In clubhouse (a voice-only app), I've had the chance to listen to lots of rooms of entirely black people talk, which I rarely get to hear in my daily life.
It turns out black people on clubhouse talk about being black a *lot*. They reference blackness in relation to everything.
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It's really fascinating; blackness permeates as an identity in a way I've never heard another ethnicity or nation referenced (but similar to how I've heard Christians talk). It's very tribal, and touches on many aspects of conversation you wouldn't expect to be black-related.
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I felt very intensely 'white' when listening to these groups, when usually I don't notice my skin color if I'm in an e.g., asian-dominant group. It felt very clear that I was *not* in their in-group at all; there was a huge cultural divide that feels explicitly upheld.
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This was all kind of surprising to me; I don't know if this is specific to Clubhouse or if this is the way black people view the world in general? And also why haven't I really understood this or heard people talk about it if it is more common outside of Clubhouse?
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It is a phenomenon that only truly presents itself in majority-black contexts. Many of us have been taught to dramatically whitewash ourselves in most public and business contexts for fear that discrimination will prevent upward mobility in subtle (or ostentatious) ways
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Clubhouse black people are largely from the music industry, centered around LA and Atlanta, both a regional and professional world where blackness is celebrated and quite valuable/important/necessary for success due to the freedom to, well, be black (unlike a place like SF)
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