Remember fried bologna sandwiches? Or even your mother warning you that you better be in the house before the street lights come on? For me as a black kid, there were just certain things that were a given in my area when I was growing up. You knew if you took $1 to the corner store, you could come back with a bag of candy to last a couple of days. Or, every day around the same time, the ice cream truck would come down the street playing the same ole janky song, and you had to stand in line to wait your turn to pay 50 cents for a bomb pop.
Well, if you’re a black kid, those are probably some of the fondest memories of your childhood, and #GrowingUpBlack will probably be a walk down memory lane.
The hashtag, which trended throughout Tuesday night, was not only hilarious but also a bit thought-provoking. And, of course, there were those who tried their hardest to invade the conversation with statements like, “Well, I’m white. We did those things, too.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. But were we talking about you right now? Nope. Move on.
Here’s just a sampling of some of the best tweets from the hashtag:
https://twitter.com/isawdeminaked/status/621067829308100609https://twitter.com/Chrisj_55/status/621130446970224640https://twitter.com/Karnythia/status/621128454260404224https://twitter.com/ALBDamn/status/621123558257856512https://twitter.com/JamilahLemieux/status/621119027159658496https://twitter.com/goldietaylor/status/621116171945922561https://twitter.com/JackeeHarry/status/621117646986215424https://twitter.com/YeshaCallahan/status/621064344600625152https://twitter.com/TreMelvin/status/621131284031475712
Here at The Root, we’ve covered black Twitter for almost three years, before it was a “thing” for mainstream publications to do. It’s moments like these that remind us that black Twitter is not only a place where news is shared but also a place where you can see the commonalities that black people share and then can sit back and laugh about it.