Black TikTokers are responding to criticism that they're 'not Black enough'

A Black creator on TikTok has started a conversation about what it means to be Black after responding to a comment that he found offensive.

Christian Divyne (@xiandivyne) posted a video on Jan. 8 that addressed a comment in which someone told him he looks as if he was “adopted by a white family with good music taste.”

“So I take offense to this, but I specifically figured out what it is,” he says in the post. “My archetype of Black man has died out. ... I used to get called (Steve) Urkel or Norbit, and that archetype has died out.”

Divyne is referring, respectively, to the character from the ’90s sitcom Family Matters and the Eddie Murphy character in the titular movie, both of whom represent a “Black nerd” stereotype. Urkel was known for his high-waisted pants, suspenders and nasal voice, while Norbit was famous for his afro and oversized glasses. He then shows pictures of himself throughout his childhood doing things he considers nerdy, like playing a bass guitar or video games.

Divyne didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News.

“This was an archetype of nerd, of Black nerd specifically,” he says. “People are like ‘Oh, you’re raised around white [people].’ There used to be space for nerdy n*****s who liked Sonic the Hedgehog and Yu Gi Oh cards, and we just let that die off. Now random strangers on the internet are telling me that I’m not Black enough.”

Has the ‘Black nerd’ archetype disappeared?

While Divyne says he thinks the image of the Black nerd has fizzled out, some argue it is having a renaissance.

“Newly visible in part due to the remarkable commercial success of [the Black Panther franchise], as well as to critically acclaimed television series like HBO’s Watchmen (2019) and Lovecraft Country (2020), the Blerd (Black nerd) moment seems to have only just begun,” wrote Adam Bradley for the New York Times in 2021.

Jeneé Osterheldt, the deputy managing editor for culture, talent and development at the Boston Globe, agrees with the idea that Black nerds are alive and visible, and connected Divyne’s experiences to a flawed perception of Black people.

“There was a time, if we’re thinking ’70s and ’80s, when if you were perceived as highly academic or you articulated and enunciated in a certain way, there was a racist perception of that somehow not being Black enough ... which is just inherently racist in itself because it suggests that Black folks are not academic, intelligent and things of the like,” she told Yahoo News. “I think there was a time where we suffered from that type of internalized racism. I don’t know if I feel that way anymore and I think it’s because our Black genius has become so normalized for us.”

Divyne and other people who feel as if they don’t fall into the stereotype of what a Black person looks and behaves like — whether it’s because of skin tone or their gaming choices — aren’t the only people who have voiced their experience of being called “not Black enough.” Black people raised in the suburbs are another faction who’ve been challenged on their Blackness.

“I am not the ‘stereotypical Black female,’ and it has led people to say all manner of racist things. ‘You act white,’ ‘You’re such an Oreo,’ or even, ‘You’re one of the good Black people,’” Kara Johnson wrote in January 2023 for The Every Girl. “These comments have come from both non-Black and Black people and have often left me wondering if I am Black enough.”

Some Black TikTokers have tried to make light of these scenarios, while also explaining how people talk to them.

“Me trynna explain that I’m not a whitewashed girl just a suburban black girl,” wrote @.chikoka in her post.

Osterheldt, who is mixed race herself, described a similar experience growing up and how her perspective has changed.

“I’m not going to act like it doesn’t bother me now,” she said. “When I was younger, it hurt my feelings anytime someone called me ‘white girl.’ I don’t even know how I grew out of it. I probably just read enough [James] Baldwin and saw enough people who made me feel loved and seen that I just quit caring about that stuff.”

According to Osterheldt, one of the best ways to resist comments policing Blackness is to fully embrace yourself and the things you like around you — as she believes there is a fundamental problem with conversations such as these.

“The idea that one can be Black enough is racist,” she said. “The only way you can’t be Black enough is if you are being anti-Black and hurting Black people.”