His raps go viral, his show Atlanta is the hottest thing on TV, and he´s just stolen the new Star Wars film. Where was Donald Glover when I was growing up?When I was a teenager, I sometimes got called an `oreo`. You know, black on the outside, white on the inside. I was as proud as possible of being black and I´d studied black history, but to some of my peers something critical was missing, something ineffable but essential. Some heard it in the voice: not enough bass or grit or soul or something. What they were saying was that I wasn´t black enough. Few said it directly, but some did. Why?I played tennis. I spoke proper English. I unabashedly loved the Beatles. After years in prep school, they thought too much whiteness had seeped into me. This charge, dear reader, was without merit. I was neither white inside (whatever that means) nor did I wish to be white. I played tennis at a black tennis club, I lived for hip-hop, and I devoured Richard Wright´s Native Son and Ralph Ellison´s Invisible Man, two books that take a deep look at blackness. Continue reading...
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