Brittany Counts on Inman High School

AH: What were some of the major issues that happened at school, I know that some schools had fights and racial tensions, where there anything like that happening in Inman?

BC: Lets’ see, we had people who, it is a really, really small country town, its’ like I mean if you drove through this town, you would think, oh, time has stood still, like we still have the local ice cream shop, where you can like get three scoops of ice cream for $0.95 and a hot dog for like $0.50 and a lot of ways the thoughts of the people has stood still too even more so than the town because it was the way that they were raised and so they raised their children that way and there was a huge, huge problem when President [Barack] Obama was running for his first term, it got so bad that we were not allowed to wear anything supporting him, if we had it on our cars we had cover it up or take it off if we could because of fear that it would cause issues, race issues, there were people who would wear shirts portraying him as a monkey or just other animals and there were lots and lots of racial slurs that we never pointed directly at me, but they were put toward some of the African American friends that I had and whenever an individual would get in trouble or get caught yelling these everyone in the group, but me. They would be like, “why are you singling her out?” “Well she doesn’t count,” and so that was a big issue for me because how I can be sitting here and I am the one that doesn’t count? “Oh well this applies, they are ghetto and you are not” and so that was a huge huge thing people always constantly tell me that “you don’t count when we say this because everybody elese they are loud that they are ghetto and they do all of this and they wear all this long weave and the long nails and they just don’t act intelligent. They do not put up that façade, almost that they do not act like you so therefore when we call them this name, we are not including you.” And we never have like fights revolve out breakout because of it, we had people who were African American and Caucasian who were just kind of liked looked at weirdly because, if they had predominately Black friends, they would be like “yeah, you kind of fit in” and if you had predominately White friends, then “oh they are traitor, they are not really Black at all, they just don’t acknowledge the fact that they have Black in them at all” and so, I tried, I did my best, I had friends of all races and I am thankful for that, but at the same time it was just kind of like, when people would meet me they would get to know me really well, it was not like it really changed their views on other African Americans or the African American community in a whole, it was just kind of like, well there is Black people and then there is Brittany Counts. And so I was like, I don’t understand because Brittany Counts is Black

BC: So I really don’t understand why I don’t get put in with this category and it is like, “if we saw you no way in the world would we grab our purses or feel threatened, but if we saw so and so we would probably turn around and go in the opposite direction and cross the street.” And so that is like there were a lot of things said, but nothing genuinely carried out.

AJ Johnson on Black Relationships

AH: So if you are only socializing with African American students is there a big dating pool that you can choose from or do you try to date from outside of the College of Charleston or is that nor one of your priorities?

AJ: Well, there is not a big pool to date from I guess, because again we are very isolated and we focus just on the community, but we have a very small population, and when you have a very small population concentrated in a tiny area with all kinds of freedom and pheromones being thrown from here to everywhere. I mean you create drama, there is so much drama because of that very issue and you do see a few Black people dating outside the race, but those are generally the ones who are not concentrated within the Black community, like the Black community, where everyone knows everybody else and in that same case everybody has had sex with everybody else. And unfortunately I was telling a friend the other day, I cannot date these girls on campus and this is reference to the Black girls on campus, because personally I would not date outside of the race because if I am seriously dating, that is somebody who I am looking to be with for life and I could not be with a White woman for life, because I would feel like that she would not be able understand the trials that I have been through, that my race has been through and there are just certain scars that one needs to be able to understand that a White female would not be able to understand, or any other race as a matter of fact, but as far as the culture, the tiny community, the isolated community of College of Charleston, every girl has been at least with some guy on campus, because as small as a pool of Black females as there are, there is an even smaller pool of Black males who are straight. Out of those guys if you are straight, one of the things that they say is “That if you are straight on this campus, you have messed with more than one girl on this campus” and so if every guy has messed with more than one girl on the campus then of course there is going to be overlapping like, messing with girls on campus, and every guy has been with every girl one way or another and it is a part of the culture that I don’t want to be a part of so if I say that I don’t want to be a part of these girls on campus, that doesn’t mean I want a girl out of the race, I want a girl within the race, but at the same time I do not want a girl within the race within the culture of this campus.

AH: Gotcha, okay. In your family has there been interracial couples?

AJ: Yeah, especially on my dad’s side. On my mom’s side, it is much more, I guess is more Black Nationalistic, very set in the roots, my grandma had all kinds of children, all kinds of grandchildren, and all kinds of grand grandchildren, but we are able to trace our roots back there and they are very modest and homely like, very home grown, whereas on my dad’s side, on my dad’s side it is very interesting one of my great grandfathers actually came as a freeman from Africa and from him I believe, in some point or another he married into the Cherokee, well Creek Indians, whereas on the Creek side, I believe, they married into a White family and so on my dad’s side I have some KKK [Ku Klux Klan] members, family members actually on my dad’s side, like not too far out and I have actually met some family members, that have told me that if we were not family, if we were not blood, he would not be able to look at me like a human being because I am Black and the thing is this guy was mixed, like he was White and Black, but he had like Confederate flags all over his house and stuff. So, yeah, and one of my uncles, he married a White woman, and I think he is mixed and my dad’s side is just all kinds of mixed up as far as that goes, yeah. White and Black it is not even that big of a deal I guess, well apparently, it is that big of a deal

AH: Well for some people

AJ: Right, right. but having White on that side of the family is not that big of a deal, whereas, as having White in the family on my mom’s side would be much more so.

AH: Okay, so there is pressure from your mom’s side to marry a Black woman?

AJ: Oh, absolutely! Oh, my mom has told me not to bring a White girl home, like she has told me on multiple occasions, like “I don’t mind you dating her, but you will not bring a White girl home” She has told me that on multiple occasions.

AH: So you dated White [girls] in high school?

AJ: I didn’t date in high school because I was really awkward

AH: Well, you never know

AJ: I thought about it, but again like my mom always pressured do not date a White girl, so I stayed away from White girls, so that means I was looking at either Black girls or girls of some minority, there are no, but in all of my classes all there are were White girls and the girls, Black girls far and in-between I couldn’t identify with them and even though I wanted to; and then you have Hispanics and a few Asians in between and they were fine whatever, but I just couldn’t, there wasn’t nobody that I could identify with and nobody I could just click with because I just, I was told that I had to look for a certain person and she was not there.