Racial Stereotyping Theme Analysis

“And please ignore my baby brother, he’s just grumpy that we had to leave Manhattan.”

“Dude, hey, I am not grumpy. It’s just an . . . adjustment,” Darius says, crossing his arms.

“What a hard adjustment for you,” I say, my curiosity about these boys turning off like a switch. I don’t appreciate anyone throwing shade at my neighborhood, especially from people who say words like “totally” and “dude.”

“Career before family? Como una gringa?”

“No, Madrina,” I say. “Not like a white girl! Like . . . a woman! Any woman.”

“That whole family might as well be white.”

“Is this . . . your thing? Art festivals in parks? Like, how come you don’t go to the park to play ball or something?”

He smirks. “You don’t leave that little corner of your neighborhood too often, do you?”

I lean back to get a good look at him. He stares at me, but he blinks first. “Just so you know, in this hood, you’re just like everybody else. The cops and all these white people will take one good look at you and think you’re from Hope Gardens Projects no matter how many tight khaki shorts or grandpa shoes you wear.”

“You want me to be a rapper while you’re a baller so we could be a dynamic duo stereotype?”

I recognize that look. It’s that same look people used to give us when Mama would get on a crowded train with a double stroller holding the twins, me, Marisol, and Janae with our messy hair, runny noses, and each with a bag of chips to keep us occupied while Mama quieted down the babies. It’s the look that assumes Mama is a single mother, that she’s on government assistance, that she beats us when she’s tired, that we all have different fathers, that we live in the projects, and that we’re ghetto. Everybody used to look at us like that—white, black, other mothers with kids who thought they were being responsible by only having two or three. I’d look back at them with defiance and a little pride; a look that says that I love my family and we may be messy and loud, but we’re all together and we love each other.

“He’s black, but he ain’t that black, feel me? The way we do it out here, if your boy gets into a fight, ain’t you supposed to have his back? But instead, his pops tries to get me kicked out of Easton.”

Carrie chuckles. “Why are you suddenly talking like that?”

“Talking like what?” I ask.

“Darius, you noticed how she just changed the way she talked, right?”

“No,” Darius says, shaking his head and looking dead at me.

“According to you, I should be doing all these things that’ll make me more . . . what? Black?”

I hold Mama’s EBT card in my fist. I really don’t want to pull it out in front of Darius.

You’ve got this whole white audience

Watching this fight like some sport

So to whom do I pledge allegiance

To my heart or to this war?

“You treated my sisters like shit, and I needed to call you out on it. And I can’t help that or change that.”

“But I wasn’t . . .” He pulls my hand toward him a little bit.

“Darius.”

“You judged me too. You treated me and my brother like shit too.”