for what was to come.
It happens to me in Japan too, and so I typically just blast the stores in online reviews. But each time it happens, the angrier I get. It’s to the point where I’m glad when it’s clear there are cameras, and I feel like I WANT them to watch me on there so they can see their instant assumptions about me are wrong, while resenting having to feel that way. I’m at the point where I’ve decided that if it happens one more time, I’m saying something. They already act scared/suspicious of us, so what do I care? I’m not one to turn up, but I’m tired of not being assertive and calling the b.s. out like I would in America because I don’t want to make waves. But if I don’t ever go back to stores that treat me that way (and I don’t), I might as well let them have it for my own peace of mind because I’m TIRED.
I’ve never had someone speak about the reality of being black in those AP classes and music programs with mostly white kids. I made those compromises and I’ve always been ashamed of them. I was just trying to survive like you said but it’s one of those things that I never felt okay with. Like it’s how I survived in the white wildness and now I don’t talk about it.
That was me in AP and gifted classes and being the only black person on the soccer team. I literally went to the houses/spent time around teammates’ racist parents without realizing it until later (when the teammates would tell me) but having a feeling that their exclusive coldness towards me meant something.
same here. only black person in mist of my classes, 1 of 2 black people in my choir and on my volleyball team. im also not proud of compromises I’ve made. I transferred to a majority white school from an majority black school this year and I’ve noticed a lot of shit I’ve let slide here at my new school that i would’ve never been okay with at my old school.
Imagine if people who move to Japan and accommodate the prevailing culture there used the same language you use, like they're some sort of victim for choosing to follow and respect the culture around them. You're being told a lie and being lead to believe that you have to act a certain way due to the color of your skin. You're more than that. Act like it.
Man this hit close to home and made me a bit emotional. This is the exact same dynamic between me and my best friend. He's the lightskin pretty boy who grew up in the hood and has the street swagger. I grew up in the hood until middle school and then I grew up around white people. I've always been really book smart and introverted and had interest outside of most black men so I got labeled with the oreo title as I got older. The reason we're so close is because a lot of the interests he doesn't normally show to most, we have them in common like gaming, anime, and other "nerd" type stuff. Plus I can also relate to some of the hood stuff. I'm only a little only halfway thru but this is definitely one of my favorite channels. Your video on Lauryn hill is what I seen first and that drew me in, this video made me subscribe. Amazing videos so far, I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of your videos.
I worked for a tutoring company over Covid and I was asked to work at a bipoc tutoring center for kids that was basically just a place for their parents to put them for some daycare and learning when everything was crazy w Covid and parents couldn’t have their kids in daycare everyday for affordability etc. The other regular teachers there were bipoc women, and although all the kids were too there was one black boy who was much darker than the other kids. I was just kind of amazed with the harsh way they were speaking to this young child for spilling some water or accidentally hitting another kid at the playground (you know stuff most 8 year olds do) and I made a conscious effort to help him in these situations as the kid was obviously homesick, and ask if he wanted a hug after being yelled at. I cannot tell you how long this young boy hugged me for, just crying he wanted to go home, and it broke my heart I was just constantly telling him no I know it was an accident, you’re a good kid, etc. Idk i was just surprised that those working at the center couldn’t see the implicit biases there were acting on even in an all poc space, and how, especially with children, it matters how you characterize them and making sure you don’t label a young black boy a “bad kid” for making normal kid mistakes that the other kids were making as well because kids pick up on those differences in treatment.
Colorism is a huge problem worldwide. It’s mostly against women and girls, but also against little boys. That at least changes for boys (in the black community, anyway) when they become men. It, unfortunately, does not for girls/women.
I remember being in Primary School in the early ‘90s and without consciously thinking about it, implicitly understanding that I had to put in work to avoid being labelled a “bad boy”, because the teachers have this way of being around boys with that label. For some reason I always felt that I had to tread extra carefully to not attain that label, like there was an expectation that I was more likely to be bad so kept an eye on. Maybe because of how seemingly easily the label was given to other black boys who came and went in my class. It’s hard to explain since I only realised this a few weeks ago but it probably ties into the whole “white gaze” idea. In addition, these teachers were OG Boomers born in the ‘40s early ‘50s.
Make no mistake, there is no “BIPOC” solidarity or whatever. Black people will always be seen as “the bottom” of the manufactured racial hierarchy. There is no escape from such treatment, whether you're a child or not.
@@slothful2039 And WHO created that racial hierarchy, sir? Brown people are not the problem. White people love to see brown & black people fight, people they perceive as "less than" already, we are all the same to them, i.e. less than fully human. You are feeding into white supremacy but go off.
I hope you confronted your fellow instructors about their racial biases!! There is a lot of research backed literature about how real this harmful bias is. A great book to cite is "Why are all the black kids sitting together?" by Beverly D Tatum but there are countless articles you can forward to them. That kind of treatment is unacceptable and most teachers do not consciously engage in them (if they do you can report them!).
I'm really glad to hear a take on this that is sympathetic and empathetic to both Chris Rock and Will Smith. There's a lot going on here. It's complicated, and there's more to it than 'one is the good guy, one is the bad guy'. Will has PTSD, and that isn't getting discussed much in the discourse, but you're willing to actually pause and look deeper and I respect that so much about you as a video essayist.
Why Will don't talk first with Chris R. and tell him before the ceremony" Hey listen Jada's alopecia is kinda a touchy subject for her right now,can you please don't make any Joke about that "
As a black woman and a mom I so appreciate your perspectives on this stuff. I want to be that safe place for my son, even for the things I may not fully understand. I can't say enough how much I appreciate you.
I'm South African and I completely relate to the "oreo" trope. We call it being a coconut, white on the inside, brown on the outside. Contrary to the general consensus, we do have white people here and there are a lot of them😅 and what makes me relate to the Black American experience so much is we have a very similar history, and growing up with and around your oppressor really messes with your self image. I was raised/am from the "hood" but I went to predominantly white schools because my parents, like a lot of black people in my country, consider proximity to whiteness as proximity to success. I remember many moments where my white 'friends'/peers would use racial slurs, say these racist "jokes" or whatever and I would just freeze in the moment, every time it happened, because I felt like I was betraying my race by creating an environment where they thought it was acceptable for them to be racist but I also didn't want to be treated like an outsider for speaking up. I constantly found myself in internal conflict because of having to switch who I was performing all the time. It's taken me so long to even figure out who I am, what my values are etc. I'm still navigating it and I'm 23😅 being black is so complicated, even as a child it's just a constant mental battle
@@SCrEenNaMe-i9h my point is to show how much I related to both the characters of Carlton and Will, but more so Carlton because of my personal experience and how like FD said, there's a lot to be explored with that oreo trope. Not sure what you're talking about but it seems like you're projecting so maybe reread my comment if you want more clarity on everything.
@@dianakhumalo6905 Ignore him, obviously he's a troll and he's not even the good kind. 🙄 Anyways I feel this except it's all about my homosexuality and trying to come to terms with that.. Still now even at 30.
This Video Here Breaks My Heart Because As A Black Mother, Wife, and Grandmother It’s A Reality To Me..!! It’s Very Disheartening To Know That Many Of Our Black Boys Have No Where To Run To..!!!! 🙏🏾
Fantastic video, and it really helped contextualize a lot of stuff in Bel-Air. If people are sleeping on the show, they need to give it a chance. It's one of those rare reboots that should be the norm, doing something new with a story we've already heard.
It all just springs so naturally from the premise that it just _works,_ even though it's so different from the original show. It gets into a flow that never shakes you free of the narrative, never jars you, and stays consistent throughout. That is NOT easy to do.
@@alekm5201 it would help. Everything is so subtle in Bel-Air that you might miss some context if you haven’t seen fresh Prince. That said, you don’t NEED to.
@@alekm5201 I agree with bert jerome there are subtle callbacks to Prince that are great to see but you aren't missing anything if you haven't seen the original show.
Its interesting to see the conclusion you took Belly vs Shottas to cause I'm definitely going in a different direction for the final video 😏 stay tuned.. Incredible piece as we've come to take you for granted now, Unc. I remember seeing your whole face change on our livestream and I'm sorry for that.
I always was interested that our community loves movies like belly and shorts even though all the sterotypes like people can't complained about stereotypes then glorify movies like belly .I never felt accepted by the community I was know as the lame kid but I never let the hate phase me growing was rough I couldn't cry I recommened therapy to y'all
I watched Belly for the first time quite recently, I dug the fuck out of it. Looking forwards to seeing what you lads have to say about it. Still need to see Shottas.
I grew up as the black boy in the suburbs, my parents didn’t sell out, but they definitely wanted to raise their kids away from the traumas they grew up with, At the age of 26 today, I still battle with my internal perception of myself as it is challenged every day by those around me and the society at large. I appreciate when people like yourself can not only identify the things that I as a child couldn’t, nor could my family as it wasn’t their experience. But also in a way that doesn’t cast a judgement or fault on me for having that environment. My black peers who are closest to me also have similar stories, and it’s not uncommon for us of those back grounds to feel completely alienated from everyone including ourselves.
You mentioning the N-word pass really hit me. Personally, growing up in white space and having to identify and perform under the white-gaze made me feel that if I didn't include white people in my blackness then it would be used against me or lead to violence. It's hard to feel logical about - but it was protection in a way. Still learning and unpacking my own trauma and socialized anti-blackness.I relate to Will and his loss of control in that moment.
this is probably your best video yet, which is saying a lot because you were already comfortably my favorite youtuber. Seriously, never has a video resonated with me more, while also expanding my consciousness. Hell, watching this helped me understand my own experiences better. I cannot express how much I appreciate your presence here as a young black man. This was powerful.
I was born in California and spent half my childhood growing up in Compton. There was so much I just thought everyone dealt (getting down during drive-bys my mother never wanting me to go out with out her, etc) with until my parents sold just about everything they owned to get me and my younger brother out. I lost my older brother to gang violence because with them it’s either with us or against us. His death put everything in perspective for me. I was about 12 when it dawned on me that none of my new friends could or would ever understand what things were really like, until I mean my best friend who is from Atlanta. To this day she is my only friend who I can say something or mention something growing up and, sadly, she knows exactly what I mean.
Your segment on the white gaze really made me think back to my childhood and (sadly my adulthood ). As a child born in Europe from a middle class background with western african parents, my formative years were literally an internal and external battle with white adults (teachers, friend's parent and random people in the streets) scrutinizing me up and down. Scrutinizing me to see if I was going to "break out of character" and act as the derogatory stereotype of a black and African person or them making crazy assumption about my parents character. Another aspect is that being soaked in a white very wealthy environment made me aware of how impossible it would be for me to fully "navigate" in this space, even with my closest non-black friend, I quickly understood that I would never fully get immersed/ part of the environment I grew up in. I still carry the weight of knowing that no matter how long I experience the White Euro-centric sphere or the Black western-African sphere, I will never fully emulate any of them. So being called a "bounty" or "oreo" stings particularly hard because it feels like the death of my being. I knew(and was reminded) from birth I wasn't white and getting called "not black nor african" left me feeling like nothing.
You're not alone homie, I'm a Nigerian raised in London and now living in Spain... I've been called all sorts of things too and struggled with my identity. I've settled on just being me and not conforming to anyone's ideas of what they think I should be.
Have you 2 been around black people from Africa or from the hood who treated you like fellows black without questioning your blackness? Or who simply interested by your difference as a black person?
The term "Oreo" is used by black people who can't succeed and therefore envy and despise you for accomplishing what they can't because they're unwilling to put in the work. The point is to shame you and make you hate yourself. You're more than your god damn skin color. Act like it.
Omg bro honestly….black boy hood can be hell for most and it’s not talked about enough . I’ve been though every form of abuse. Mental, sexual, physical you name it. Growing up I was consumed by depression. Luckily for me I was in a youth group where I was open about my struggles. The youth group ended up being racist towards me but I was able to connect with others struggling just like me at a young age. Being open with my struggles saved my life. Without reflecting on the pain I went through and the effects of that pain I’d be dead now. Thank you for this video!
@@morkmello5367 I’m okay and thankful for this life Despite all I’ve been through I see myself as no victim, I’ve taken my struggles ,my pain, learned from them (i continue to learn from them )the lessons has made me the man I am today. My demons and scares do hunt me here and there but thats the journey of life. I wish a healthy journey for all of us.
Your comment gave me chills. Wish I knew better how to support you in words without being patronizing. I'll just say I'm glad you've emerged from the trauma. Perhaps not unscathed, but at least unbroken
This video really hit me hard, man, it opened up old wounds that I have blocked for my childhood to teen years. I could never put a finger on it, but you nailed it.. this really brought me to tears recalling it all, and never came to terms with it. This is a excellent video!
That ending statement about death just hits me in my stomach. I literally would have spells of terrible paranoia and anxiety for my husband about him dying ALL the time. Especially when we were younger and were dating. He works odd hours of the night and when he would leave for work in the middle of the night sometimes would incessantly pray and cry for his safety and often times would not go to sleep until I would know for sure he was back home. I would have terrible dreams about him being killed ALL the time in numerous different ways. He would be angry sometimes that I would rush him home. It was never out of jealousy it was out of being terrified of him dying or being killed. I eventually got better, but sometimes I still break down and cry about it, because it is INDEED a reality. I guess my point is that the statement was just validation for me. I thought that I was losing my mind, but it really is all that we see in the media and the news and it was getting to me so bad.
Imagine how many of us felt like this about a relative and it became a reality. I lived this experience , smfh. You actually think you're in a nightmare for a second then when the reality sinks in I just felt my heart go cold. That is when I truly knew what it meant to be dead on the inside Rest up BIG CHRIS , love u my guy 👼🏿
This is something I’ve noticed happening a lot to people who are members of an ethnic/cultural group that has had low socioeconomic status for so long that they’ve become associated with being down to earth or “authentic”, as the yuppies so condescendingly put it. When this happens, there is often a sense of pressure to continue to act according to this stereotype even when their personal experiences/level of success is such that they have as much in common with that stereotype as a 20 Getty family trust fund kid. Basically, white folks like to pigeonhole you so that you have more chains locking you down to earth so you can’t make it into the stratosphere
It's wild to me that this exact topic comes up literally the day after I finally open up about my own experiences as a black kid growing up to my fiance. I literally almost had a tear jerk moment because like any black nerd growing up in some rough neighborhoods like East Orange or even Irvington, the fight or flight instinct was necessary. I am now 37 years old, and at least 30% of the people I grew up with has been shot and killed for just being in the wrong place and time. And despite what people see from the energy I bring, no one was truly able to identify my deep level of pain until yesterday. Which is also the reason why I was so driven to become successful within my field.
Will Smith made a contract with the white community. He would provide a feeling of access to black culture that does not confront people with anything uncomfortable. It's possible that there is no one more frustrated with that contract than Will Smith himself.
David Comito what does he mean how the world treats single moms lol single moms do that nobody should have kids out of wedlock smh nobody gives men excues
@@sharstarg2414 It's true and I think a lot of the outrage from the white community over this is not the breaking of a social standard of not hitting someone for the things they said, it is the breaking of this precieved contract that is what they are more upset about, even if they don't articulate that specifically.
When Will Smith hit Chris Rock, I saw their pain, anger, humiliation and sadness in their past come to light. I thought rap as an oral history lesson to remember the past. The music would help the young remember it better. However, it is lost to many as a catchy tune. Black pain is not entertainment. Powerful statement. Thank you for sharing. This gives me new insight and appreciation of someone’s experience.
I know many are tired of the Will Smith subject and are still very much on their "Will was wrong, bottom line" energy but if you're not about dissecting, analyzing, and getting at the root of behaviors, then I can't believe you're actually about peace. Seems you more just want to feel superior by taking the simplest and most obvious stance of "Violence; bad!" Yeah, we know. Thank you for this vid.
It's easier for us as empathetic people to feel the need to dissect behavior of individuals, but most people dont have the tiome of day or even the energy or patience to do that. We're an exception, not the norm
This is so deeply informative, particularly as an Africa-born, UK-raised black woman. The view of the world from where I'm standing is scarily aligned but completely different to the black American experience. I have so much to consider when it comes to what the black men in my life feel/think/believe as a result of their childhoods. The insight you've given here has been invaluable. Thank you.
@@Feliciations good question. It's something I ask myself often. I think there are a variety of reasons as to why this is the case, but I also always try to maintain balance in being able to ask what I can do to alleviate "us" as well.
@@Feliciations I've just been thinking about your question since you asked and this is my stance so far: based on this video that we (assumedly) have both watched, the narrative is very much showing us the disposability of black men, particularly in America. I use the word 'disposability' because statistically black men either die or get incarcerated, which completely removes their ability to fully realise their potential as human beings. We, the women, have struggles that are different, and, I would argue, are aimed more towards our minds/emotions and security. The wholeness is still lacking in both black male and female cases. Asking black men to stand up for us is necessary but equally they should be allowed to ask us for sympathy, love and care. Ultimately we need each other and empathy should never cease to be a useful tool in our community as a whole. Without it, we all die - physically, mentally, emotionally and experientially.
I just want to say your videos are getting me through one of the hardest times in my life right now. Thank you for all you do, especially for black ppl. Your wisdom is uplifting man.
Bro , they just like seeing men destroyed at every level. “Who hurt you?” That’s what I heard the most when I was traumatized by dating. It made me hate men and women alike because there was just this fucking lack of empathy from everyone…like why the fuck are those scumbags even alive?
It seems we're a society with a major flaw of selective context and selective empathy. For further evidence, I present the double standard between the situations of Trayvon Martin and Kyle Rittenhouse.
I'm tired of a world where children are so sad, lonely and exhausted. And I'm tired of a world that refuses to change no matter how hard I try to change it. How does anybody reconcile a refusal of the status quo and an inability to create systematic change?
You understand you be planting a garden under whose trees you might not sit. Then you keep on digging not for yourself, but for the ones we manage to save to bring forth the next generation.
Yes, I’m looking at the research behind Relationship Anarchy as the new social norm: Instead of prescribing labels to everything, we describe our relations between one another.
@@BigHenFor Pretty much. I think a lot of people get hung up on possibly not being alive to see or experience the change brought about by their legacies left behind. But I can understand that tbh. At of people, even if they say otherwise with their mouth, have the selfish desire of having the work they do benefit them first in some way (especially if the personal cost for them to enact that change is high).
As an African born since childhood to adulthood i always dreamt of one day going overseas to better my life but the more I think about it i end up seeing its better to just stick here than rather go overseas to be racially abused and your whole person defined by your colour.
as an african who moved here to the US. at least we will Always have our foundation of the culture of our countries and families to fall back on. but I agree because Now I am planing to take my own kids back to thier hometown
Thank you for emphasizing Smith's humanity as opposed to the spectacle. I found the vast majority of the takes to be nothing more than another form of entertainment for our emotional bankrupt society. I have shared your video with every empathetic person I know. Thank you and very good work brother!
Thank you for this. I used to work at a library in a predominantly black neighborhood and the minute that this topic was brought up I remember this one incident. A sobbing black girl ran through our library to use our phone before running out again. In that moment I knew that I, a 20-something Latina, was the only adult who would follow her outside to see if she and the other children were ok. The police had been called on a 12-year-old black boy and my two black female co-workers were stone-faced. It was a concept that I knew to be true, that no one considered how this would effect these kids’ lives, but as I stood there surrounded by black and brown children watching as this young boy broke down in front of no less than three police men for breaking a trivial library rule really hit home in a way it never had.
I really needed this video, around the 22:30 mark I ended up tearing up cause word this what alot of us need. Keep being the OG you are. Us young black men appreciate that. Can’t keep up the tough facade forever.
My brother went to an expensive all-White high school in Texas. He was a Jewish kid. You'd never know until you heard his last name. Straight-A student with every honors you could think of, got into his first choice colleges both times. He blends in so well. You'd have to be a complete asshole to mess with someone over a last name, right? /s Turns out this school was horribly anti-Semitic. A lot of rich girls at this high school called my brother gay to attack his masculinity, and kids would often say and do completely insensitive things to him. The worst thing that happened was when one kid drew a picture of my brother getting shot by Hitler. He drew it on the whiteboard so the whole class could see it. The teacher and my brother both saw it, and they took this little shit to the principal. Because the shit kid was rich and his parents donated to the school, the kid got no punishment at all. Meanwhile, my brother got detention for a week and had to make a hand-written apology. Nothing the teacher who saw the Hitler drawing could do about it. Didn't matter that my brother had an adult witness who worked at the school backing him up. All the rules vanished. I'm so glad I went to a different school and was just a white kid with a weird name. I'll never understand what my brother suffered. He's me hero.
Man sorry to hear about your brother that shit is illegal as hell, the school may not do anything but you sure as hell can go to the cops for hate speech and discrimination. Even if at the end nothing comes of it because they’re rich cunts at least make then jump through some hoops.
Hows it going for him now amalek. Dont worry bro we gunna finish what Saul was ordered to do. Have a great and blessed day Amalek Be seeing you real soon.
@@justinmorton7693 You know the real Israelites killed the Amalek thousands of years ago right? Why are you calling me Amalek? You don't even have the right group, dumbass. Why don't you just call me a k*ke and get this done faster? We are both using anonymous accounts, you are never going to actually find me, your threat is hollow and you know that. Yawn.
Bel Air is such an amazing showing of addressing and validating the emotions of black young men. Hell, I’ve been brought to tears myself because the actors really make you FEEL something. The love and support depicted is literally a fantasy for a lot of us who grew up in households with overworked parents who lacked the capacity.
While I haven't ever lashed out physically at anyone, I relate on an uncomfortable level to Will Smith. I recently lashed out verbally at a friend because of years of feeling looked down on for being neuroatypical, being treated as the goofy little brother, having my manhood doubted for not living up to the societal standards of what a man should supposedly be (something I believe Will is very familiar with). I admit i Iaughed initially but the more I think about this in the context of the black experience, and my own relationship with performative masculinity, I can't find this funny. I remember I used to have horrible savior syndrome, where I would fantasize about "defending" women in my life from anything ranging from actual attacks to insults. What it really was was my ego needing validation that I am a Real Man, and when I saw Will smack Chris, that part of my psyche's eyes lit up. Here is a man fulfilling that fantasy of performative masculinity. I admired Will for it initially until I took further consideration. While I cannot say that my experience and those of black men are the same, I find these videos extremely helpful for me to understand my own trauma around these issues. The way these little scars become deep wounds and lead to aggression and out bursts is especially insidious due to how we encourage it
your empathy for your fellow human puts you a step above most political essayists on this platform. even when you talk about struggles such as this, which as a mix eurasian-american i will never experience firsthand, i can feel the love and pain from your struggle. i just wish the onus wasnt on you and other black creators to humanize yourselves and your community, with already so much generational trauma. irl ive done my best to use my privilege to try and change peoples minds sharing what ive learned from generous people sharing their stories. thank you so much for doing this incredibly difficult work, i dont think youve written a video that didnt hit the mark. keep on keeping on man, and sorry if this comment comes off as weird, im autistic and have a difficult time putting my words together >_< just know your message never lands on deaf ears regardless of how painful it is
I wanna say thank you. I lot of young black men have a difficult time properly articulating the complexity of our dark reality. Especially, in such a concise and accurate manner. You’ve got a fan for life.
Finally someone I can trust covers this situation and Will smiths life in general with understanding and tact. I’m tired of seeing millions of people have uneducated and non sympathetic takes on this. Your ability to use something like this to discuss a larger societal situation is one of the things that makes this channel special.
As a biracial person raised by a white mother, insulated from blackness for most of my childhood, I’ve felt the othering from both sides and am only really discovering and defining my blackness as an adult. The discussion about these kids who grow up in affluent spaces also deserving empathy really resonated with me. Thank you.
The point you made about knowing when a person has nothing to lose so you stay away from them is dead on, but the other side of that is having something to lose makes you vulnerablea . Being someone that had much to lose I often convinced myself that I didn't and the people around me as well, for safety. I look back and, I was a really depressed kid when I really didn't have to be. The scary thing is no one would ask me about me moping around looking depressed which I often was but to some extent it was my mystique, but the second I started smiling while walking around my neighborhood, everyone would freak out. Like people would literally bring it up to my mom "why is you son always smiling", then I would hear that and try not to smile so much.
I know we often say black women have it the hardest, but as a black girl I have to say I don’t think I could make it as a black boy. I’ve had my struggles with presentation, fitting in, and dealing with beauty standards, but I never had to worry as much about being underestimated and unloved, expected to be tough and unwavering every day just to survive. I think all of the pretending would wear me out. The trauma of being a black man is behind my comprehension.
As a white dude who can only understand so well from the outside. This REALLY helped me learn. So often we think we are empathizing when really we are only projecting. Its a quirk of human psychology that you really need to watch out for. I just realized that was exactly what I was doing previously trying to understand this topic. This put a huge crack in that in a fantastic way. Thank you so much! Definitely subscribing and watching through the rest of your content. P.s. Also as someone with severe ADHD its not too often a vid this long can grab my attention for its entirety. Just thought that was worth mentioning.
This video has helped me realize how much living in a diverse neighborhood has shaped how I approach "advocacy" relative to what black folks who grew up around black folks do. It can't always be as direct: Learning to pick your battles, how to phrase hard conversations, focus on intent not just impact, meet people where they’re at, give the benefit of the doubt… It’s different than what black folks who grow up around black folks have to do. And with that difference the reflex is to reject it. I get why that mentality is there but it still hurts and is one reason I feel alienated or out of place around *some* other black people. I don’t do it for fun or to “sell out” but maintain sanity. I could just say someone’s racist, but if I do they shut down and won’t listen. If I have to be around them I HAVE to phrase it differently so they’ll be more likely to apply it when interacting with me and others like me. Truth is a lot of them wouldn’t survive in a non-homogeneous space. (And I wouldn’t survive where they’re from.) Neither of us is bad, just different. And I wish there was space for empathy and appreciation for differences. There are ways of navigating, things I know that you don’t and vice versa. And if done right those collective differences can combine into a strength not a weakness.
And what a trick of empathy that is. Using labels, especially if they closely identify with that label, as an insult or pejorative, immediately ends the conversation. If the goal of convincing someone who holds harmful conservative beliefs out of their comfort zone or dogmas', using what they identify with against them *will not* work. It is just browbeating at that point and it causes people to become defensive. Same thing works for talking to people on the extreme left. Tone, intent, and aggressiveness all vary with dealing with different people.
I call it Defensive White Guy Syndrome (admittedly, saying this directly to a DWG can cause them to do the exact thing I describe and thereby inhibit honest discussion) when a white person, especially a straight white man, hears about the real extent of colonialism and white racism and how much the momentum and consequences of that history still impacts black people and even society as a whole, the DWG feels he is being _personally_ challenges and criticized, and because of his sense of being threatened begins to defend, not only himself, but colonialism and even white racism. These guys wouldnt defend colonialism or racism if they engaged with the topic in a way that they didnt feel singled out by. Now, this is already understood and the term “white fragility” is not entirely inaccurate but imo “DWGS” is slightly more accurate AND generous, as the term white fragility might be taken to imply that fragility is endemic to whiteness, _defensiveness_ is more of a choice in reactions when faced with the topic. Even if the person I'm talking to doesnt consciously acknowledge this, if I can frame the discussion in a way that makes it clear I am not holding them personally responsible for a history they had no control over, they are more likely to engage the topic with empathy, or at least some semblance of rationality. I know what Im saying has merit because I AM the Defensive White Guy, after a long time of having to get over my own defensiveness so that I could examine the historical structures of colonialism and how that tradition turned into slavery, Manifest Destiny, religious fundamentalism and socio-political conservatism, Patriarchy, the myth of the Conquerer as the embodiment of white maleness, and the various, essentially xenophobic “phobias” (homophobia, transphobia, etc) in American society.
really appreciate the acknowledgement that hyper vigilance and other seeming antisocial behaviors are actually adaptive for the environments that develop them. I tried to find the reference but I remember reading an abstract about how in communities exposed to high levels of violence, so called anti-social characteristics actually led to better survival. Kids who didn’t have that same armor were more likely to have been assaulted or murdered over the duration of the study. I love your work FD. Glad you are experiencing the success you deserve
Navigating the white gaze in a dark skinned black woman body is one of the most debilitating and scarring experiences I can fathom, and sadly, a lot of us are still walking that tight rope. There is no freedom here, and the effects this life has on our health is astronomical. Excellent video Fiq ❤️
I am a Black woman so I won’t pretend to speak with full authority on cis Black masculinity or performance, and you do mention this as well but I think it can get pretty toxic to define these two types as one having more or less authenticity than the other. Being Black American is a state of displacement, landlessness, and ostracization that necessitates performance in every social group (just like any identity is performed). Just like the “exaggerated swagger” can be fairly interpreted as just peacocking for other Black men and to (in my opinion) a lesser degree for women, also assimilating to the expected or even sometimes required norms of your surrounds and becoming an “oreo” is also a survival tactic and learned behaviour and I think we do a disservice to everyone involved to gatekeep Blackness like that. It just drives those folks further from the community without challenging the real reason any of this tension is necessary or exists.
Not even halfway through but the commentary on Atlanta and Boyhood has my heart in pieces. It's a heavy one for sure, but so necessary. I'm seeing my Black cousins becoming fathers and fiances and men that are trying to make it in this world after knowing what they went through as kids and both being proud of their growth and also so worried for their mental states.
FD does it again as a goat, more nuance for black men and women is necessary in representation since we're all different. I'm a timid black guy myself and thats fine, also I think things are much harder for black women compared to us black men especially in the media and real life as well I'd say. Usually black representation is very biased to black men compared to women, when it should be equal.
Yup I agree I have two younger sisters and I'd be lying if I'd say black women don't have it harder and ik trying my best to learn and let my ego go to be a better black man for them and the black women who have been there for us since the beginning
@@letssgo1921 It's about the intersections, both are oppressed in different ways due to their gender but both are oppressed for being black. The op was just pointing that out
Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your content. Been watching all your videos, but this one hit me especially hard. I’m a school social worker in a very underserved community. I’ve worked in this community for 15 years. I have seen a lot of what you speak of, but your explanation elevated my understanding. I’m just hoping that I can help any way that I can.
people on the internet seems to always forget, two truth can be true at the same time, you don't have to always take a side where one is "more right" than the other, great video as always
"Will and black boys need a covering to that allows them to shed the habits and behaviors they've often developed as survival tactics." I'm fucking at a loss to what to say or even fucking do now after hearing that. It's fucking spot on and it's something I wouldn't put into order if it wasn't for you, amazingly in this exact point of my life. I'm a 23 year old dude who didn't go to college and has spent his last few years working or trying to start my own career up. While unconventional, I came across a story that recently meant the world to me and as so fundamentally changed me as a person at the core of myself. There's a lot that happens io black families that's latent and that you can't begin to ever work out until you're an adult that takes the time to look back at your life. I had a lot of deeply instilled fears in myself from my mother. She wasn't bad. She did the best that she could. Yet, I'm a 23 year old who had such a deeply instilled fear of throwing myself out there because of a lot of her own attitudes towards things that I developed literally within the past 2 years. I want to talk about this now and at some point I will, because I'm not sure that I would've ever moved forward and sought to genuinely improve myself if it weren't for that story and it's characters, One being an adventurous woman who waits for literal millennia for you to return to her and keep a promise that you made., and is tearful when you arrive and prove to her that you can keep that promise. (It was Final Fantasy XIV, by the by. Hence that anime-as-fuck plot) It was through that story that I've managed to actually forgo all of the existential dread that I've been harboring. A deeply-rooted aversion to anything that may be 'discomforting' or even more specifically """dangerous""". My perception of it was so skewed that I still don't even know how to fucking drive. Something that everyone, almost universally can say I did good by helping a stranger I was scolded for because of the "danger". Yet, having experienced that story and being given a figure that has been able to cover for me to start to shed these fears that I had I've been able to actually do more and work to bettering myself. So thank you F.D. You've helped me put into perspective something that I've not understood for the past four months and why it has changed me, so I can't thank you enough for that.
I relate on so many levels. And really appreciate this type of content. I grew up in the UK and experienced many forms of micro to macro racism even in my family. I moved to the city when I had my son so that he would grow up with a sense of himself of a black person by being raised amongst other black people. What I didn't forsee was that he would experience gang culture, fear of death and fear of having to kill or be killed. Before he was even a teenager and after. I had overlooked that that was part of what it would mean to live that type of black experience. Whilst my brother and I faced threats and actual violence from our white peers, my son had to both love and fear his black peers. That is the life for so many black British boys. He says that he does not regret the move although it left him with debilitating anxiety. We have since moved to Metro Atlanta area, where my father's family live and are from. It completely flipped his experience, as it did mine, and he saw black and experienced the black middle class experience, with the PTSD that follows you from the hood. I meet so many other black boys how are recovering from the trauma of inner city life here in this clean, relatively safe county. Then my cousin Matthew Zadock Williams was murdered by the police in his own home. He was the victim of a Karen phone call and having not even left his own property in 6 years, having no record or experience of criminal activity, was chased by a swat team in to his home and murdered and left intentionally to bleed out whilst trying to reason with and deescalate the police, who had absolutely no reason to kill him. He was unarmed, non threatening, and had neither committed a crime or threatened the police. It's been a year and the officer who murdered him is still working, despite his mother and sisters protesting weekly outside the DA's office for the last year. Now it seems there is no way to keep my black son safe, if my educated, middle class aunt and cousins cannot even get a sliver of justice for their sweet gentle innocent brother. I have never been more aware of the danger inherent in being a black boy. Zadock was not even 35. My son is 16, and I fear for him every day. Thank you FD, for the work that you do. It is meaningful and necessary in more ways than you may know.
Excellent video with great talking points. I really appreciated the nuanced take on the "oreo" and "sellout" trope. But, I'd like to take it a bit deeper: Not all oreos are sellouts, and not all sellouts are oreos. Also, people don’t refer to themselves as Oreos or sellouts, those labels are cast upon them by the observing public (who no doubt have their own biases). I think there's a fine line there that needs to be discussed with a bit of care. I grew up in NYC (w/ some of my childhood spent in the suburbs of ATL), and due to my interests in anime, video games, skateboarding, and music that wasn't hip-hop I was labled as an oreo among both my black and white peers (mostly other black folks tho if I'm being honest). In middle school and high school the amount of bullying I experienced would make any sane person want to jump off of a cliff. I was "too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids", and I really internalized this idea until my mid/late-20s. The truth of the matter is this... I was looking for acceptance/validation of my blackness from my peers, but what I really needed was to accept my own version of being black. And I think that is an important message for black boys (black folks in general) - there's more than 1 way to be black and that personal expression doesn't make any better or worse than anyone else. It makes you YOU.
I grew up in a majorly white area as one of very few black people in my neighborhoods. From middle school to about my junior year of high school, I was called in Oreo until I lost my temper and lashed out at the people who called me that. I got picked on by white people and black people like cuz I didn't fit into either crowd because I was a nerd who loves comic books, anime and all that stuff. I've gone through the majority of my life thinking that I wasn't black enough to fit in with my family or other black people. Then as I got older I've realized that just because the way I show my blackness differently than others doesn't mean it's any less than how they show theirs. I've struggled with that for a long time and I'm still struggling with it. I lived in a majorly black area for 5 years and it helped immensely. I had to move out of that area because I got engaged but my hope is to move to an area with more black people and people of color so my kids won't feel alienated. That being said, I do take offense to the implication that my parents are sellouts because they moved to the suburbs. Nor am I one imho. I know the offense is not intended, as I realize you're not speaking to all black parents who move to the suburbs. Nor are you speaking to all of us who grew up in majorly white areas. That's just how I feel on that topic. Still though this was a great video and I appreciate your content keep up the good work!
I feel you on this. I'm biracial and definitely felt the "I don't fit in with either side" thing. I am actively trying to find a racially diverse area that is safe and yes in the suburbs. I don't feel bad for it. It's what I am able to pass on to my child and teach them through telling my story and fighting for injustice rather than first hand experience.
There's nothing Bad about going to the suburbs, the only problem is how to make sure the kids don't lose connections with black culture ( from popular to elitist black culture ), and this Can be learned..people are not responsible for where they grew up, people from the suburbs got to understand without taking this too personally, why people from the hood can't Always empathize with them despite being the same color.
Feel ya. I grew up with the oreo insults as well. Being nerdy and all and liking huge words and studying left me out in the open. I just accepted the fact that I'm likely to be always be alone in that sense. To have "friends/acquaintances" but don't really connect with them at best, or put up with their racist bs at worst because confronting them would put me in a very difficult situation with work. I'm introverted and prefer being alone than being with people, but sometimes I wonder, was I introverted by default? Or did I become more introverted because my experiences in my youth and being burned time and time again? Glad your in a better place now though.
I sympathize with Will in that I grew up in an abusive or household or one with turmoil. I remember my dad laying hands on my mom when I was little because he disapproved of an outfit she bought for herself, a red leather coat he thought looked hookerish. I remember hiding in my room hearing the screaming after I had saw him hit her. Big part of me regret not being able to doing anything silly because what could i do then? My dad didn't hit her anymore after that incident but she became so much subservient to his desire. However a lot of his verbal abuse was still directed to myself and my brother and from my brother onto me, physically/verbally. However I differ with Will but I don't know whether it may be culture because I am Asian. We don't have as much an emphasis on machoness nor the independance. From what I can tell from Black culture is this need to be seen and heard which is an interesting contrast to Asians whom are told to be mild manner and unassuming. I don't know wherre im going with this but just wanted to share my perspective.
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them" - Spinoza Seeking to understand another human beings actions does not automatically mean you condone them. That slap came from somewhere. The easy thing to do is to simply say: "that was a bad act, so Will Smith is a bad man, end of story." The fact you go beyond that is vastly appreciated.
Wow! FD, you and nephew Foreign make me so proud. I'm in my 50's and just recently had my hyper-vigilant behaviours pointed out to me. I still don't notice it in action. Interestingly, some 30+ years ago I knew the age that was when most black boys in Baltimore were either dead, or in jail. When I had the birthday that beat the statistics, I was so happy. As the oldest child and oldest maternal grandchild, I later learned if you beat the statistics many young men in your family won't. Don't know what I'm trying to say by sharing this. Maybe, just to say that Will Smith might be my age ( I know Jamie Foxx and Mr. Bond Daniel Craig are. Same month and everything) and this pain, this trauma can exist well into old age. Bell Hooks once asked 'why do a large proportion of black men grow old alone, separated from everyone. I've seen this with my Grandfather, Great Uncles, and older paternal cousins, not to mention my younger brothers. I get why some people want to remove their sons from what they feel is the source of this trauma, and end up just having them experience a different kind of trauma. This world. I look at you (no pressure), I look at Foreign (he's young and strong, so pressure his Carlton &$$!) and I have hope. I want to see the fruits of my hope before I die, which is why I sometimes rub people the wrong way. Anyhoo, enough of my babble. Big love!
This video took me back to my childhood. I grew up in an environment where I was physically and verbally abused and you could probably say molested. I have gone through more trauma since then. I hated being a boy because you were left to fend for yourself and no one cared. As a trans woman, no one still cares about me or wants to protect me. It pains me to know I live in a world that could care less about my pain and the monsters I've had to face, and then on top of that to be considered a monster for being trans. Sometimes, it's all too much to take.
I tell my wife all the time about my experience growing up as a Black man. Death has always seemed to be the consequence of any mistake we make in life. I guess I had a normal experiences growing up in NYC however, a lot of my day was prioritize around the fear of not getting hurt and making it home safely.
This video truly made me cry. I'm not a black boy and haven't experiences much of what was discussed in the video but your discussion about carlton and growing up in white space really resonated with me. I've had to deal with hearing the n word and not being able to say anything and then when I do, being entirely ostracised from any possible friendship. Your empathy for people who grew up in that way is astounding, as the "oreo" stereotype is something I've been labelled with especially being mixed.
As a recent fan of Chicago drill, this video was very important for me to see. That genre is very much powered by the pain and death within that community. Even if I love the music, because it is good, I need to never lose sight of that.
This topic reminds me of The Wires season 4 where they focused on a group of Black boys in the Baltimore Public School System. I remember how much the end of that season broke me because all these boys were talented and smart, yet poverty and violence still won.
Definitively the wire gave us opportunity to see the kids they used to be before becoming this thugs on mugshots that WE are all afraid of..that was pure sociology made into television
Facts. In the dance industry where I work, there's a striking lack of diversity and lack of willingness to address the true things that block access to or impede a child's education. Every time the government decides to cut dance in public schools, they bar access to hundreds of kids who NEED that type of free, positive extra curricular activity. Im 23 now, but I hope I live to see black people raised to the esteem and grandeur of "classical" art . Being able to see yourself represented among the most cherished cultural institutions is important :((( This is why we need to fund the arts in public schools
The darkest most fucked up irony in Michael's arc that season is that he didn't even have to sell his soul to Marlo because he had people who could have helped him somehow with his stepdaddy problem but because he was so hurt and betrayed and didn't trust anyone he didnt see it. He didnt see Cutty only wanted to help him until it was too late for him
WHEW. This was a heavy one, and I am but a Black woman. I had to take a break around the 37 min mark. What was so real for me, thus far in the video, is how as someone who grew up in the Metro Atlanta area I completely missed the amount of characters who died in the TV show "Atlanta". Part of that is because they were side characters -- the audience wasn't given any reason to connect with them. But, another part of that is because that is just the reality of living in -- or in close proximity to -- minority or impoverished neighborhoods. Maybe you know someone who was murdered, maybe it was a friend of a friend. Maybe you know someone in jail for murder, maybe it's a friend of a friend. And that's just... Normal. I don't like to think on it often, but my childhood in Brooklyn and Atlanta had a consistent undercurrent of hyper-vigilence and nearly palpable fear of death. But when I went to college at a PWI -- also in the Metro Atlanta area -- it felt like a Bel-Air-like transition. I was only about a 45-minute drive away from where I grew up, but I felt miles away from my childhood. In this predominantly white and more affluent community, if there was a murder, the whole community was "shocked" , the case would be on the news for days, and police were actually investigating. This new community was by no means perfect, but the challenges felt mostly... Solvable. This is turning into a blog post 😂 But wow, ya gurl is triggerdt 🥴 And I am but a Black woman
Foreword: this kinda turned into a word vomit where I think I end up answering my own oblivious question, but I’m leaving it up because someone else left a snarky comment about the same thing I originally asked about, so clearly I’m not the only one who missed why that was actually relevant. -- Thanks for sharing this mini blog post. Trauma is everywhere, but it’s crazy how much worse it is for certain social groups. The reason I’m commenting is because I don’t understand why you twice motioned that you are “but a Black woman.” I thought it was odd the first time, but especially so when you said it again I closing. I hope this curiosity doesn’t come off as ill-intentioned in any way. I’m just genuinely trying to understand why you wanted to make that clear. This is coming from someone who feels like they always have to clarify that I’m a white (pansexual) man, and often feel like I just shouldn’t say anything that all because my frame of reference is impossible to align. I think that’s why it struck me as so strange to see what seems to be a similar feeling coming from someone that is actually Black, even if you’re not a man, so you don’t experience the same struggles. Idk. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it or ignorant to how vastly different the experience of the average black woman is compared to a black man. And, I guess, why wouldn’t it be…? Remove the adjective “black,” and it’s obviously true that men and women have different experiences. I think I just answered my own stupid question, and am now realizing that I missed how much this video was specifically about the average Black *male* experience-not the Black experience as a whole. No pressure to respond. I know it’s not your job to explain anything.
@@maxleveladventures I think you pretty much got it yourself. There are a lot of experiences that black women and men share, but there are also experiences that one group experiences more than the other.
This hits different…man, I wonder how many brothas went through the same thing. Fight or flight, choosing your routes walking in your neighborhood, avoiding altercations (because you know someone is going to jump in), storing away the trauma you seen growing up, having to hide your true self to fit in, and not fixing it until your late adulthood (psychology therapy)🤦🏾♂️Lawd knows, salute to all that made it🤴🏾
I feel like the white gaze in my personal life goes for females too. I feel exactly like that almost everywhere. I've never had a word for it. Hyper vigilance, they told me it was a good thing so I never associated it with exactly what is hurting. I was a nerd when i was in the hood and i got bullied for the 2 seconds i was there. I wasnt black enough. Then as a kid a became a weird morph of will and carlton. My life became to full of lies i became obsessed with the truth and making sure i never lied because my existence was a lie, I felt dehumanized. I got paranoid and assumed because of what i look like i was an animal i needed to find a way to hide in broad daylight while being as "good" as possible. By the time i graduated i was a mess. Took years to be better and recognize.
Definitively, it's all about finding your place, trying to belong and survive why navigating different groups it's even harder for soft tender smart black men cuz toxic masculinity is Also a byproduct of toxic feminity in black community..but AT the end of the day it's all about surviving..
This. I remember someone calling me an Oreo, when my last school was a predominantly black, all girl school. Like...of course I would worry about my grades...like so did everyone else.
@@Zarsla i heard Jay-Z on a linkin park song it was my favorite song for a long time, i couldn't listen to it in public because my friends would say "turn off that white people music." I stopped listening to music all together it became "feminine" to me along with wanting things and expressing emotion. I got really toxic.
Bro, the constant thought about death hurts SO much more than people understand. What if I get stopped by this officer and I'm ANOTHER Black man shot and killed...what if I get held up at gunpoint by another Black man and get shot and killed....what if this genetic high blood pressure kills me...the constant thoughts about death is so overwhelming...it sucks man...
I grew up mixed with no black figures in my life. At some point we moved out to a town in Arkansas where the nearest town was half an hour way. When driving around, different friends would tell me which areas to avoid because “they don’t like black people” and imply they would shoot at me. A lot of people at the school asked for the N-pass and I felt I was in a really bad position so I gave it out. It didn’t even feel like a real question, like we both already knew what the answer was.
I will never forget being in high school and randomly bursting into tears during the day, after reading, then watching a mini-doc about the case of Emmett Till at the time having a little brother his same age. Or the time I very recently sat my brother down to watch 'When They See Us' and the way he hugged me so tight before going to bed nearly broke me. I know you know this was not an easy video to make. All the flowers to you for taking the time and energy to vulnerably divulge and critically examine the intricacies of black boyhood. Videos like these are an incredibly impactful starting point of reference for anyone who comes across this. I know you know this is needed F.D, and I thank you so much for even making an attempt (and thus executing beautifully) a video such as this. Much love
@@fabulouseddie9488 he didn’t. but even if he was, what happened to him was not deserved. had it been a little wyte boy, he probably would’ve gotten a stern talking to or the lady would’ve laughed him off.
I know you weren’t really mentioning animation but you did mention Miles Morales but I think Craig of the Creek is worth mentioning I definitely felt represented by him as my childhood was similar to his it was a nice wholesome realistic non hood representation of black boyhood; and also the new wonder years is good too
Having the weird experience of moving to America from Ethiopia a country with little western influence in its core traditions and having to reconcile the prejudice black people face in this country all while growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood has given me the strangest experience of blackness. Shit I didn't really see as bad back then hit me like a truck now like .....wow they were one microagression away from calling me a slur??? I feel so alienated but also so connected to the culture here and it feels like I'm constantly having to confirm to myself that I am black enough and there is no "right" way for me to be a black person. Carlton reminds me so much of thr very few black kids who were born in America I saw in my neighborhood and school and some of his experience even resonates with me so while I really disliked him I felt a strange sense of understanding and recognization. This video really has helped me contextualize a lot of that too.
I'm Colombian, specifically from Medellín, and I LOVE that you brought up how apathy in young men growing up in impoverished communities happen everywhere. There's a 1990s movie produced here in Medellín called "Rodrigo D: No Futuro (Rodrigo D: No Future)" that depicts precisely that sense of nihilism, apathy, and unresolved trauma that Pablo Escobar's drug empire and capitalism brought into the lives of impoverished young men here. As always, I thank you for the opportunity to learn so much from your videos 🙌🏽
I'm from Bogotá and I went to live in Medellín for a year, and the apathy I saw from classmates towards subjects like drugs and the bullying they subjected to other students and myself because we were different in any way is something that always stuck to me. Of vourse Bogotá wasn't much different. Edit: *ISN'T much different.
I don’t think that - “giving them the n-word pass” is comparable or expressive of the type of situation. Specifically “the n-word pass” is a white construct. Specifically, it is a token or ticket to say the n-word, but what makes this different is the nature of its restraint. The n-word pass is all encompassing. It doesn’t care about context or company. It doesn’t care. The nature of black people who “let” white peers say the n-word in white spaces is one of a power imbalance and a survival tactic. You stop white people from saying the word when you can but every time you do, you risk safety and social credit.
@@blade7506 I think not caring is a side effect to knowing you have no good options. You either address it verbally which often leads to the person claiming it was a joke or brushing it off. Or you address it physically which usually lands you in more trouble than the person who said the word. So black people who don't care are socialized into not wanting to be forced into the role of racism police.
@@blade7506 Then you have to blame those individuals too. You have to call out racist behavior. Sure, it’s uncomfortable when you are underage, or a young adult (18 - 20). But if you are 21 + allowing non-black folks saying the n-words. Shame on you, especially if you’re Black, or mixed with Black🤷🏾♂️💯
No it's not. Stop speaking for others. The reason many black people don't care if a white person uses the word around them is because they understand context matters more than the word itself. You don't speak for them. You don't know them. Stop.
There’s a great play running in London right now called For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy. It explores so much of what this video covers in a beautiful, difficult, funny and ultimately life-affirming way. I have to imagine it’ll be picked up by theaters in the US at some point in the near future, but i think the script is available online as well
This is one of the greatest video essays i've ever seen. You are extremely measured, articulate and engaging in a way that I haven't seen on TH-cam before.
I appreciate hearing and seeing the black male perspective on this topic that isn't the one hurled by The red pill/ alpha male community. I want love and protection for black women and black men that isn't intertwined with violence.
💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾
I agree with you Mili🙌🏾‼️
As a black man I completely agree these conversations is what I’ve been waiting for honestly 😂
For the longest time, the only sources who would even tangentially approach these issues (without the veil of weird white knighting) was the Jordan Peterson or Thomas Sowell crowd, hoping to capitalize on all these gross misrepresentations.
Thanks Fiq, for another excellent and powerful insight
The red pill community isn't pro violence on woman. Maybe you've listen to the wrong ones. The legit black ted pillars are. BGS ibmor, Green gorilla. Not fresh and fit b.s.
Being reminded of the normalization of black death in America, I couldn't help but connect it to the conflict in Ukraine. Hearing so many american reporters and media outlets openly stating how unusual it is to see so many people that "look like them" die or engage in/with violence... The lack of self awareness across the board was very telling to me..
That juxtaposition has been so jarring…especially with how allegedly aware and conscious mainstream media have been these past few years relating to issues of bias in coverage and racism. They so easily slipped back to their old tricks.
Most black deaths are by black people so the lefty media doesn’t report on it
Yeah they really went mask off on that one.
“So many people who look like us are dying.”
Black people : “first time?”
@@melmelhodgepodge3800 they’ve been doing that for awhile, huh?
As someone who has been following not only Wills movie carrer but his documentaries as well, I could instantly tell that The Slap was the culmination of years of 'letting things go' until he could no longer do so.
I have no idea why that night was THE NIGHT he was no longer able to let jokes slide or insults bounce off, but we all have moments where we forget were we are and go into attack mode. Only difference is that His moment was in front of cameras and nobody realized what was happening until it was too late.
that's a good point. i don't know, but in a way, I think it's hard to know what's happening with a celebrity.
I think the fact that it was supposed to be a night of honour for him, being awarded the ultimate respect of winning an Oscar, and that same night being disrespected by having a fellow black American man (who should be cheering him on and lifting him up, imo) insult his wife.. it's quite galling when you look at it that way. I can totally understand why he did what he did. Fuck Chris Rock. The guy has not been funny for a long time. Dunno what the Academy were thinking hiring him to MC the event. Kind of seems like deliberately creating a perfect storm to generate publicity for to boost their flagging viewership and waning relevance.
@@rhythmandblues_alibi was the joke even that bad? I understand it was a boiling point for will smith, but Chris Rock doesn’t seem that bad in this situation
@@cantthinkofaname5046 it doesn't need to be 'that bad' I think. We're talking about a last straw after years of taking it on the chin and letting it go. Typically when you've suppressed reactions so long the last straw won't be big on its own, that's why it's hard to anticipate the person's breaking point. Have you never, on a smaller or different scale, just snapped at something innocent someone's said or done that you normally could shrug off but that day you'd already shrugged off more than you could take?? I know I have. And I've been lucky it's not been in front of cameras, and I could apologise to the people I snapped at and work with them, myself and help to understand why I got triggered and hopefully manage it better in the future. I was also lucky to be met with kindness and empathy in the aftermath, and not 'but I didn't do anything that bad'.
I hope I'm making sense and I'm not too far off the mark.
@@stephr2980 do you slap a person? Or hit them? Assault them in any way? Or just blow up? Will is black but so is Chris! And will isn't the victim in this. He's not a victim in any way.
Growing up as a black boy I struggled a lot with my identity, especially being an immigrant black boy. I was tall and dark, to a lot of people that was intimidating. Slowly the social barriers that be forced me to fit a mold of “black swagger”, as I started to embody that swagger people became enamoured with my character, I became more popular, and overall my social life became way better.
I’m now only realizing why I forced myself to embody that caricature of black charisma.
I’m also reflecting on why I am the way I am today, and the conformities I made to appease my white counterparts.
This is so powerful unc. I’m only thirty minutes in and I’ve cried a hell of a lot.
I relate to this comment so much. For my entire life I have had “no rhythm “ and social anxiety and so it’s been so difficult to “fit in” with other black people. As if being cool was paramount to being black and that always caused problems for me when it came to finding my identity. The other side of it being a black boy who is more timid and passive has been one of the biggest struggles in my life having the message that I’m “too soft” continually beat into me by every environment I’ve been in almost like it’s an inescapable stereotype that I should just give into. All of that has caused me to feel othered and less receptive to engaging in black culture.
I have a different black experience from you but I still forced myself to adopt the "black swagger" but for different reasons. Same thing goes for forcing myself to conform to white society. I'm 32 minutes in and this is the third time I've had to pause the video. It's way too powerful. This video is so much, it made my wife cry through second hand exposure through me.
@@gt3420 ......... wow. I *never* related to a comment more than THIS!
Thank you for sharing that 🙏🏿
♂️🖤💜🌼💚♀️ to all the brothers, with love from the sisters x
I am asian, but I grew up in poverty, and my father was absent, and abused me growing up. I used to eat ramen 7 days a week, and lived in motel rooms at times in my life.
I find often I have to hide behind the stereotypes of my culture. When you said, "black boyhood is hell", I started to cry, and I wasn't sure why. I felt there are many aspects of my childhood experience that have amalgamated itself into my personality in ways that naturally harbor many negative feelings. It's hard to deal with many days, and many do not, or cannot, understand.
I guess I just wanted to say thanks for making this video. It is nice to understand the self through thorough and fresh perspectives from other cultures. It makes me ultimately understand my own sense of manhood in a more layered way, that genuinely makes me feel strangely less anxious. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing
Thanks for this response, made me understand my own reactions
@@mjxtacreaixe Ooh a family member.
Reading your comment tugged at my heart… thanks for sharing your story
@D S, definitely can understand that. A lot of topics mentioned in the video intersect with poverty and classism. Even though we don’t look the same, we go through those issues.
When you talked about how scarce are young black men representation, I immediately thought about "Everybody Hates Chris". This show is SO big in Brazil that you can't imagine. Everybody knows the characters to the point of quote the show in casual conversation. And I believe that it's because much of that representation echoes in brazilian real experiences, much more than even the entertainment generated here, that has a strong white middle/upper class perspective. Yeah, I know that people harass poor Tyler James Williams a lot on the internet, but it's only to catch his attention. If he came to Brazil to a convention or something, people would go crazier than when Backstreet Boys came, he is kinda of a superstar here.
I got some numbers about Everybody Hates Chris. The channel that he was on has an average of 4,5 points of audience. When Everybody Hates Chris starts, it goes up to 7,9. In fact, it's the most watched thing on the channel, tied with their most important news program. And Everybody Hates Chris goes at 11 a.m., while their news goes on prime time.
Tichina Arnold, that we know as Rochelle already came to Brazil, and Terry Crews (Julius) also recorded some messages. And I get to say that I still call Abbott Elementary "the new Chris's show".
Why do people dislike TJ Williams?
@@freebandz4332nobody dislikes him🤷🏾♂️😂😂 he’s a hood legend. And is now getting his flowers on a Large scale. 🙏🏾
buddy im sorry but its so much deeper than that...
Yall wanna be from brooklyn
As a black kid that always seemed to be accepted more by non-black people (I was the "black nerd" or "the outcast" growing up), I felt that, in order to keep those people around, I had to accept things I wasn't comfortable, like giving n-word passes. There was a point where I even convinced myself that it was okay and that the word "should have no meaning". It wasn't until I found genuine love and friendship in other black people that I regained my sense of self, but even to this day I don't think they can understand the level of disassociation that came with that and why I felt that it was necessary. So, with that, I appreciate that you can show empathy to that perspective.
Oh yea it used to be hard navigating nerd spaces for that kind of thing. It’s super common
I’m no nerd and always stopped racism, but I was always the one giving it to my own family. It was such a weird space. I listened to Queen B’s Lemonade Album and gainer my sense of self. Lord it was a dark place.
I've never had a close black friend, thinking about it now, that's kinda weird, all my classes had like 1 or 2, maybe 4 (including me) black people, so I never really got to know another black person, to the point where seeing another black person so into their culture and knowing all these prominent black figures is extremely jarring, I just don't have the same emotional connection as they do. I guess that's growing up in a European country.
@@s0ne01 where I'm from in the states, black culture is abundant. But if you're the "other" in a black community, you're not accepted as much. And that was my experience. So, we have or had the same kind of dilemma in different ways I guess
Youre problem is you think youre the only weird one in the room. You think you have to be the same as some one to connect to them.
Had the privilege of editing this video and damn all I can say is that experience was an absolute dream! Especially being able to work on a project where Fiq was able to take what could initially just be seen as a gossip column moment and turn into it a deep nuanced analysis worth every moment of work. Thanks again fiq!
Needless that new bel Air ain't it fam its alright I could do better like growing up as a young black man I had to grow up fast I was a man before I was ready to be one sending get to process like emontions like I got called corny lame boring it hurt that people that looked like me thought this .all because I liked other stuff and I dated white women
The editing really took this to the next level!
You did a great job Needless👏🏾‼️
You did a fantastic job!! Thank you!!
your skills are next level sir
I needed to see this video.
I am a middle aged white female who teaches in a predominantly black school district at a middle school that is 95 percent black.
I am in no way qualified to have conversations with boys about masculinity, much less about the complexities of black masculinity in America.
This year, my students really needed me to. Some students would approach me directly and tell me they needed to talk about the thoughts they had been having. Some would try to draw me into a conversation indirectly.
For example, one day I came back from bus duty and found this question written on a small dry erase board and placed on my reading table:
What is a black man?
I wrote a pat answer:
a thinker, a doer, an artist, a creator, a dad, a son, a husband, a giver of love, a receiver of love, the future.
The girls read it aloud to each other as they walk into class the next day. They liked it. The boys looked at it, said nothing, and moved on. The answer clearly fell short.
This year my boys were boisterous, radiant, charming, aggravating, funny as hell, into girls, and almost always smiling, but underneath I could tell some were staring into the void. I understand what might be lying beneath much better, now.
Black men are the present, too.
@@djfeelingswhat
@BrokenClocks_ thank you!!!
Thats the problem
Yeah. As a black 21 kid about to graduate. That nihilism is real. I'm about to graduate as the highest ever achiever in my departments entire history and I just don't care. It's just depressing. Nothing matters. I didn't grow up in the hood. I grew up as the only black person in what would become a posh suburb as working class. I didn't out up with the white gaze and suffered for it. I was constantly fighting, physically, mentally, emotionally. Bro why am I even writing this or getting emotional. It's weird but, it is what it is. Applying for a masters. I like my course but don't plan to be around long. Under 27 or under 25 at this point. I don't even care anymore
Bro, i Hope it gets better..i Hope you got people who Care about you and more important people that you Care about..
It sounds like you need help fam. Please talk to someone about how you're feeling.
I feel you, cause I came up almost the exact same way, even though I got 17 years on you. Working class kid that got into a private school, both as a charity case and through my own merit (jumped a year forward). The place I came up in was small, you could count the amount of other black kids in the city on both hands and I was only one of three in my entire school.
This other black person who happened to be in the same year as me was THE over achiever and kept up with it throughout school. I, on the other hand, started slipping, the social anxiety that comes with dealing with all that was getting to me and I stared to act out. My grades started slipping, I started drinking, partying, as early as 14 years old, just generally being a problem which eventually led to me being expelled, all while I was encasing myself in this armor of the kind of nihilistic apathy FD talks about here. Wasn't till my 30's till I started figuring this shit out and I'm still at it.
There's so much more I wanted to say but I'm getting too chocked up myself. I hope it doesn't take you as long as I have to come to some sort of peace with it all. Take care of yourself.
@@RandroidPrime bro it's like you're speaking my language. I was in gifted programs, magnet programs, surrounded by the "smart" white kids, struggling to keep going. When my grandmother died I just gave up. Test scores in the stratosphere but I graduated high school with like a 1.6 gpa. I just didn't care. Started partying and didn't stop for damn near 10 years. Now I'm within spitting distance of 40 and trying to pick some stuff up, it's hard. I'm glad to see more people with "atypical" life stories and paths reaching out and relating to younger folks, I can't imagine how valuable that would have been to me coming up.
Counseling and support groups helped me get past it, the things I thought I was supposed to care about werent the things I actually cared about.
I just kept hunting for answers and the more i search the more that numbness goes away.
It also helped me trying new things that were way outside my comfort zones and were drastic shifts from what i was doing, even moving and travelling can help just broaden your perspective.
I can totally relate to the white gaze thing but i feel like i learned from it more than suffered from it. (Even though people tried to make me suffer from it, i just stopped giving a shit at some point).
But idk all of that is hella relatable dude but i second fd, gotta talk to someone
52:30 black person that grew up in an white community here 🙋🏿♀️this is an excellent point. We end up compromising in degrading ways in order to survive. Not having a black community to fall back on and support you causes a kind of trauma that isn’t discussed enough.
Having a financial safety net only goes so far when a lot of that safety net is dependent upon compliance in some way shape or form.
Yeah but the Black community isn't going to help you as much
Well that is kinda sad ,cant the people in your community help you even if they are not black?
@@dude9318 when the experiences are *so* different from one another, it’s almost impossible to help another person relate and be all the comfortable in that area
its literally traumatizing. stop raising black kids in white suburbs damnit.
Growing up as a Black boy in Essex, England, so much of this video provides the language and framework to better understand myself. Thank you for treating Black boys as worthy of love.
All black boys are worthy of love. They were never worth lesser than, only treated as such cuz of hate
@@avacadomangobanana2588
Nobody is safe around black boys either, we have our own safety to be concerned with
ur deffo from chelmo, basil or thurrock if not i’m so sorry for how u grew up
Wrong wrong it’s simply entertainment people they lie about their real names lives on down thee people are actors and you are taking them to serious
@@adamprice3466FACTS💯🤷🏾♀️
As someone who was called an Oreo or a "white girl trapped in a Black's girl's body" throughout her youth, I'm def here for more of that breakdown and conversation. This video convinced me to watch the reboot. Thank you!
How can you center yourself so hard that you want your identity pulled out of another persons body. I need a word that hits harder than "vampire".
@@neonlove1289 huh?
@@tiffanyraykrueger8621 telling someone they're a white person stuck in a black persons body
I'm glad FD made the distinction here that having a unique personality or being different is fine and not a bad thing, your just being yourself. Your not a Oreo even if people say you are, he mostly defined a true Oreo is an black person who's anti black and actively doesn't support black people at all with pride, like the lady he brought up in the video. So don't worry about it, as long as your a decent person and not terrible like her your cool. Just be yourself.
Haha! I was called this in school too. Or called out for being a valley girl or “proper”. It’ll be a benefit when you’re older…. Which reminds me TK (the rapper) grew up where I did. Super affluent area, yet somehow he grew up wanting to play with guns and rap.
A lot of kids did in that area, white included. Parents threaten them with military or rehab. They would clean up their act, take the SAT and went to the “Ivy leagues” of the south. Started over like nothing happened, myself included. The biggest difference between those who make it and those who don’t is their parents giving a damn. That simple fact will never not bother me.
I remember choking a white guy in a mostly white suburban high school I attended who called me the n-word and I thought I was going to be suspended but to my surprise, the the teacher was also highly offended and gave me a pass and even chastised the other guy
Lucky thing to have a nice teach like this,I had it worse.
Even though my transition was about 5 years ago when i was at school I snapped and beaten up a bully,when I was trying to justify myself to the principal he replied : "If you stopped being all girly maybe people wouldn't mess with you."
Damn, no parents Ronald? If you had a real one you'd know violence earns violence. For a word some ignorant fool said you'd risk your entire life and create a criminal record? Cmon man
Good.
(Up the 'Ra!)
@@Auromaxis At the very least get his name right if you're going to lecture him. Like damn dude.
@@sepulcher8263 I know right, it's RIGHT THERE LMAO. the secondhand embarrassment
Man. Speaking as a black kid who grew up too black for the white kids and too white for the black, never really feeling like I fit in because of the way my folks had to move around throughout my childhood and how their labor allowed us to live pretty well once I hit a certain age, in one of the most black cities in the south, this really spoke to me. I won't say that I understand everything as everyone's experience with their identity is different and their are definitely some blind spots I have, but I get it and I appreciate the work that was put in here.
I did too
Earl Sweatshirt reference
I honestly hate when people say that 😭 but I understand you bro. Just gotta find your place G
Will Smith is an example of how being the “safe” black person ultimately doesn’t matter. It simply becomes a silent countdown to when you finally do something the people who merely tolerated you don’t like before they want you gone. I’m not saying he should have done what he did, but I’m speaking to the hypocritical and, frankly, racist responses his action has gotten (outside of general dislike/concern, respectability politics from non-black AND black folks, etc.). The Academy has awarded white child predators, abusers, and all manner of people. But it hits different when the person is black.
And that’s something for any black person trying to get validation in a largely non-black space needs to keep in mind. Because, while I’m mild mannered and have never popped off like this or otherwise, I have had more than one experience of thinking I was friends with a non-black person only for me to do one thing they didn’t like (not even something bad/rude/confrontational), I was suddenly persona non grata to them. It could be disagreeing with them on their assumptions about race, telling a harmless, generalized joke about them after putting up with multiple race-based jokes about me, suddenly being blacker than they realized I always have been, telling them not to touch my hair, etc.
Don’t value that exceptional status (not saying he did, nor am I saying I did, as I didn’t realize the status until it became apparent), because it is wont to change.
Dang this is a pessimistic essay take, hope you will do better.
FWIW, you don't have to be Black to be ghosted like that. The "status" can be revoked from pretty much anyone with a visible "minority" (racial/gender/socioeconomic/neurological/etc.) identity or otherwise weakened social status in a group. Not saying it doesn't happen FAR more easily or frequently to Black people, especially Black men, but there's a reason we have so many movies like Mean Girls out there. American society is a bunch of piranhas. I think the biggest trick that powerful white men pulled was in generating the idea that cliques are a "girl" thing, as if those country clubs and private getaways and secret societies were... someone's wife's idea?
@@vt3039 the good ol trick of painting every fucked up thing feminine so the patriarch can do the same and not be scrutinised. Same method with the dominant classes with the poor classes. Seems paradoxical but it works so often I don't know what to say
Well, sure, there has been plenty of horrid racist crap, but even if Clint Eastwood or Tom Hanks walked up and smacked a man in the face I think its fair to say they would suffer heavy criticism.
I do think its sad that people seem to think its OK to say horrible stuff about them because he did something wrong. They are still human beings
I totally get what you mean dude.
I was the "white girl in a black girl's body" growing up in white suburbia. My father grew up in the same suburb during the race riots, so he chose to raise his kids in the same town he grew up in. I have some advice for those like me who grew up in white spaces. If you want to go to college, really REALLY consider an HBCU. Yes, you are black enough. You will find a group of black nerds, outcasts, and weirdos like yourself and you will fit in just fine. There is bound to be an HBCU that offers the academic programs you are looking for. HBCUs other than Howard, Morehouse, and Spellman exist. No shade to those three schools. I love them to death, but there are 107 HBCUs out there and they all need support and love and recognition.
Y'all are not nerds or weirdos, street dudes wish they could find a girl that ain't been touched on too much and intelligent and different
@@laymonsavage2825😂I'm an HBCU grad and I agree about the first part but disagree on the 2nd. 😅There are some HBCU girls like that but most are wild afffff.
@@laymonsavage2825 ''street dudes'' smh. This is the problem. You making her believe that college girls are meant to be for street dudes and the other problem is, graduated women fantasizing about this. It's a crazy world, it don't make sense! This is how we get broken homes and fatherless children over and over again. But hey, I can't stop people from being attractive to what they are attractive to, so I don't know why I bothered commenting 😂
At my HBCU, there is a whole ass anime club, but okay.
@@laymonsavage2825 Being with a street dude doesn't sound like a good time.
I live in Memphis, Tennessee. I was in the DMV waiting to be called to get my license, and behind me were a father and a son. Dad said to his son, "If you can survive South Memphis you can survive the military. I did it." It broke me. It broke me in half and I was in public so I couldn't cry, I couldn't turn around and be like that's not right tho. You shouldn't have ever been forced to live that life, to struggle like that because of the lack of resources, leadership, and genuine love for the poorest peoples in Memphis. I'll never forget it. I wish I could show them this video. Our black fathers, sons, daughters and moms, everybody, all black people should never have to tell their children that in hopes of bolstering them against the world they know is vicious towards their children. It will always hurt.
34:00 this part hit so hard. I remember being in a bookstore at age 12 and then suddenly realizing that the employees were following me. Honestly that moment traumatized me so much and that's no were close to being the worse thing that happened. It only set the stage for what was to come.
It happens to me in Japan too, and so I typically just blast the stores in online reviews. But each time it happens, the angrier I get. It’s to the point where I’m glad when it’s clear there are cameras, and I feel like I WANT them to watch me on there so they can see their instant assumptions about me are wrong, while resenting having to feel that way. I’m at the point where I’ve decided that if it happens one more time, I’m saying something. They already act scared/suspicious of us, so what do I care? I’m not one to turn up, but I’m tired of not being assertive and calling the b.s. out like I would in America because I don’t want to make waves. But if I don’t ever go back to stores that treat me that way (and I don’t), I might as well let them have it for my own peace of mind because I’m TIRED.
I had the same experience. I'm white
@@DirtyDawg Good for you, I guess?
@@QuinnsIdeas not really. I'm also a ginger and my life was hard because of that
@@DirtyDawg no one asked
I’ve never had someone speak about the reality of being black in those AP classes and music programs with mostly white kids. I made those compromises and I’ve always been ashamed of them. I was just trying to survive like you said but it’s one of those things that I never felt okay with. Like it’s how I survived in the white wildness and now I don’t talk about it.
That was me in AP and gifted classes and being the only black person on the soccer team. I literally went to the houses/spent time around teammates’ racist parents without realizing it until later (when the teammates would tell me) but having a feeling that their exclusive coldness towards me meant something.
same here. only black person in mist of my classes, 1 of 2 black people in my choir and on my volleyball team. im also not proud of compromises I’ve made. I transferred to a majority white school from an majority black school this year and I’ve noticed a lot of shit I’ve let slide here at my new school that i would’ve never been okay with at my old school.
Yeah I think that made me go to Morehouse, the. HBCU, for undergrad. Aside from scholarship, I couldn’t take it any more.
The worst part is the fact you got to live with the feeling of shame because of these compromises you made..
Imagine if people who move to Japan and accommodate the prevailing culture there used the same language you use, like they're some sort of victim for choosing to follow and respect the culture around them.
You're being told a lie and being lead to believe that you have to act a certain way due to the color of your skin. You're more than that. Act like it.
Man this hit close to home and made me a bit emotional. This is the exact same dynamic between me and my best friend. He's the lightskin pretty boy who grew up in the hood and has the street swagger. I grew up in the hood until middle school and then I grew up around white people. I've always been really book smart and introverted and had interest outside of most black men so I got labeled with the oreo title as I got older. The reason we're so close is because a lot of the interests he doesn't normally show to most, we have them in common like gaming, anime, and other "nerd" type stuff. Plus I can also relate to some of the hood stuff. I'm only a little only halfway thru but this is definitely one of my favorite channels. Your video on Lauryn hill is what I seen first and that drew me in, this video made me subscribe. Amazing videos so far, I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of your videos.
I worked for a tutoring company over Covid and I was asked to work at a bipoc tutoring center for kids that was basically just a place for their parents to put them for some daycare and learning when everything was crazy w Covid and parents couldn’t have their kids in daycare everyday for affordability etc.
The other regular teachers there were bipoc women, and although all the kids were too there was one black boy who was much darker than the other kids. I was just kind of amazed with the harsh way they were speaking to this young child for spilling some water or accidentally hitting another kid at the playground (you know stuff most 8 year olds do) and I made a conscious effort to help him in these situations as the kid was obviously homesick, and ask if he wanted a hug after being yelled at. I cannot tell you how long this young boy hugged me for, just crying he wanted to go home, and it broke my heart I was just constantly telling him no I know it was an accident, you’re a good kid, etc.
Idk i was just surprised that those working at the center couldn’t see the implicit biases there were acting on even in an all poc space, and how, especially with children, it matters how you characterize them and making sure you don’t label a young black boy a “bad kid” for making normal kid mistakes that the other kids were making as well because kids pick up on those differences in treatment.
Colorism is a huge problem worldwide. It’s mostly against women and girls, but also against little boys. That at least changes for boys (in the black community, anyway) when they become men. It, unfortunately, does not for girls/women.
I remember being in Primary School in the early ‘90s and without consciously thinking about it, implicitly understanding that I had to put in work to avoid being labelled a “bad boy”, because the teachers have this way of being around boys with that label. For some reason I always felt that I had to tread extra carefully to not attain that label, like there was an expectation that I was more likely to be bad so kept an eye on. Maybe because of how seemingly easily the label was given to other black boys who came and went in my class.
It’s hard to explain since I only realised this a few weeks ago but it probably ties into the whole “white gaze” idea. In addition, these teachers were OG Boomers born in the ‘40s early ‘50s.
Make no mistake, there is no “BIPOC” solidarity or whatever. Black people will always be seen as “the bottom” of the manufactured racial hierarchy. There is no escape from such treatment, whether you're a child or not.
@@slothful2039 And WHO created that racial hierarchy, sir? Brown people are not the problem. White people love to see brown & black people fight, people they perceive as "less than" already, we are all the same to them, i.e. less than fully human. You are feeding into white supremacy but go off.
I hope you confronted your fellow instructors about their racial biases!! There is a lot of research backed literature about how real this harmful bias is. A great book to cite is "Why are all the black kids sitting together?" by Beverly D Tatum but there are countless articles you can forward to them. That kind of treatment is unacceptable and most teachers do not consciously engage in them (if they do you can report them!).
I'm really glad to hear a take on this that is sympathetic and empathetic to both Chris Rock and Will Smith. There's a lot going on here. It's complicated, and there's more to it than 'one is the good guy, one is the bad guy'. Will has PTSD, and that isn't getting discussed much in the discourse, but you're willing to actually pause and look deeper and I respect that so much about you as a video essayist.
Yeah August alsina gave him ptsd I bet
Why Will don't talk first with Chris R. and tell him before the ceremony" Hey listen Jada's alopecia is kinda a touchy subject for her right now,can you please don't make any Joke about that "
@@dr.cheeks3589 because how would he know that Chris was going to make the joke? Chris went off the cuff according producers.
@@kbmariontv1736 I mean before the monologue of Chris
@@dr.cheeks3589 if Fiq’s interpretation is right, it seems likely Will might not have predicted he would react that strongly
As a black woman and a mom I so appreciate your perspectives on this stuff. I want to be that safe place for my son, even for the things I may not fully understand. I can't say enough how much I appreciate you.
I'm South African and I completely relate to the "oreo" trope. We call it being a coconut, white on the inside, brown on the outside. Contrary to the general consensus, we do have white people here and there are a lot of them😅 and what makes me relate to the Black American experience so much is we have a very similar history, and growing up with and around your oppressor really messes with your self image. I was raised/am from the "hood" but I went to predominantly white schools because my parents, like a lot of black people in my country, consider proximity to whiteness as proximity to success. I remember many moments where my white 'friends'/peers would use racial slurs, say these racist "jokes" or whatever and I would just freeze in the moment, every time it happened, because I felt like I was betraying my race by creating an environment where they thought it was acceptable for them to be racist but I also didn't want to be treated like an outsider for speaking up. I constantly found myself in internal conflict because of having to switch who I was performing all the time. It's taken me so long to even figure out who I am, what my values are etc. I'm still navigating it and I'm 23😅 being black is so complicated, even as a child it's just a constant mental battle
What’s your point do you not like white people try being white in a majority black an brown neighbourhood
@@SCrEenNaMe-i9h my point is to show how much I related to both the characters of Carlton and Will, but more so Carlton because of my personal experience and how like FD said, there's a lot to be explored with that oreo trope. Not sure what you're talking about but it seems like you're projecting so maybe reread my comment if you want more clarity on everything.
@@dianakhumalo6905 Ignore him, obviously he's a troll and he's not even the good kind. 🙄 Anyways I feel this except it's all about my homosexuality and trying to come to terms with that.. Still now even at 30.
Fellow Oreo and Coconut 🥥 here. Lol!
@@Wyt_Rabbit saaame. 😆
I wasn't ready for how much this was going to get to me. This was outstanding, Fiq. Thank you.
No thank YOu sis!
@@FDSignifire you come out with more bangers then a firework store
The Real question :WHY DO THE FATHERS KEEP ABANDONING THEIR BOYS? WHY DO YOU BLAME THE WOMEN OF YOUR ILK FOR ALL YOUR PERSONAL WOES?
This Video Here Breaks My Heart Because As A Black Mother, Wife, and Grandmother It’s A Reality To Me..!!
It’s Very Disheartening To Know That Many Of Our Black Boys Have No Where To Run To..!!!!
🙏🏾
And black girls, protect both period
Fantastic video, and it really helped contextualize a lot of stuff in Bel-Air. If people are sleeping on the show, they need to give it a chance. It's one of those rare reboots that should be the norm, doing something new with a story we've already heard.
It all just springs so naturally from the premise that it just _works,_ even though it's so different from the original show. It gets into a flow that never shakes you free of the narrative, never jars you, and stays consistent throughout. That is NOT easy to do.
Should I watch Fresh Prince before? I've never seen it
@@alekm5201 it would help. Everything is so subtle in Bel-Air that you might miss some context if you haven’t seen fresh Prince. That said, you don’t NEED to.
Oh wow. José is here!? Love your videos. It's cool seeing one of my favorite tubers watching another one of my favorite tubers.
@@alekm5201 I agree with bert jerome there are subtle callbacks to Prince that are great to see but you aren't missing anything if you haven't seen the original show.
Its interesting to see the conclusion you took Belly vs Shottas to cause I'm definitely going in a different direction for the final video 😏 stay tuned..
Incredible piece as we've come to take you for granted now, Unc. I remember seeing your whole face change on our livestream and I'm sorry for that.
I always was interested that our community loves movies like belly and shorts even though all the sterotypes like people can't complained about stereotypes then glorify movies like belly .I never felt accepted by the community I was know as the lame kid but I never let the hate phase me growing was rough I couldn't cry I recommened therapy to y'all
I watched Belly for the first time quite recently, I dug the fuck out of it. Looking forwards to seeing what you lads have to say about it. Still need to see Shottas.
I grew up as the black boy in the suburbs, my parents didn’t sell out, but they definitely wanted to raise their kids away from the traumas they grew up with,
At the age of 26 today, I still battle with my internal perception of myself as it is challenged every day by those around me and the society at large. I appreciate when people like yourself can not only identify the things that I as a child couldn’t, nor could my family as it wasn’t their experience. But also in a way that doesn’t cast a judgement or fault on me for having that environment.
My black peers who are closest to me also have similar stories, and it’s not uncommon for us of those back grounds to feel completely alienated from everyone including ourselves.
You mentioning the N-word pass really hit me. Personally, growing up in white space and having to identify and perform under the white-gaze made me feel that if I didn't include white people in my blackness then it would be used against me or lead to violence. It's hard to feel logical about - but it was protection in a way. Still learning and unpacking my own trauma and socialized anti-blackness.I relate to Will and his loss of control in that moment.
Thissss! Damn, I felt this.
Well said.
this is probably your best video yet, which is saying a lot because you were already comfortably my favorite youtuber. Seriously, never has a video resonated with me more, while also expanding my consciousness. Hell, watching this helped me understand my own experiences better. I cannot express how much I appreciate your presence here as a young black man. This was powerful.
I was born in California and spent half my childhood growing up in Compton. There was so much I just thought everyone dealt (getting down during drive-bys my mother never wanting me to go out with out her, etc) with until my parents sold just about everything they owned to get me and my younger brother out. I lost my older brother to gang violence because with them it’s either with us or against us. His death put everything in perspective for me. I was about 12 when it dawned on me that none of my new friends could or would ever understand what things were really like, until I mean my best friend who is from Atlanta. To this day she is my only friend who I can say something or mention something growing up and, sadly, she knows exactly what I mean.
Your segment on the white gaze really made me think back to my childhood and (sadly my adulthood ). As a child born in Europe from a middle class background with western african parents, my formative years were literally an internal and external battle with white adults (teachers, friend's parent and random people in the streets) scrutinizing me up and down. Scrutinizing me to see if I was going to "break out of character" and act as the derogatory stereotype of a black and African person or them making crazy assumption about my parents character. Another aspect is that being soaked in a white very wealthy environment made me aware of how impossible it would be for me to fully "navigate" in this space, even with my closest non-black friend, I quickly understood that I would never fully get immersed/ part of the environment I grew up in. I still carry the weight of knowing that no matter how long I experience the White Euro-centric sphere or the Black western-African sphere, I will never fully emulate any of them. So being called a "bounty" or "oreo" stings particularly hard because it feels like the death of my being. I knew(and was reminded) from birth I wasn't white and getting called "not black nor african" left me feeling like nothing.
You're not alone homie, I'm a Nigerian raised in London and now living in Spain... I've been called all sorts of things too and struggled with my identity. I've settled on just being me and not conforming to anyone's ideas of what they think I should be.
Have you 2 been around black people from Africa or from the hood who treated you like fellows black without questioning your blackness? Or who simply interested by your difference as a black person?
@@fideletamo4292 No; insecurity makes people stay behind their lines.
Diaspora experience for life! AmIrightWaitWhyAmICryingWhileTypingThis
The term "Oreo" is used by black people who can't succeed and therefore envy and despise you for accomplishing what they can't because they're unwilling to put in the work. The point is to shame you and make you hate yourself. You're more than your god damn skin color. Act like it.
Omg bro honestly….black boy hood can be hell for most and it’s not talked about enough . I’ve been though every form of abuse. Mental, sexual, physical you name it. Growing up I was consumed by depression. Luckily for me I was in a youth group where I was open about my struggles. The youth group ended up being racist towards me but I was able to connect with others struggling just like me at a young age. Being open with my struggles saved my life. Without reflecting on the pain I went through and the effects of that pain I’d be dead now. Thank you for this video!
Dude. Hope your okay
@@morkmello5367 I’m okay and thankful for this life Despite all I’ve been through I see myself as no victim, I’ve taken my struggles ,my pain, learned from them (i continue to learn from them )the lessons has made me the man I am today. My demons and scares do hunt me here and there but thats the journey of life. I wish a healthy journey for all of us.
Your comment gave me chills. Wish I knew better how to support you in words without being patronizing. I'll just say I'm glad you've emerged from the trauma. Perhaps not unscathed, but at least unbroken
I hope you're doing better now. You deserve to be treated with respect and love.
This video really hit me hard, man, it opened up old wounds that I have blocked for my childhood to teen years. I could never put a finger on it, but you nailed it.. this really brought me to tears recalling it all, and never came to terms with it. This is a excellent video!
I am a BLACK, GAY, SOUTH AFRICAN man and by the end of this video I was CHOKED UP! Simply the best, I appreciate you and your work👐🏾.
Damn those 4 words convey a life of fighting off pain from others
@@avacadomangobanana2588 Not exactly,gay is a choice!... chosen behavior.
@@carljohnson317 Tell me you are a fool, without telling me you are a fool
@@carljohnson317 you are not a person
@@sfglim5341 Tell me you hate the truth without lying 🤔
Your greatest project yet. I love this, and I intend to rewatch again and again.
Absolutely going to need multiple watchings!
This video's got layers. Might take a few watches to unpack them all.
Download the subtitles too. It helps me to read along and absorb it. Or download the mp3.
That ending statement about death just hits me in my stomach. I literally would have spells of terrible paranoia and anxiety for my husband about him dying ALL the time. Especially when we were younger and were dating. He works odd hours of the night and when he would leave for work in the middle of the night sometimes would incessantly pray and cry for his safety and often times would not go to sleep until I would know for sure he was back home. I would have terrible dreams about him being killed ALL the time in numerous different ways. He would be angry sometimes that I would rush him home. It was never out of jealousy it was out of being terrified of him dying or being killed. I eventually got better, but sometimes I still break down and cry about it, because it is INDEED a reality.
I guess my point is that the statement was just validation for me. I thought that I was losing my mind, but it really is all that we see in the media and the news and it was getting to me so bad.
Imagine how many of us felt like this about a relative and it became a reality. I lived this experience , smfh. You actually think you're in a nightmare for a second then when the reality sinks in I just felt my heart go cold. That is when I truly knew what it meant to be dead on the inside
Rest up BIG CHRIS ,
love u my guy 👼🏿
Sheesh you know the video bout to blow when the spice in the comments is on Ghost Pepper and the video ain't even started yet🤣
More like pepper x, dragon breath, and Carolina reaper all mixed together lolz
Fully had notifications on, didn't need it though cause I am hereeeeee
Lol.
This is something I’ve noticed happening a lot to people who are members of an ethnic/cultural group that has had low socioeconomic status for so long that they’ve become associated with being down to earth or “authentic”, as the yuppies so condescendingly put it. When this happens, there is often a sense of pressure to continue to act according to this stereotype even when their personal experiences/level of success is such that they have as much in common with that stereotype as a 20 Getty family trust fund kid.
Basically, white folks like to pigeonhole you so that you have more chains locking you down to earth so you can’t make it into the stratosphere
It's wild to me that this exact topic comes up literally the day after I finally open up about my own experiences as a black kid growing up to my fiance.
I literally almost had a tear jerk moment because like any black nerd growing up in some rough neighborhoods like East Orange or even Irvington, the fight or flight instinct was necessary. I am now 37 years old, and at least 30% of the people I grew up with has been shot and killed for just being in the wrong place and time. And despite what people see from the energy I bring, no one was truly able to identify my deep level of pain until yesterday. Which is also the reason why I was so driven to become successful within my field.
It's always a good day when FD drops knowledge.
Like when he said Kevin Fart isn't funny? FD is absolutely right about that lolz.
School is in session!!!
Will Smith made a contract with the white community. He would provide a feeling of access to black culture that does not confront people with anything uncomfortable. It's possible that there is no one more frustrated with that contract than Will Smith himself.
But what about his contract with the Black Community? Frustration all the way round perhaps, because even in Hollywood they can hurt each other too.
David Comito what does he mean how the world treats single moms lol single moms do that nobody should have kids out of wedlock smh nobody gives men excues
I think Chris Rock has a contract as well but w/ yt Hollywood/comedy 🤷🏽♀️
@@sharstarg2414 It's true and I think a lot of the outrage from the white community over this is not the breaking of a social standard of not hitting someone for the things they said, it is the breaking of this precieved contract that is what they are more upset about, even if they don't articulate that specifically.
@@darnellwilliams8783 Shut up darnell. go hug ya mama.
When Will Smith hit Chris Rock, I saw their pain, anger, humiliation and sadness in their past come
to light. I thought rap as an oral history lesson to remember the past. The music would help the young remember it better. However, it is lost to many as a catchy tune. Black pain is not entertainment. Powerful statement. Thank you for sharing. This gives me new insight and appreciation of someone’s experience.
I know many are tired of the Will Smith subject and are still very much on their "Will was wrong, bottom line" energy but if you're not about dissecting, analyzing, and getting at the root of behaviors, then I can't believe you're actually about peace. Seems you more just want to feel superior by taking the simplest and most obvious stance of "Violence; bad!" Yeah, we know.
Thank you for this vid.
my take on the situation
It's easier for us as empathetic people to feel the need to dissect behavior of individuals, but most people dont have the tiome of day or even the energy or patience to do that. We're an exception, not the norm
This is so deeply informative, particularly as an Africa-born, UK-raised black woman. The view of the world from where I'm standing is scarily aligned but completely different to the black American experience. I have so much to consider when it comes to what the black men in my life feel/think/believe as a result of their childhoods. The insight you've given here has been invaluable. Thank you.
When do Black men think about the lives of Black women? Why do women always have to have empathy for men and not visa versa?
@@Feliciations good question. It's something I ask myself often. I think there are a variety of reasons as to why this is the case, but I also always try to maintain balance in being able to ask what I can do to alleviate "us" as well.
@@Feliciations
Empathy is considered weakness amongst men and they are shamed for it, black or otherwise. Not condoning it, just saying.
@@billhicks8 especially black men, though
@@Feliciations I've just been thinking about your question since you asked and this is my stance so far: based on this video that we (assumedly) have both watched, the narrative is very much showing us the disposability of black men, particularly in America. I use the word 'disposability' because statistically black men either die or get incarcerated, which completely removes their ability to fully realise their potential as human beings. We, the women, have struggles that are different, and, I would argue, are aimed more towards our minds/emotions and security. The wholeness is still lacking in both black male and female cases. Asking black men to stand up for us is necessary but equally they should be allowed to ask us for sympathy, love and care. Ultimately we need each other and empathy should never cease to be a useful tool in our community as a whole. Without it, we all die - physically, mentally, emotionally and experientially.
I just want to say your videos are getting me through one of the hardest times in my life right now. Thank you for all you do, especially for black ppl. Your wisdom is uplifting man.
They laugh at fragile masculinity, but never ask how it got so fragile.
Bro , they just like seeing men destroyed at every level.
“Who hurt you?” That’s what I heard the most when I was traumatized by dating.
It made me hate men and women alike because there was just this fucking lack of empathy from everyone…like why the fuck are those scumbags even alive?
People like the word empathy because it is virtuous. Nothing more, nothing less. Practicing is basically impossible.
@@iantaakalla8180 practicing it is NOT impossible…I do it nearly every day because I’m not a worthless piece of shit. What’s your excuse?
It seems we're a society with a major flaw of selective context and selective empathy. For further evidence, I present the double standard between the situations of Trayvon Martin and Kyle Rittenhouse.
Dang this is so profound I stopped scrolling. I'm hanging on to this sentiment. Thank you.
I'm tired of a world where children are so sad, lonely and exhausted. And I'm tired of a world that refuses to change no matter how hard I try to change it. How does anybody reconcile a refusal of the status quo and an inability to create systematic change?
You understand you be planting a garden under whose trees you might not sit. Then you keep on digging not for yourself, but for the ones we manage to save to bring forth the next generation.
@@BigHenFor well said. Planting seeds in a garden we won't see grow....be the change anyway ya can💜🌟👊🏽
Yes, I’m looking at the research behind Relationship Anarchy as the new social norm: Instead of prescribing labels to everything, we describe our relations between one another.
@@BigHenFor Pretty much. I think a lot of people get hung up on possibly not being alive to see or experience the change brought about by their legacies left behind. But I can understand that tbh. At of people, even if they say otherwise with their mouth, have the selfish desire of having the work they do benefit them first in some way (especially if the personal cost for them to enact that change is high).
o.o
As an African born since childhood to adulthood i always dreamt of one day going overseas to better my life but the more I think about it i end up seeing its better to just stick here than rather go overseas to be racially abused and your whole person defined by your colour.
as an african who moved here to the US. at least we will Always have our foundation of the culture of our countries and families to fall back on. but I agree because Now I am planing to take my own kids back to thier hometown
@@ayanomar1408 wow what a blessing to have somewhere else to go, your true home... I wish, I would leave America if I really could
Thank you for emphasizing Smith's humanity as opposed to the spectacle. I found the vast majority of the takes to be nothing more than another form of entertainment for our emotional bankrupt society. I have shared your video with every empathetic person I know. Thank you and very good work brother!
Thank you for this. I used to work at a library in a predominantly black neighborhood and the minute that this topic was brought up I remember this one incident. A sobbing black girl ran through our library to use our phone before running out again. In that moment I knew that I, a 20-something Latina, was the only adult who would follow her outside to see if she and the other children were ok. The police had been called on a 12-year-old black boy and my two black female co-workers were stone-faced. It was a concept that I knew to be true, that no one considered how this would effect these kids’ lives, but as I stood there surrounded by black and brown children watching as this young boy broke down in front of no less than three police men for breaking a trivial library rule really hit home in a way it never had.
I really needed this video, around the 22:30 mark I ended up tearing up cause word this what alot of us need. Keep being the OG you are. Us young black men appreciate that. Can’t keep up the tough facade forever.
My brother went to an expensive all-White high school in Texas. He was a Jewish kid. You'd never know until you heard his last name. Straight-A student with every honors you could think of, got into his first choice colleges both times.
He blends in so well. You'd have to be a complete asshole to mess with someone over a last name, right? /s
Turns out this school was horribly anti-Semitic. A lot of rich girls at this high school called my brother gay to attack his masculinity, and kids would often say and do completely insensitive things to him.
The worst thing that happened was when one kid drew a picture of my brother getting shot by Hitler. He drew it on the whiteboard so the whole class could see it.
The teacher and my brother both saw it, and they took this little shit to the principal. Because the shit kid was rich and his parents donated to the school, the kid got no punishment at all. Meanwhile, my brother got detention for a week and had to make a hand-written apology.
Nothing the teacher who saw the Hitler drawing could do about it. Didn't matter that my brother had an adult witness who worked at the school backing him up. All the rules vanished.
I'm so glad I went to a different school and was just a white kid with a weird name. I'll never understand what my brother suffered. He's me hero.
Man sorry to hear about your brother that shit is illegal as hell, the school may not do anything but you sure as hell can go to the cops for hate speech and discrimination. Even if at the end nothing comes of it because they’re rich cunts at least make then jump through some hoops.
How do you feel about people like jon Stewart generalizing all white people into resentful racist or nick cannon saying white lack empathy?
Hows it going for him now amalek.
Dont worry bro we gunna finish what Saul was ordered to do. Have a great and blessed day Amalek
Be seeing you real soon.
@@justinmorton7693 You know the real Israelites killed the Amalek thousands of years ago right? Why are you calling me Amalek? You don't even have the right group, dumbass.
Why don't you just call me a k*ke and get this done faster?
We are both using anonymous accounts, you are never going to actually find me, your threat is hollow and you know that. Yawn.
@@justinmorton7693 ??????
Bel Air is such an amazing showing of addressing and validating the emotions of black young men. Hell, I’ve been brought to tears myself because the actors really make you FEEL something. The love and support depicted is literally a fantasy for a lot of us who grew up in households with overworked parents who lacked the capacity.
This is the black-specific education that I didn't know I needed in grade school or college. You are a legend - thank you for all your hard work.
While I haven't ever lashed out physically at anyone, I relate on an uncomfortable level to Will Smith.
I recently lashed out verbally at a friend because of years of feeling looked down on for being neuroatypical, being treated as the goofy little brother, having my manhood doubted for not living up to the societal standards of what a man should supposedly be (something I believe Will is very familiar with).
I admit i Iaughed initially but the more I think about this in the context of the black experience, and my own relationship with performative masculinity, I can't find this funny. I remember I used to have horrible savior syndrome, where I would fantasize about "defending" women in my life from anything ranging from actual attacks to insults. What it really was was my ego needing validation that I am a Real Man, and when I saw Will smack Chris, that part of my psyche's eyes lit up. Here is a man fulfilling that fantasy of performative masculinity. I admired Will for it initially until I took further consideration.
While I cannot say that my experience and those of black men are the same, I find these videos extremely helpful for me to understand my own trauma around these issues. The way these little scars become deep wounds and lead to aggression and out bursts is especially insidious due to how we encourage it
@@TwitchyCake I said neuroAtypical, it's the term Fiq used in the video
The Hood is the same everywhere.
@Juu Tuub why are you like this?
@Juu Tuub Your depths of compassion are limitless.
@Juu Tuub that's not right man
your empathy for your fellow human puts you a step above most political essayists on this platform. even when you talk about struggles such as this, which as a mix eurasian-american i will never experience firsthand, i can feel the love and pain from your struggle. i just wish the onus wasnt on you and other black creators to humanize yourselves and your community, with already so much generational trauma. irl ive done my best to use my privilege to try and change peoples minds sharing what ive learned from generous people sharing their stories. thank you so much for doing this incredibly difficult work, i dont think youve written a video that didnt hit the mark. keep on keeping on man, and sorry if this comment comes off as weird, im autistic and have a difficult time putting my words together >_< just know your message never lands on deaf ears regardless of how painful it is
I wanna say thank you. I lot of young black men have a difficult time properly articulating the complexity of our dark reality. Especially, in such a concise and accurate manner. You’ve got a fan for life.
Finally someone I can trust covers this situation and Will smiths life in general with understanding and tact. I’m tired of seeing millions of people have uneducated and non sympathetic takes on this. Your ability to use something like this to discuss a larger societal situation is one of the things that makes this channel special.
As a biracial person raised by a white mother, insulated from blackness for most of my childhood, I’ve felt the othering from both sides and am only really discovering and defining my blackness as an adult. The discussion about these kids who grow up in affluent spaces also deserving empathy really resonated with me. Thank you.
Be the best you....and keep exploring your culture
💖
The point you made about knowing when a person has nothing to lose so you stay away from them is dead on, but the other side of that is having something to lose makes you vulnerablea . Being someone that had much to lose I often convinced myself that I didn't and the people around me as well, for safety. I look back and, I was a really depressed kid when I really didn't have to be. The scary thing is no one would ask me about me moping around looking depressed which I often was but to some extent it was my mystique, but the second I started smiling while walking around my neighborhood, everyone would freak out. Like people would literally bring it up to my mom "why is you son always smiling", then I would hear that and try not to smile so much.
I know we often say black women have it the hardest, but as a black girl I have to say I don’t think I could make it as a black boy. I’ve had my struggles with presentation, fitting in, and dealing with beauty standards, but I never had to worry as much about being underestimated and unloved, expected to be tough and unwavering every day just to survive. I think all of the pretending would wear me out. The trauma of being a black man is behind my comprehension.
Crazy is everything you stated black women go through as well. Not to take away from black boys.
As a white dude who can only understand so well from the outside. This REALLY helped me learn. So often we think we are empathizing when really we are only projecting. Its a quirk of human psychology that you really need to watch out for. I just realized that was exactly what I was doing previously trying to understand this topic. This put a huge crack in that in a fantastic way. Thank you so much! Definitely subscribing and watching through the rest of your content.
P.s. Also as someone with severe ADHD its not too often a vid this long can grab my attention for its entirety. Just thought that was worth mentioning.
Same with the ADHD and whiteness. Even soz, I have watched many of his video essays
This video has helped me realize how much living in a diverse neighborhood has shaped how I approach "advocacy" relative to what black folks who grew up around black folks do. It can't always be as direct: Learning to pick your battles, how to phrase hard conversations, focus on intent not just impact, meet people where they’re at, give the benefit of the doubt…
It’s different than what black folks who grow up around black folks have to do. And with that difference the reflex is to reject it. I get why that mentality is there but it still hurts and is one reason I feel alienated or out of place around *some* other black people. I don’t do it for fun or to “sell out” but maintain sanity. I could just say someone’s racist, but if I do they shut down and won’t listen. If I have to be around them I HAVE to phrase it differently so they’ll be more likely to apply it when interacting with me and others like me.
Truth is a lot of them wouldn’t survive in a non-homogeneous space. (And I wouldn’t survive where they’re from.) Neither of us is bad, just different. And I wish there was space for empathy and appreciation for differences. There are ways of navigating, things I know that you don’t and vice versa. And if done right those collective differences can combine into a strength not a weakness.
And what a trick of empathy that is. Using labels, especially if they closely identify with that label, as an insult or pejorative, immediately ends the conversation.
If the goal of convincing someone who holds harmful conservative beliefs out of their comfort zone or dogmas', using what they identify with against them *will not* work. It is just browbeating at that point and it causes people to become defensive. Same thing works for talking to people on the extreme left. Tone, intent, and aggressiveness all vary with dealing with different people.
I call it Defensive White Guy Syndrome (admittedly, saying this directly to a DWG can cause them to do the exact thing I describe and thereby inhibit honest discussion) when a white person, especially a straight white man, hears about the real extent of colonialism and white racism and how much the momentum and consequences of that history still impacts black people and even society as a whole, the DWG feels he is being _personally_ challenges and criticized, and because of his sense of being threatened begins to defend, not only himself, but colonialism and even white racism. These guys wouldnt defend colonialism or racism if they engaged with the topic in a way that they didnt feel singled out by. Now, this is already understood and the term “white fragility” is not entirely inaccurate but imo “DWGS” is slightly more accurate AND generous, as the term white fragility might be taken to imply that fragility is endemic to whiteness, _defensiveness_ is more of a choice in reactions when faced with the topic. Even if the person I'm talking to doesnt consciously acknowledge this, if I can frame the discussion in a way that makes it clear I am not holding them personally responsible for a history they had no control over, they are more likely to engage the topic with empathy, or at least some semblance of rationality. I know what Im saying has merit because I AM the Defensive White Guy, after a long time of having to get over my own defensiveness so that I could examine the historical structures of colonialism and how that tradition turned into slavery, Manifest Destiny, religious fundamentalism and socio-political conservatism, Patriarchy, the myth of the Conquerer as the embodiment of white maleness, and the various, essentially xenophobic “phobias” (homophobia, transphobia, etc) in American society.
really appreciate the acknowledgement that hyper vigilance and other seeming antisocial behaviors are actually adaptive for the environments that develop them. I tried to find the reference but I remember reading an abstract about how in communities exposed to high levels of violence, so called anti-social characteristics actually led to better survival. Kids who didn’t have that same armor were more likely to have been assaulted or murdered over the duration of the study. I love your work FD. Glad you are experiencing the success you deserve
hi! if u ever do find that abstract, could you post a link to it? Id like to read a study about that
insightful comment btw!
Navigating the white gaze in a dark skinned black woman body is one of the most debilitating and scarring experiences I can fathom, and sadly, a lot of us are still walking that tight rope. There is no freedom here, and the effects this life has on our health is astronomical. Excellent video Fiq ❤️
agreed
There can be worse experiences that can be fathomed
@@turtleboy1188 she’s not talking about those experiences… she’s talking about her own. This doesn’t make sense.
There are worse thing out there don’t be too dramatic
I am a Black woman so I won’t pretend to speak with full authority on cis Black masculinity or performance, and you do mention this as well but I think it can get pretty toxic to define these two types as one having more or less authenticity than the other. Being Black American is a state of displacement, landlessness, and ostracization that necessitates performance in every social group (just like any identity is performed). Just like the “exaggerated swagger” can be fairly interpreted as just peacocking for other Black men and to (in my opinion) a lesser degree for women, also assimilating to the expected or even sometimes required norms of your surrounds and becoming an “oreo” is also a survival tactic and learned behaviour and I think we do a disservice to everyone involved to gatekeep Blackness like that. It just drives those folks further from the community without challenging the real reason any of this tension is necessary or exists.
There is nothing like a "Cis Person"
Not even halfway through but the commentary on Atlanta and Boyhood has my heart in pieces. It's a heavy one for sure, but so necessary. I'm seeing my Black cousins becoming fathers and fiances and men that are trying to make it in this world after knowing what they went through as kids and both being proud of their growth and also so worried for their mental states.
FD does it again as a goat, more nuance for black men and women is necessary in representation since we're all different. I'm a timid black guy myself and thats fine, also I think things are much harder for black women compared to us black men especially in the media and real life as well I'd say. Usually black representation is very biased to black men compared to women, when it should be equal.
Yup I agree I have two younger sisters and I'd be lying if I'd say black women don't have it harder and ik trying my best to learn and let my ego go to be a better black man for them and the black women who have been there for us since the beginning
Why do you see it as a competition.
Why do you have to frame it as such
@@letssgo1921 It's about the intersections, both are oppressed in different ways due to their gender but both are oppressed for being black. The op was just pointing that out
@@KC-ep6sg if both are oppresed in different ways.
Why is op saying one of them have it worse.
Good teaching
Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your content. Been watching all your videos, but this one hit me especially hard. I’m a school social worker in a very underserved community. I’ve worked in this community for 15 years. I have seen a lot of what you speak of, but your explanation elevated my understanding. I’m just hoping that I can help any way that I can.
people on the internet seems to always forget, two truth can be true at the same time, you don't have to always take a side where one is "more right" than the other, great video as always
"Will and black boys need a covering to that allows them to shed the habits and behaviors they've often developed as survival tactics."
I'm fucking at a loss to what to say or even fucking do now after hearing that. It's fucking spot on and it's something I wouldn't put into order if it wasn't for you, amazingly in this exact point of my life. I'm a 23 year old dude who didn't go to college and has spent his last few years working or trying to start my own career up. While unconventional, I came across a story that recently meant the world to me and as so fundamentally changed me as a person at the core of myself.
There's a lot that happens io black families that's latent and that you can't begin to ever work out until you're an adult that takes the time to look back at your life. I had a lot of deeply instilled fears in myself from my mother. She wasn't bad. She did the best that she could. Yet, I'm a 23 year old who had such a deeply instilled fear of throwing myself out there because of a lot of her own attitudes towards things that I developed literally within the past 2 years.
I want to talk about this now and at some point I will, because I'm not sure that I would've ever moved forward and sought to genuinely improve myself if it weren't for that story and it's characters, One being an adventurous woman who waits for literal millennia for you to return to her and keep a promise that you made., and is tearful when you arrive and prove to her that you can keep that promise. (It was Final Fantasy XIV, by the by. Hence that anime-as-fuck plot)
It was through that story that I've managed to actually forgo all of the existential dread that I've been harboring. A deeply-rooted aversion to anything that may be 'discomforting' or even more specifically """dangerous""". My perception of it was so skewed that I still don't even know how to fucking drive. Something that everyone, almost universally can say I did good by helping a stranger I was scolded for because of the "danger". Yet, having experienced that story and being given a figure that has been able to cover for me to start to shed these fears that I had I've been able to actually do more and work to bettering myself.
So thank you F.D. You've helped me put into perspective something that I've not understood for the past four months and why it has changed me, so I can't thank you enough for that.
I relate on so many levels. And really appreciate this type of content. I grew up in the UK and experienced many forms of micro to macro racism even in my family. I moved to the city when I had my son so that he would grow up with a sense of himself of a black person by being raised amongst other black people.
What I didn't forsee was that he would experience gang culture, fear of death and fear of having to kill or be killed. Before he was even a teenager and after. I had overlooked that that was part of what it would mean to live that type of black experience.
Whilst my brother and I faced threats and actual violence from our white peers, my son had to both love and fear his black peers. That is the life for so many black British boys.
He says that he does not regret the move although it left him with debilitating anxiety. We have since moved to Metro Atlanta area, where my father's family live and are from. It completely flipped his experience, as it did mine, and he saw black and experienced the black middle class experience, with the PTSD that follows you from the hood. I meet so many other black boys how are recovering from the trauma of inner city life here in this clean, relatively safe county.
Then my cousin Matthew Zadock Williams was murdered by the police in his own home. He was the victim of a Karen phone call and having not even left his own property in 6 years, having no record or experience of criminal activity, was chased by a swat team in to his home and murdered and left intentionally to bleed out whilst trying to reason with and deescalate the police, who had absolutely no reason to kill him. He was unarmed, non threatening, and had neither committed a crime or threatened the police.
It's been a year and the officer who murdered him is still working, despite his mother and sisters protesting weekly outside the DA's office for the last year.
Now it seems there is no way to keep my black son safe, if my educated, middle class aunt and cousins cannot even get a sliver of justice for their sweet gentle innocent brother.
I have never been more aware of the danger inherent in being a black boy. Zadock was not even 35. My son is 16, and I fear for him every day.
Thank you FD, for the work that you do. It is meaningful and necessary in more ways than you may know.
Excellent video with great talking points. I really appreciated the nuanced take on the "oreo" and "sellout" trope. But, I'd like to take it a bit deeper: Not all oreos are sellouts, and not all sellouts are oreos. Also, people don’t refer to themselves as Oreos or sellouts, those labels are cast upon them by the observing public (who no doubt have their own biases). I think there's a fine line there that needs to be discussed with a bit of care. I grew up in NYC (w/ some of my childhood spent in the suburbs of ATL), and due to my interests in anime, video games, skateboarding, and music that wasn't hip-hop I was labled as an oreo among both my black and white peers (mostly other black folks tho if I'm being honest). In middle school and high school the amount of bullying I experienced would make any sane person want to jump off of a cliff.
I was "too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids", and I really internalized this idea until my mid/late-20s. The truth of the matter is this... I was looking for acceptance/validation of my blackness from my peers, but what I really needed was to accept my own version of being black. And I think that is an important message for black boys (black folks in general) - there's more than 1 way to be black and that personal expression doesn't make any better or worse than anyone else. It makes you YOU.
I grew up in a majorly white area as one of very few black people in my neighborhoods. From middle school to about my junior year of high school, I was called in Oreo until I lost my temper and lashed out at the people who called me that. I got picked on by white people and black people like cuz I didn't fit into either crowd because I was a nerd who loves comic books, anime and all that stuff. I've gone through the majority of my life thinking that I wasn't black enough to fit in with my family or other black people. Then as I got older I've realized that just because the way I show my blackness differently than others doesn't mean it's any less than how they show theirs. I've struggled with that for a long time and I'm still struggling with it. I lived in a majorly black area for 5 years and it helped immensely. I had to move out of that area because I got engaged but my hope is to move to an area with more black people and people of color so my kids won't feel alienated.
That being said, I do take offense to the implication that my parents are sellouts because they moved to the suburbs. Nor am I one imho. I know the offense is not intended, as I realize you're not speaking to all black parents who move to the suburbs. Nor are you speaking to all of us who grew up in majorly white areas. That's just how I feel on that topic.
Still though this was a great video and I appreciate your content keep up the good work!
I feel you on this. I'm biracial and definitely felt the "I don't fit in with either side" thing. I am actively trying to find a racially diverse area that is safe and yes in the suburbs. I don't feel bad for it. It's what I am able to pass on to my child and teach them through telling my story and fighting for injustice rather than first hand experience.
There's nothing Bad about going to the suburbs, the only problem is how to make sure the kids don't lose connections with black culture ( from popular to elitist black culture ), and this Can be learned..people are not responsible for where they grew up, people from the suburbs got to understand without taking this too personally, why people from the hood can't Always empathize with them despite being the same color.
Feel ya. I grew up with the oreo insults as well. Being nerdy and all and liking huge words and studying left me out in the open.
I just accepted the fact that I'm likely to be always be alone in that sense. To have "friends/acquaintances" but don't really connect with them at best, or put up with their racist bs at worst because confronting them would put me in a very difficult situation with work.
I'm introverted and prefer being alone than being with people, but sometimes I wonder, was I introverted by default? Or did I become more introverted because my experiences in my youth and being burned time and time again?
Glad your in a better place now though.
Again, you are such a refreshing example of healthy, wholesome masculinity. Thank you so much for being you.
I sympathize with Will in that I grew up in an abusive or household or one with turmoil. I remember my dad laying hands on my mom when I was little because he disapproved of an outfit she bought for herself, a red leather coat he thought looked hookerish. I remember hiding in my room hearing the screaming after I had saw him hit her. Big part of me regret not being able to doing anything silly because what could i do then? My dad didn't hit her anymore after that incident but she became so much subservient to his desire. However a lot of his verbal abuse was still directed to myself and my brother and from my brother onto me, physically/verbally. However I differ with Will but I don't know whether it may be culture because I am Asian. We don't have as much an emphasis on machoness nor the independance. From what I can tell from Black culture is this need to be seen and heard which is an interesting contrast to Asians whom are told to be mild manner and unassuming. I don't know wherre im going with this but just wanted to share my perspective.
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them"
- Spinoza
Seeking to understand another human beings actions does not automatically mean you condone them. That slap came from somewhere. The easy thing to do is to simply say: "that was a bad act, so Will Smith is a bad man, end of story." The fact you go beyond that is vastly appreciated.
a smart philosopher he was!
In my book, will's apology or lack thereof, is the key to sympathy for him
Don’t know how the algorithms got me here but….DAMN. Sending this to my entire family and following.
Wow! FD, you and nephew Foreign make me so proud. I'm in my 50's and just recently had my hyper-vigilant behaviours pointed out to me. I still don't notice it in action.
Interestingly, some 30+ years ago I knew the age that was when most black boys in Baltimore were either dead, or in jail. When I had the birthday that beat the statistics, I was so happy. As the oldest child and oldest maternal grandchild, I later learned if you beat the statistics many young men in your family won't. Don't know what I'm trying to say by sharing this. Maybe, just to say that Will Smith might be my age ( I know Jamie Foxx and Mr. Bond Daniel Craig are. Same month and everything) and this pain, this trauma can exist well into old age. Bell Hooks once asked 'why do a large proportion of black men grow old alone, separated from everyone. I've seen this with my Grandfather, Great Uncles, and older paternal cousins, not to mention my younger brothers. I get why some people want to remove their sons from what they feel is the source of this trauma, and end up just having them experience a different kind of trauma. This world. I look at you (no pressure), I look at Foreign (he's young and strong, so pressure his Carlton &$$!) and I have hope. I want to see the fruits of my hope before I die, which is why I sometimes rub people the wrong way. Anyhoo, enough of my babble. Big love!
This video took me back to my childhood. I grew up in an environment where I was physically and verbally abused and you could probably say molested. I have gone through more trauma since then. I hated being a boy because you were left to fend for yourself and no one cared. As a trans woman, no one still cares about me or wants to protect me. It pains me to know I live in a world that could care less about my pain and the monsters I've had to face, and then on top of that to be considered a monster for being trans. Sometimes, it's all too much to take.
This is why I have to get healthy and get my life right to help foster children. We need need more blk male teachers. And good foster families
I tell my wife all the time about my experience growing up as a Black man. Death has always seemed to be the consequence of any mistake we make in life. I guess I had a normal experiences growing up in NYC however, a lot of my day was prioritize around the fear of not getting hurt and making it home safely.
This video truly made me cry. I'm not a black boy and haven't experiences much of what was discussed in the video but your discussion about carlton and growing up in white space really resonated with me. I've had to deal with hearing the n word and not being able to say anything and then when I do, being entirely ostracised from any possible friendship. Your empathy for people who grew up in that way is astounding, as the "oreo" stereotype is something I've been labelled with especially being mixed.
I did as well for liking rock music
i'm curious as to why you ever felt you needed to say the n word when you just admitted you aren't black.
@@srgetemI think he mixed
@@srgetemi think he meant his white friends saying the n word
As a recent fan of Chicago drill, this video was very important for me to see. That genre is very much powered by the pain and death within that community. Even if I love the music, because it is good, I need to never lose sight of that.
There is nothing redemptive about Drill music.
This topic reminds me of The Wires season 4 where they focused on a group of Black boys in the Baltimore Public School System. I remember how much the end of that season broke me because all these boys were talented and smart, yet poverty and violence still won.
That was definitely a poignant moment in television history
Definitively the wire gave us opportunity to see the kids they used to be before becoming this thugs on mugshots that WE are all afraid of..that was pure sociology made into television
The greatest season of television ever produced.
Facts. In the dance industry where I work, there's a striking lack of diversity and lack of willingness to address the true things that block access to or impede a child's education.
Every time the government decides to cut dance in public schools, they bar access to hundreds of kids who NEED that type of free, positive extra curricular activity.
Im 23 now, but I hope I live to see black people raised to the esteem and grandeur of "classical" art . Being able to see yourself represented among the most cherished cultural institutions is important :(((
This is why we need to fund the arts in public schools
The darkest most fucked up irony in Michael's arc that season is that he didn't even have to sell his soul to Marlo because he had people who could have helped him somehow with his stepdaddy problem but because he was so hurt and betrayed and didn't trust anyone he didnt see it. He didnt see Cutty only wanted to help him until it was too late for him
WHEW. This was a heavy one, and I am but a Black woman. I had to take a break around the 37 min mark. What was so real for me, thus far in the video, is how as someone who grew up in the Metro Atlanta area I completely missed the amount of characters who died in the TV show "Atlanta". Part of that is because they were side characters -- the audience wasn't given any reason to connect with them. But, another part of that is because that is just the reality of living in -- or in close proximity to -- minority or impoverished neighborhoods. Maybe you know someone who was murdered, maybe it was a friend of a friend. Maybe you know someone in jail for murder, maybe it's a friend of a friend. And that's just...
Normal.
I don't like to think on it often, but my childhood in Brooklyn and Atlanta had a consistent undercurrent of hyper-vigilence and nearly palpable fear of death. But when I went to college at a PWI -- also in the Metro Atlanta area -- it felt like a Bel-Air-like transition. I was only about a 45-minute drive away from where I grew up, but I felt miles away from my childhood. In this predominantly white and more affluent community, if there was a murder, the whole community was "shocked" , the case would be on the news for days, and police were actually investigating. This new community was by no means perfect, but the challenges felt mostly... Solvable.
This is turning into a blog post 😂 But wow, ya gurl is triggerdt 🥴
And I am but a Black woman
Hey are you a black women
Foreword: this kinda turned into a word vomit where I think I end up answering my own oblivious question, but I’m leaving it up because someone else left a snarky comment about the same thing I originally asked about, so clearly I’m not the only one who missed why that was actually relevant.
--
Thanks for sharing this mini blog post. Trauma is everywhere, but it’s crazy how much worse it is for certain social groups.
The reason I’m commenting is because I don’t understand why you twice motioned that you are “but a Black woman.” I thought it was odd the first time, but especially so when you said it again I closing.
I hope this curiosity doesn’t come off as ill-intentioned in any way. I’m just genuinely trying to understand why you wanted to make that clear. This is coming from someone who feels like they always have to clarify that I’m a white (pansexual) man, and often feel like I just shouldn’t say anything that all because my frame of reference is impossible to align.
I think that’s why it struck me as so strange to see what seems to be a similar feeling coming from someone that is actually Black, even if you’re not a man, so you don’t experience the same struggles.
Idk. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it or ignorant to how vastly different the experience of the average black woman is compared to a black man. And, I guess, why wouldn’t it be…? Remove the adjective “black,” and it’s obviously true that men and women have different experiences.
I think I just answered my own stupid question, and am now realizing that I missed how much this video was specifically about the average Black *male* experience-not the Black experience as a whole.
No pressure to respond. I know it’s not your job to explain anything.
@@maxleveladventures I think you pretty much got it yourself. There are a lot of experiences that black women and men share, but there are also experiences that one group experiences more than the other.
This hits different…man, I wonder how many brothas went through the same thing. Fight or flight, choosing your routes walking in your neighborhood, avoiding altercations (because you know someone is going to jump in), storing away the trauma you seen growing up, having to hide your true self to fit in, and not fixing it until your late adulthood (psychology therapy)🤦🏾♂️Lawd knows, salute to all that made it🤴🏾
And respect to the ones who didn't they struggle is not in vain.
I feel like the white gaze in my personal life goes for females too. I feel exactly like that almost everywhere. I've never had a word for it. Hyper vigilance, they told me it was a good thing so I never associated it with exactly what is hurting. I was a nerd when i was in the hood and i got bullied for the 2 seconds i was there. I wasnt black enough. Then as a kid a became a weird morph of will and carlton. My life became to full of lies i became obsessed with the truth and making sure i never lied because my existence was a lie, I felt dehumanized. I got paranoid and assumed because of what i look like i was an animal i needed to find a way to hide in broad daylight while being as "good" as possible. By the time i graduated i was a mess. Took years to be better and recognize.
You have really valid points!
Definitively, it's all about finding your place, trying to belong and survive why navigating different groups it's even harder for soft tender smart black men cuz toxic masculinity is Also a byproduct of toxic feminity in black community..but AT the end of the day it's all about surviving..
This.
I remember someone calling me an Oreo, when my last school was a predominantly black, all girl school.
Like...of course I would worry about my grades...like so did everyone else.
@@Zarsla exactly.
@@Zarsla i heard Jay-Z on a linkin park song it was my favorite song for a long time, i couldn't listen to it in public because my friends would say "turn off that white people music." I stopped listening to music all together it became "feminine" to me along with wanting things and expressing emotion. I got really toxic.
Bro, the constant thought about death hurts SO much more than people understand. What if I get stopped by this officer and I'm ANOTHER Black man shot and killed...what if I get held up at gunpoint by another Black man and get shot and killed....what if this genetic high blood pressure kills me...the constant thoughts about death is so overwhelming...it sucks man...
Everyone dies my man. Can't live life like that. It is a mindset my man.
High blood pressure isn’t genetic my friend, it’s due to your diet and the diet that your family shares
@@remy3064 the CDC disagrees with you.
I grew up mixed with no black figures in my life. At some point we moved out to a town in Arkansas where the nearest town was half an hour way. When driving around, different friends would tell me which areas to avoid because “they don’t like black people” and imply they would shoot at me. A lot of people at the school asked for the N-pass and I felt I was in a really bad position so I gave it out. It didn’t even feel like a real question, like we both already knew what the answer was.
I will never forget being in high school and randomly bursting into tears during the day, after reading, then watching a mini-doc about the case of Emmett Till at the time having a little brother his same age. Or the time I very recently sat my brother down to watch 'When They See Us' and the way he hugged me so tight before going to bed nearly broke me. I know you know this was not an easy video to make. All the flowers to you for taking the time and energy to vulnerably divulge and critically examine the intricacies of black boyhood. Videos like these are an incredibly impactful starting point of reference for anyone who comes across this. I know you know this is needed F.D, and I thank you so much for even making an attempt (and thus executing beautifully) a video such as this. Much love
He was cat calling soooooo
@@fabulouseddie9488 he didn’t. but even if he was, what happened to him was not deserved. had it been a little wyte boy, he probably would’ve gotten a stern talking to or the lady would’ve laughed him off.
@@fabulouseddie9488 mutilating and murdering a child is never justified. You're horrible.
@@fabulouseddie9488 he was a child
@@fabulouseddie9488 by your logic I can brutally kill the men that catcall me and it's justified
I know you weren’t really mentioning animation but you did mention Miles Morales but I think Craig of the Creek is worth mentioning I definitely felt represented by him as my childhood was similar to his it was a nice wholesome realistic non hood representation of black boyhood; and also the new wonder years is good too
Having the weird experience of moving to America from Ethiopia a country with little western influence in its core traditions and having to reconcile the prejudice black people face in this country all while growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood has given me the strangest experience of blackness. Shit I didn't really see as bad back then hit me like a truck now like .....wow they were one microagression away from calling me a slur??? I feel so alienated but also so connected to the culture here and it feels like I'm constantly having to confirm to myself that I am black enough and there is no "right" way for me to be a black person. Carlton reminds me so much of thr very few black kids who were born in America I saw in my neighborhood and school and some of his experience even resonates with me so while I really disliked him I felt a strange sense of understanding and recognization. This video really has helped me contextualize a lot of that too.
I'm Colombian, specifically from Medellín, and I LOVE that you brought up how apathy in young men growing up in impoverished communities happen everywhere. There's a 1990s movie produced here in Medellín called "Rodrigo D: No Futuro (Rodrigo D: No Future)" that depicts precisely that sense of nihilism, apathy, and unresolved trauma that Pablo Escobar's drug empire and capitalism brought into the lives of impoverished young men here. As always, I thank you for the opportunity to learn so much from your videos 🙌🏽
I'm from Bogotá and I went to live in Medellín for a year, and the apathy I saw from classmates towards subjects like drugs and the bullying they subjected to other students and myself because we were different in any way is something that always stuck to me. Of vourse Bogotá wasn't much different.
Edit: *ISN'T much different.
I don’t think that - “giving them the n-word pass” is comparable or expressive of the type of situation.
Specifically “the n-word pass” is a white construct. Specifically, it is a token or ticket to say the n-word, but what makes this different is the nature of its restraint.
The n-word pass is all encompassing. It doesn’t care about context or company. It doesn’t care.
The nature of black people who “let” white peers say the n-word in white spaces is one of a power imbalance and a survival tactic. You stop white people from saying the word when you can but every time you do, you risk safety and social credit.
plus some people just don’t care enough to do anything about it
@@blade7506 I think not caring is a side effect to knowing you have no good options. You either address it verbally which often leads to the person claiming it was a joke or brushing it off. Or you address it physically which usually lands you in more trouble than the person who said the word. So black people who don't care are socialized into not wanting to be forced into the role of racism police.
@@davidolukiyesi2147 Exactly David. I do not play with the n-word. No one who is not my skin-folk is allowed to say it✊🏾‼️
@@blade7506 Then you have to blame those individuals too. You have to call out racist behavior. Sure, it’s uncomfortable when you are underage, or a young adult (18 - 20). But if you are 21 + allowing non-black folks saying the n-words. Shame on you, especially if you’re Black, or mixed with Black🤷🏾♂️💯
No it's not. Stop speaking for others. The reason many black people don't care if a white person uses the word around them is because they understand context matters more than the word itself. You don't speak for them. You don't know them. Stop.
There’s a great play running in London right now called For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy. It explores so much of what this video covers in a beautiful, difficult, funny and ultimately life-affirming way. I have to imagine it’ll be picked up by theaters in the US at some point in the near future, but i think the script is available online as well
This is one of the greatest video essays i've ever seen. You are extremely measured, articulate and engaging in a way that I haven't seen on TH-cam before.