How Can Being Yourself Be A "Trend"?

I saw two disturbing tweets by The Root (DC bureau) today.  For those of you who don't know, The Root is an online magazine about Black news and opinion on politics and culture.  I'm always interested in what they have to say, and for the most part, I usually agree with their opinions, but I'm not sure what the intention behind their tweets meant:

.@donaldglover and @issarae are front-runners of the growing black nerd "trend." Is it a trend or is it a stereotype? wapo.st/WS25hO
— TheRootDC (@theroot_dc) November 27, 2012

The other tweet stated:

The rise of the black-nerd stereotype: A step backward? wapo.st/WS25hN

— TheRootDC (@theroot_dc) November 26, 2012

Both of these tweets imply an adverse subjective opinion to the "Blerd Movement".  I also saw a negative critique by another Black blogger that they despise the term blerd and its insinuation of black people.  You can read her article here and decipher your own opinion.

The Root published an article that didn't necessarily trash the term blerd, but criticized the way black nerds are being portrayed and that this new subculture is exclusive to other groups of blacks.  I actually tweeted back to the writer Clinton Yates (who considers himself a blerd) that I respectfully disagree with the notion that blerds are exclusive and that it is quite the contrary.  We are an inclusive group of individuals that are allowing men and women of color everywhere to be open to express who they are regardless of what society deems as "cool".  The article further insinuates that the black nerd is just another stereotype to separate black people from their blackness.

Don't believe me?  Here are his words:

 The ‘blerd’ label unfortunately reinforces both the ridiculous stereotypes that black folks have nothing but cool to offer and that anything else is a departure from blackness

Now I personally think the term blerd is cute and cheeky.  However, to assume a subculture of individuals such as myself are simply trying to be "cool" in an unauthentic way to set themselves from being Black is foolish.  I give credit to Yates for his brashness and I actually complimented him on Twitter for writing it, because frankly it's always good to have these kinds of discussions whether you agree or disagree.  However, I feel like Clinton Yates among several other bloggers/writers are missing the big picture.

It's easy to assume that this may appear to be a trend.  Obviously the term blerd is new to our vernacular which comes across as vogue in some respects and has the bandwagon-effect.  I totally get that.  This bandwagon-effect has penetrated a small minority of blacks and whites that like the cultism behind the term.  Just Google the term and you will see what I'm talking about.

Having said that, the big picture always comes into play.  You can't define a subculture based on a sample of Twitter followers, an internet superstar, or a hip hop artist.  You can't define a subculture based on a few media critics who don't like the idea that Black people are interested in ideas, thoughts, concepts, and activities that are alternatives to our own culture.  You can't define a subculture based on a pair of glasses or tightly fitted clothes.

The problem is...you can't define us.

So stop writing critical social commentary about us based on a small representative group of people just because they have a voice through a media outlet like TV, Film, Print, Internet, or Social Media.  The rest of us don't have those outlets to be heard and get muted in the process.  Therefore, you don't even know we exist.

I've been a BGN all of my life.  Hell, I lived several years of my life where I tried to run away faster than Flo Jo to get away from being a nerdy black girl.  I lived several years where I thought that in order to fit the status quo I had to be someone I was not.  There is a great social commentary piece written by Jenn M Jackson the theory behind "The Crooked Room".  When you get the opportunity, take a quick read.  To put it briefly, it is about how black women tend to adapt themselves to their external environments compromising their own self-worth in the process.

You can take away with this commentary any which way you like, but I firmly believe that black nerds (or blerds) have been around for centuries.  I believe Phyllis Wheatley was a black nerd, Mae Jemison is a black nerd, and Oprah Winfrey is a black nerd.

What makes them nerdy goes far beyond their intellect and their titles--poet, astronaut, and entrepreneur.  What makes them nerdy is their ability to defy all odds by stepping outside of their social boundaries and being something that no one else around them was able to do.  They were social outcasts, and in my opinion that constitutes nerdiness.



And what about Cree Summer?  What about the Afro-Punk movement?  She's a self-declared BGN and has been way before the term blerd was ever used. However, when this conversation comes up, the same sample of black nerds come up and they now represent the entire subculture of each of us.  There's more than six of us you know.  Not everybody is Aisha Tyler or Baratunde Thurston.

The idea that being a nerd is anti-black is absolutely ridiculous!  I believe that the same people who make those insipid remarks also believe that what makes one "black" are the racial stereotypes that we have been fighting against for years.  If the argument that being a nerd is anti-black or seperates you from your blackness as Yates suggested in his piece, then what constitutes being black?  Everything that a nerd is not?

Well let's see, so that would leave us with the following:

Stupid
Athletic
Loud and Rambunctious (Extroverted)

I mean that's the anti-nerd right?? WRONG.  Guess what?  None of these stereotypes apply to being an anti-nerd or a nerd for that matter.  A nerd can be all or some of those things too.  Here is my point (and yes, I'm getting there).  As Black writers let's stop playing the games of racial stereotypes against one another.  There is nothing racist or even elitist about the term blerd.  It's just a slang word used to define a black nerd.

There is nothing about being a black nerd that makes you any less black then anyone else.  So stop trying to be controversial and try to create a race war out of the term because that's not happening.

Finally (insert my point here) being a nerd is not a trend.  

The trend is the fact that more of us in the black community are having this conversation.

The trend is the fact that more artists are coming out of the black nerd closet and finally declaring who they really are.  I can speak from experience on this one, because that used to be me.  2/1/12 when this blog was created was my coming out day.

The trend is the idea of being nerd chic is everywhere and it's not just Black people.  White people have been trending on the nerd image for years now, but somehow when blacks get involved there is some sort of racial undertone to it.  Why?

So I just wanted to say that I'm a Black Girl Nerd and I'm here to stay.  I'm not some fad or racial stereotype.  I'm not the new Issa Rae or Donald Glover.  I'm just a chubby Black girl from the South who has finally come to terms with the fact that she's nerdy and proud of it!