At the same time, those who feel excluded have a responsibility to engage in the culture authentically rather than turning away from it. Kendrick’s lyric reminds us that struggle may shape our experiences, but it doesn’t own our identity. We are complex. We are multifaceted. And we are all enough.

Second, by extending grace. The questions about identity often stem from our own need for solidarity in a world that tries to erase us. But we have to be mindful that our attempts to define Blackness don’t alienate others or give rise to harmful resentment.

Blackness is expansive; it’s as much in Kendrick’s poetic struggles as it is in a kid who never knew hardship but still carries the weight of societal bias and systemic racism.

So, how do we reconcile this? First, by recognizing that “Blackness” is not monolithic. Struggle has been a unifying thread in our history, but it is not the only way to measure identity.

It becomes a cycle: the community questions their Blackness, they internalize the pain, and then weaponize it against the very culture they feel excluded from.

But here’s the thing: others—particularly some bi-racial and foreign-born Black individuals—have sometimes taken these same experiences of rejection and allowed them to fester into anti-Blackness.

Yet, despite the teasing or exclusion, many of us didn’t turn this hurt into resentment or anti-Blackness. We didn’t respond to these moments by denigrating our community or rejecting Black culture. Instead, we learned to navigate and embrace the complexity of Black identity.

It was an unspoken badge of honor, but it could also alienate those who didn’t wear it. This experience isn’t unique to me. Middle-class Black kids, foreign-born Black individuals, and those of mixed heritage have often faced the sting of having their Blackness interrogated.

I faced moments where my Blackness was questioned because I didn’t align w/certain markers of struggle—never ate ramen noodles, never used water in my cereal. For some, these markers became synonymous w/authenticity, as though proximity to hardship defined one’s Blackness.