Is your teen 'a gangsta from the hood'?!?!

[Robertsmithdoesmyhair]

My 14 year old son speaks in rap and I have no clue what he is talking about most of the time. Lots of 'blud' 'bruva' and sucking his teeth. Funnily enough, he is neither from the hood nor a gangsta and we are a fairly normal family! We don't live in The Bronx and we don't wear soverign rings!
When oh when will he return to normal? Anyone else's teen doing this?

TheLastNigel

...

Can you honestly not see how a teenager thinking that she is 'talking black' is problematic?

Does your daughter think that all black people speak a certain way

The very notion that she thinks she can 'talk like a black person' is racist. If you can't see that then there's no point trying to have a discussion with you tbh, if you actually believe there is a 'black' way of speaking

Jeez leave Nigels 11 year old DD alone.
She's a silly pre teen, like everyone else's kid on this thread. She's pretending to be someone shes not, because she thinks it's cool. Like the regular threads on here about wanting to look posh or French.
Yeah, black people still face a lot of discrimination. But give a kid a few years of seeing the trappings as aspirational rather than hushed toned explanations of historical injustices.
It's annoying and irritating bit not malicious

I just cannot believe the racism that some people have. It's so appalling that a parent thinks it's acceptable for their child to view all black people as acting a certain way, talking a certain way etc. Is it really too hard for some cough racist cough people to understand that POC aren't all exactly the same or fit into your racially prejudiced stereotypesthe fact that some children believe that black people are this or black people act like that is racism in itself, and the unfortunate likely symptom of living in a non diverse area.

Oh cross posted with Nigel herself.

Oh god this is my everyday life in teaching! The attempted Jamaican accents, referring to each other as Blud, or Bruv! Every answer is Trust and the constant stiff leg walk with hands down their trousers!! Ridiculous

She's a silly pre teen, like everyone else's kid on this thread. She's pretending to be someone shes not, because she thinks it's cool.

There's a difference between "acting like a gangsta" and "acting like a black person"ffs!! You're being deliberately dense, there is a clear difference between trying to act cool and trying to act BLACK for fucks sake

Italics fail

A question for Nigel and Nigel's DD; how exactly do you 'act black'? Do you think that all black people act and speak in a certain way? If not all black people act in the same way, then how do you 'act black' in the first place?

She thinks she's talking like the celebrities she admires. (Who in her case are largely black people).

Fine I get it. It's not ok for her to want to imitate the people she admires because their skin is a different colour....

She probably doesn't consider consciously thinks she is 'talking black' to 'misappropriate their culture' specifically no.

Perhaps there is no point in having a conversation with you either-because you seem Determined to label an 11 year old imitating the figures she admires in popular culture as a deliberate racist.

Would you genuinely prefer she think the opposite? That being black is not a good thing and never can be because of the years of oppression black people have faced?

Why does she need to think bring black is anything fgs? It's not a costume, you csnt just "act black" by murmuring a few words that you deem to be limited to black people and then return to your true white self and not face any oppression.
Ffs

@TheLastNigel She's not imitating celebrities though. Your opening line was "she is very Street" that's not imitation.
Going to a shop and calling people bruv isn't imitating it.
This is ridiculous

I caught mine calling the cat ‘my G’ today.

I never said acting like a gangsta actually. And yes I'm aware that not all black people are Gangstas.

She does speak as lots of the other kids described here, white and black, with a sort of Jamaican inflection that isn't traditionally found in homogeneous white areas of the UK as far as im aware.
And again i haven't said I don't like it, or I consider it be a bad thing particularly.

What is a peng ting?

I darent Google

What user1461609321 said.

Where has she got it from then Tedly? Because she hasn't got the use of 'fam' and 'bruv' from me.
She has got it from the people she follows on YouTube, podcasts, films and TV

TheLastNigel keep digging love.

@TheLastNigel
Jamaican inflection?

Nigels dd listens to grime, her mums friend talks about her hair care, she lives in a fairly homogenous white 'boring suburb' by the sounds of things, popular culture is full of glamourised images of Brits of Carribean descent acting cool. She's a kid who knows nothing, basically, and in her innocence and inexperience shes conflating urban cool with being black.
As I see it anyway

@TheLastNigel
Why have you not explained to her that summarising all black people to be Street is offensive?

Let me guess, she doesn't imitate "non-street" black people such as Trevor McDonald?

What is with the need for prople to pretend to be the worst off?

Sadly I’ve reported this thread as it’s descended into a slanging match.
I will say though that the cat being addressed as “My G” made me laugh.
And Trevor McDonald is hardly likely to be on any kid’s radar.

I don’t know if this a “street” thing to do, but I always cringe when I see the boys on Made in Chelsea fist bump each other and refer to each other as boi/bwoi. There’s a lot to cringe about on the show but that’s the worst!

Ok Tedly-where does the accent adopted by many and described on this thread derive from linguistically?

@user1461609321 everything you said is completely accurate!
As for everyone jumping on @Nigel, half the comments on this thread are the PPs reminding their children they're white, like they are acting like a person of non-white origin? Yet the only person getting flack is Nigels and her DD
You're all insinuating in some way that these kids are acting like someone of another race.. and "wagwan" is patios not just "Roadman slang" so why not all teach your kids the importance of cultural appropriation with this being the first thing to stop, instead of just cringing, smiling and being generally embarrassed. double standards

Well Trevor McDonald isn't cool is he? He's a boring old guy on the news. 11 year olds dont care about NHS cuts or Brexit.
In the 60's Liverpool was the thing the kids aspired to, in the 90s it was Manchester.

Am I missing the point, genuine question here, because I dont see the difference in a 90s teen wearing a parka and saying Our Kid, and a teen today wanting afro hair and putting on a 'street' accent.
I do understand black oppression that still exists. But you can't expect an 11 year old to dig down so deep.

I'm not even in the UK and do live fairly rural and homogenous. So I could well be missing something about this particular dynamic.