By Rebecca Harrelson, Staff Writer

Published in print Feb. 4, 2015

Back in 2010 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid misspoke when touching on race and President Obama; but his words aren’t far from the minds of our own. “The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Why are you trying to act black? Why are you talking like a white guy? What’s with the white girl you are always with? 

A friend of mine, Zechariah Etheridge, Sociology and African-American Studies major, Religious Studies minor- was helping me come up with an idea for my next article, he suggested Exceptionalism. I heard the word and thought he wanted me to talk about how great something was, quite the contrary. He (an African American male) wanted me to touch on the idea that if you are black you must follow some socially imposed “way to be black guidelines” and if you deviate you are put yourself on the outside of your “group.”

I also spoke to my roommate Kianni Curry, Psychology major and Spanish minor, about this topic, wanting to get her opinion as a black female. “Due to the fact that I can hold a decent conversation without the use of slang, I can speak two languages, have relatively long hair, and live in a two-story home with both of my parents; I cannot just simply be Black or African American. So as I gracefully trot the streets of Charlotte, or Greensboro, or whatever city I am currently in, I am almost always presented the question, “What are you mixed with?” and after people witness the shock and utter disgust on my face, they almost always meekly, and apologetically state, “I’m sorry, you just don’t act black.” 

Let us all ask ourselves, what IS Black, White, Hispanic and everything else out in the world? I like to think my generation (Millennials) is doing really fantastic things to bend the thoughts and confines past generations have imposed. Yet are we seriously still stuck on putting people into a box because of the color of their skin? Of course we are.

Kianni makes the point “My family is very prominent in their desire for me and my siblings to be surrounded by the African American community. I find it very interesting  the rank of importance with other races is to them.

My younger sister is graduating high school this year and upon her search for colleges, there have been many choices that were knocked off the list because there weren’t enough black students that attended the school. I often wonder what my parents think will happen to her if she goes to a school with a 6 percent African American population.”

Not only is this playing out in families but also within our culture. Gay rappers, fashion trends, educational opportunities, housing systems, musical tastes, labeling something “hipster,” “thug,” “preppy,” “emo” happens daily.

I myself hoping to be as PC as possible even use these labels when describing certain things, but we need to stop forcibly imposing them on other human beings, we need to allow them to be and love and like whatever it is they wish.    

I was also curious to know how this phenomenon effected dating and marriage, if interracial couples still faced issues today.

I spoke with Zechariah about this subtopic of  Exceptionalism . “There is still much controversy over the underlying reality of why black men date white women, and less so on why black women date white men, but the conversation is still there.

It’s quite the phenomenon to address, and I ultimately disagree with race being a factor in someone’s love life, but I do understand the cultural reasons behind why a family- my family, has an issue with interracial dating.

I grew up hearing “is a black girl not good enough for you?”, “what makes her [the white girl] so much better?”, “Wouldn’t you rather be with someone you can identify with?” The list goes on.”

Society makes society’s rules, and if we as human beings can fathom that we can see the power we have in changing these labels we have created for ourselves. Kianni sums up the entirety of the message by saying, “I believe we need more humanitarians who are strong willed, strong minded, and won’t take no for an answer.

People need to be pushed out of their comfort zones and forced to be more open minded about a lot of things, especially race. It’s been done before, and I have no doubt in my mind that it can be done again, even better than before.”