You Are Not Who They Say You Are
Every Black man in America grows up shadowboxing with stereotypes. The aggressive thug. The absent father. The intellectual exception. The angry Black man. The threat. The sex machine (Brown, 1969). These images precede us into every room, every interview, every interaction. We spend so much energy proving we’re not these things that we forget to discover who we actually are.
This is the invisible tax of Black manhood — the constant calculation of how you’ll be perceived before you’ve even opened your mouth. Will speaking passionately be mistaken for aggression? Will confidence be read as arrogance? Will a moment of frustration confirm someone’s deepest suspicions? The mental gymnastics are exhausting, and they start younger than most people realize.
The Weight of Other People's Imagination
Banishing stereotypes isn’t about ignoring that they exist — they’re real and they have real consequences. Stereotypes affect hiring decisions, housing opportunities, police interactions, and countless daily encounters. Pretending they don’t exist won’t protect you from their impact. But there’s a crucial difference between acknowledging external realities and allowing them to colonize your internal world.
The work of banishing stereotypes is about refusing to let them define your internal reality even when they shape your external experience. It’s about separating who you are from who “they” fear you might be. It’s about reclaiming the space inside your own mind as territory that belongs solely to you.
The first step is identifying which stereotypes you’re fighting against. What are you constantly trying to disprove? That you’re lazy? Dangerous? Irresponsible? Unintelligent? Notice how much of your behavior is a reaction to these lies. Notice how exhausting it is to live in response mode, always performing, always proving, always on guard (Undisputed Truth, Temptations, 1972).
The Trap of Opposite Performance
Here’s where many of us get caught: the opposite of a stereotype is still controlled by the stereotype. If you’re working twice as hard to prove you’re not lazy, you’re still letting the stereotype set the terms of your existence. If you’re performing exceptional calm to prove you’re not angry, you’re still performing. The puppet strings are just longer, but you’re still not free.
Let’s look at Derek, a young attorney at a prestigious firm. Derek was brilliant, driven, and deeply aware of being one of only three Black lawyers in his office. Without consciously deciding to, he began performing the role of the “non-threatening Black professional.” He spoke softer than felt natural, laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, and never disagreed in meetings — even when he saw obvious flaws in strategy. He dressed more conservatively than his white colleagues, arrived earlier, stayed later, and volunteered for every thankless assignment.
For years, Derek believed he was being strategic. He was playing the game, earning his place, proving himself worthy of respect. But the performance was costing him. He’d lost touch with his natural assertiveness, his humor, his sharp analytical mind that loved to challenge assumptions. Worse, despite his perfect performance, some colleagues still clutched their belongings when he entered the elevator. Others still seemed surprised when he contributed something insightful. He’d bent himself into a pretzel trying to disprove their assumptions, and they’d stereotyped him anyway.
The breaking point came during a case review when Derek spotted a critical flaw in the senior partner’s approach. His old self would have raised the concern immediately. Instead, he stayed silent, unwilling to risk being seen as confrontational. The flaw cost their client significant money and the firm its reputation with that client. Derek realized then that his performance wasn’t protecting him — it was diminishing him. He’d been so focused on who he wasn’t that he’d forgotten who he was: a sharp, capable attorney whose perspective had value precisely because it was different
Liberation From the Inside Out
True liberation comes when you define yourself from the inside out. When your identity is built on your values, your experiences, your chosen community, your authentic expression — not on disproving someone else’s narrow imagination. This doesn’t mean being reckless or ignoring context entirely. It means your core sense of self isn’t up for negotiation based on someone else’s ignorance.
This requires courage. It means sometimes you’ll be misunderstood. Sometimes you’ll be stereotyped anyway, no matter how perfectly you perform the opposite. The freedom is in no longer caring — in knowing who you are so deeply that their projections can’t penetrate your sense of self. Their assumptions become their problem, not your identity crisis.
This kind of self-knowledge doesn’t happen overnight. It requires intentional work. It means examining the masks you’ve constructed and asking which ones serve you and which ones imprison you. It means getting honest about the moments when you abandoned your authentic self to make others comfortable. It means grieving the energy you’ve wasted and reclaiming it for your own purposes.
Building Spaces for Full Humanity
Surround yourself with people who see you fully — people who recognize your complexity without requiring explanations or performances. These relationships are oxygen for your authentic self. In these spaces, you can be soft and strong simultaneously. You can be vulnerable without being weak. You can be angry without being a threat. You can be figuring things out without being irresponsible. You can simply exist in your full, messy, evolving humanity.
Create and seek out spaces where Black men can show up completely. Spaces where intellectualism doesn’t make you “exceptional.” Where gentleness doesn’t make you “different from other Black men.” Where ambition doesn’t require justification. These spaces remind you that the stereotypes were always lies — not because you’re the exception, but because the rule never existed except in fearful imaginations.
Reclaiming Your Narrative
We are not a monolith, despite how society tries to flatten our diversity into manageable categories. We are not reactions to other people’s fears. We are not stereotypes or their carefully performed opposites. We are not who they say we are.
We are simply, complexly, beautifully ourselves. Fathers and artists. Intellectuals and athletes. Gentle and fierce. Confident and uncertain. Works in progress worthy of respect not because we’ve proven anything to anyone, but because our humanity was never actually in question — except in minds too limited to see it.
The journey to banish stereotypes is really the journey home to yourself. It’s the refusal to let anyone else write your story, even in opposition. Your narrative belongs to you. Write it from your truth and your soul, not from reaction.
Fredrick Bush, LCSW, has over a decade of experience empowering Black men, women, and couples to navigate their personal growth and relationships. He is the founder of Eidolon Therapeutic Counseling, LLC (eidolon.help) and creator of the ICBM Workshop Series (icbmale.com). Bush also hosts the On Being Black Men (OBBM) podcast.
Date posted: November 29, 2025
Author: Fredrick Bush