Mixed race man here, (20 years old, feels weird calling myself 'man' but guess I am one). I grew up with a black mum and because of my white father being abusive, I never really connected well with my white side. I'm from London UK, and I had a very abusive and troubled upbringing. In my teenage years I was smoking a lot of weed, I shoplifted a lot, terrible behaviour at school, wore a lot of tracksuits and ski masks, my friends and I used to make a lot of rap music because one of my friends had a studio at his house. I was a stereotypical 'hood black'. It's taken about a year of therapy for me to get over a lot of stuff that happened to me growing up, I'm now in a healthier place in life. I think you could still tell that I'm from a hood background, but I try to actively present myself in a way that wouldn't make me seem to be a hoodlum if that makes sense. I still wear tracksuits and smoke weed, but I've left all the antisocial behaviour behind, including the ski masks and silver teeth.

I think the media glamorizes the hood to an extent, here in the UK, and in the USA probably too. I think the media has made many black people from more stable / less stereotypically hood backgrounds feel the need to act this way. I've met many many black people from stable backgrounds who act like the black people I was surrounded by growing up. I think most of them will grow out of it, especially when they need to focus on careers and raising a family. It's a shame that blackness is associated with the struggle, but it's our reality. Educating black people and media showing us in a light other than being hood is the best thing that can be done. Just be confident in yourself, and don't surround yourself with hating people, because they are insecure within themselves and are trying to bring it onto you. Hope this helps.