fightinfunbags
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Teaching and coaching has given me the opportunity to work with all sorts of kids from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds. Take this with a grain of salt because it’s anecdotal evidence. I’ve observed though that African American kids who are adopted or who grow up in the suburbs attending private schools with white kids often struggle with the “blackness” of their identity. As they’re working their way through growing up it’s a struggle of expectation. They feel the weight of “being black”. This is often the case when these kids are one of only a handful of black kids in the community. They often act like they have to take on their image of what blackness is and that often manifests in what they are conditioned to through popular culture. So that’s primarily rappers, athletes, characters played on TV. They often present like they have to be “hard” or other adjectives people toss around that are just too mean for me (a white guy) to repeat.
Also…if I stepped in some shit with the way I presented this post, I apologize. It really wasn’t my intent at all. Anyway…I look at JA’s background as you described it and I really think he fits that trope of the young person I described. I can imagine that’s even more pronounced when he was coming up in AAU and the like.
