"Acting white".

[Chovexani]

For a big chunk of my life (pre-K to 8th grade), I went to a predominately white and well-to-do private school. My mom was a single parent that worked two jobs to put me in that school because my area public elementary/junior highs were questionable, and also to put my older sister through college (Mom had me late in life). But I also grew up in a typical tambourine-thumpin' black church, complete with ladies in huge hats that would fall out and start dancing in the aisles 'cause they "got the Spirit". So I sort of felt like I straddled two different worlds.

I was made fun of by pretty much everyone, at school and at church because I read a lot; I've always been a geeky type with my nose stuck in a book. But in church I was constantly made fun of because I spoke differently. They said I talked "like a white girl" and were always calling me Oreo. Not just kids either, adults used to also. Of course at school white people (students & teachers alike) would always tell me "you're not like other black people" (this was meant to be a compliment, mind you. They had no clue how insulting this statement was).

As I grew older it only got worse. High school was a bit of a culture shock to me because the private school I went to was tiny, and the public HS I went to (even though it was fairly prestigious, you had to take a test to get in) had upwards of 5,000 kids. It was much more racially mixed; the majority was probably Black/Latino/Asian with whites a distinct minority. I went through hell in that school because I didn't really fit in with anyone. One time, a Black girl actually approached me in the cafeteria and asked me where I was from. The implication being if I was Black and didn't speak the way most Black kids did, I had to be from a foreign country. At one point I even lied and said I was British just to get people off my back. I was constantly mocked and harrassed for being a Goth (which was a "white kid" thing, according to some folks) instead of being into the hip hop culture (which I am not and never have been) and not knowing or caring who the latest and greatest rapper was. I can't dance to save my life (which is one reason I like Goth music, all you really have to do is flail your arms around melodramatically and look sad :P) I got picked on for liking foreign films, because only rich white snobs watch subtitled movies. I kept my religion to myself, because Paganism was for bored, rebellious white kids. And when I was outed as bisexual...Jesus. I won't even get into that, except to say "black girls aren't dykes" was about the kindest thing I heard. I never talked to anyone about my relationships in general, because I've dated almost every race/ethnicity under the sun and the preponderance of white guys (and girls) in my dating history would just make me a bigger target for abuse. I was really alienated from everyone and was accused of everything from being a traitor to my race, to self-hatred, to being an "Auntie" Tom. All of these things can be summed up in the insult, "you're acting white". While I'm not very dark, I'm of a medium skin tone and there's no real mistaking my dominant ethnicity (I say "dominant" because, like most AAs, my family tree is fairly convoluted) when you look at me. So what's the deal?

What is "blackness"? What is "whiteness"? And, more importantly, who gets to decide these things? Why are these boundaries of what is and is not acceptable behavior so important to some people?

I'm just wondering if anyone else has faced similar struggles in their own lives and/or had thoughts on this issue.