re: Russell Wilson isn't "Black Enough," Seahawks Players Allegedly Say

But let's look at a this "black" persona that we are discussing...

For a majority of the country, what we perceive to be "black" is what we see on TV. Most people's interactions with black people, if they don't live amongst them or work amongst them, is through mass media. The depiction of the black body throughout of popular culture has been mainly hypersexualized, rudimentary, animalistic, etc. thank god those times are changing and we are starting to see that that is far from the truth.

What we had/have on TV, outside of the athletes, was a caricature of what life was like as a lower class black American. Those "attitudes" and perceptions are embedded in our popular culture. Go back and view a minstrel show or a comedy from the 1800s; many of the stereotypes about blsck people then are still in our popular culture.

For those that don't encounter blacks too often, this may become their world view of what they are. That's why shows like the Cosby's did wonders for black people, ESPEICALLY the growing middle class. It showed us in another light, one foreign to not only white people, but even some lower class blacks. The middle class people weren't acting "white", they were succeeding and trying to use opportunities to better themselves. If you're in the hood, and this is also foreign to you, then is could be deemed as acting white, because these folks are doing what they've seen white folks do on TV for years.

now the majority is also akin to what the perception of"black"
Is via mass media. So when Some of them encounter people that are outliers to their own world view, they have to do their own reassessments. For every Carlton, there were 25 Tyrones. carltons and outlier, so they may continue to view "black" through "Tyrone" and all of the negative stereotypes he illustrates, and Carlton will be "not really black"