This blog will be a little different from my other blogs. I completely apologize if anyone is offended by anything said here (or doesn’t feel comfortable reading about this subject), but this has been something I’ve been dealing with for a very long time and really feel the need to talk about it. This has been going on for around 12 years.

I will start out by saying that I’m the type of person who likes/respect all races, doesn’t hold any grudge or anything against any of them. The only time I have a grudge against someone is how they act or if they treat me badly. I also don’t like to stereotype people by race thinking if someone is X race; they will be into this and not like this. I rather just think of everyone as the same no matter what their race, religion, culture, etc. is.

Going back to my situation, I’d say I didn’t really know much about races until I was around 9 years old. I actually didn’t know anything about any kind of division; I just thought I might have been darker than most people for some weird reason. Throughout my years growing up, I just acted how I wanted to and took some influence from my peers and such. Where I grew up, lets just say it was around 98% white and 2% various other races. There were just a few Black/African American people at my schools.

One day I was hanging out with friends watching a movie with them. Back then I use to be more social and stuff, not really worrying about anything. My friends decided to finally tell me that I was white, and I’m not black. I questioned why, and they said I don’t act like a black person. They tried listing people who were blacker than me. At first I thought my friends were just playing a joke on me one day that I’d never hear again. Wrong, it was what I continued hearing way too much of for the rest of my life. Throughout my early years of high school, my so called “friends” kept telling me I wasn’t black. They said I was a white man inside a black man’s body, called me a white (insert n word), saying I need to take a shower to wash off my paint, trying to say they were darker than me where I wasn’t as tanned, telling me to show them the palm of my hands calling me white, and so on. They said I wasn’t black because I couldn’t rap. They also told me I don’t dress black, and in order to prove it to them, I’d have to buy FUBU clothing. Since I cared too much about trying to prove myself to people back then, I went out and got a bunch of FUBU clothing (and other urban wear). While I’ve always liked rap music, I tried listening to it exponentially more just to prove I was black to people. I even tried doing a few gang signs with my fingers (which was stupid of me when I look back at it now) for a short time in order to prove myself.

Even if people might have considered me black, I had to deal with other things when growing up. Some told me that black people aren’t suppose to play/like hockey, so I better not be in it. They asked me if I camp, I said no, so they said well, because black people don’t go camping. I even had one person tell someone not to sit with me on the bus because I was black. Then I also heard if your black stuff, you must love fried chicken and other things (some stuff I like such as fried chicken, but I hate watermelon). This also hurt my chances with some women since some didn’t want me because I was too white they said.

Because of all these problems I had with people (along with some others, but race was 75% of it), it explains why I’m the way I am. I ended up trying to avoid people living in my own world. I mostly stopped talking to people since most would give me a hard time over the race stuff (it was various races that would give me a hard time, not just targeting one). I ended up just spending more time online and getting sucked into video games more.

Throughout college, it wasn’t that big of an issue, but still some people gave me a rough time about it trying to say I’m not black enough or too white. Now that I live in a totally different area (very different cultures), I’ve had a bunch at work and so on say I’m the whitest black guy they know. Mostly because of the way I act, talk, dress, most of my interests (outside of a few small things), etc. make me another race they say.

Some might wonder why I’m bringing this up now. The main reason I am is because I’ve been told by some that if I want to get a girl, I have to change several things. The several things I had to change was mostly turn into what you may call a stereotypical black person, saying all the slang (calling people homey and other things), dressing in urban clothing, along with acting a certain way. Some say that’s the only way I can get a girl. Personally, I rather disagree with it. I rather just act who I want to be. I don’t feel like I act like a stereotypical Black, White, Asian, etc. person. I act the way I want to act, liking whatever I want to, dressing however I walk to, using whatever language I want to use, etc. I use to get too worked up and worry about what people say about me, but now I don’t let it phase me. If someone hates me for the way I am, so be it.

There have been many other things friends called me and things I had to deal with, but since I can’t think of it all right now, I must have forgotten them for a good reason. Anyway, I just wanted to share with people how it is in my situation. Do you all agree I shouldn’t try to be some stereotypical person just to get a girl? Do you feel I’m making the right decision being the person that makes me happy/feel good? Again, I greatly apologize if I offended anyone, or said something inaccurate. I’m only discussing this from where I come from.