I was raised in both “D-towns”; Detroit and Dallas. And I like to joke that I got my hustle from Detroit, and my southern charm and style from Dallas. But what I don’t talk about enough is how much I love hood-ish.
Not hood rat ish…
but hood ish.
Follow me, please lol.
There has to be balance in everything. And depending on how or where you meet me, it would absolutely surprise you that as much as I listen to Jordan G. Welch, Charles Aznavour, and Burna Boy… I also listen to some of the most ghetto rappers known to man. Because sometimes I don’t want to be conscious. Sometimes I just want to drive with one hand, my seat leaned back, and say, “I might go to Texas, hit up Johnny, get my teeth hard…”
The “Right Way” to Be Black
Cause here’s the thing. In America, they make you feel like there’s a “right way to be Black.” And with the media constantly pushing some of the most ignorant, sexualized, violent, and uneducated portrayals of Black Americans, it creates this pressure to perform as “one of the good ones” at all times.
We articulate. Over-articulate.
Move to the city or the suburbs.
Get disgustingly educated.
Attend the opera. The ballet.
Summer in Europe.
And take up pilates, tennis, golf, wine tastings, art galleries, investment portfolios, real estate ventures, tech careers…
And don’t get me wrong, none of that is wrong. In fact, it’s beautiful. Because it’s not about “assimilating to whiteness” like people love to say. It’s about exposure. It’s about finally having access to more and allowing ourselves to experience that more.
But even with all of that, the degrees, vacations, careers, businesses…sometimes I still want a good hood-ish night out. A night where I’m with my hood cousins or friends…laughing as loud as we want. Half of them smoking big blunts and passing it to me knowing I don’t smoke. In a section somewhere screaming Finesse2Tymes at the top of my lungs and whining my hips the second Megan or Afrobeats comes on.
Ending up at an after-hours I didn’t plan to go to…
being forced to take shots I didn’t ask for…
and somehow finishing the night at Waffle House, the same place I act too bougie to go to and claim I hate…Because let’s be real a girl can only eat Whataburger so many times.
It Was Never Hood, It Was Joy
And the funniest part about all of this? The same people I’m having those nights with
are educated.
homeowners.
entrepreneurs.
high earners.
The same people that can get dopeboy fresh for the club on a Friday night can put on a suit Saturday morning and walk into a room and execute flawlessly. And that made me stop and think; Have I allowed America’s negative connotations of Black culture to shape how I label these experiences? Because sure, for the sake of fitting language, I’ll say I love “hood-ish.”
But if you really ask me? I think I just love Black joy.
All of it.
The polished, professional, creative, loud, carefree, streetwear, big jewelry, long nails, hood music, the insane energy.
Because sometimes we’re not sad. We’ve just spent entirely too much time being composed. Too much time being polished. Too much time being the version of ourselves the world is most comfortable with.
And sometimes…
you just need to put on a fly fit, scream some good lyrics, laugh from your belly as loud as you need to, and end your night at a diner where the cook takes a smoke break every five minutes.
