Black Men Who Don't Nod Back

[Depreciating Asset]

I don't initiate the nod anymore

But I will reciprocate

shyt seems so different from when we were kids. There was none of this pawging nonsense. Public enemy was singing Fight The Power. We were wearing FUBU and X hats. KRS, Black Star and we got movies like Menace and Higher Learning. The Cosby Show.

Blackness was a thing were we collectively embracing and fighting for its legitimacy.

Maybe I am just old but I don't feel a sense of black solidarity anymore unless I am at an HBCU. I feel like "Do You" and YOLO took over Black consciousness.

So if there's no more Black solidarity why am I even trying to hold on to something that is being lost?

 

[RhodyRum]

"Midwest Nice" I've never heard that, and from what I've seen Indiana is even colder.

Nah I'm mostly joking because I'm originally an NYC head who moved out to Minnesota, and Ohio is always on my route when I head out there, so the climate is always more congenial in the Midwest than the northeast, comparatively speaking.

Quick funny story. Morning of Thanksgiving Eve, 2021. I'm at a hotel in Akron, about to head downstairs to grab something to eat before I run back upstairs to grab my luggage to check out and head back on the road on my way to NYC. I'm rocking an athletic sweatsuit, the type teams wear when they're travelling for road games. Outta nowhere an older breh runs up on me telling me he knows me, so I ask him where from. He tells me he recognizes me from when his son had a football recruiting visit to Thee Ohio State like 5 years ago and I was one of the players who hosted them. I ain't really have time to chit chat so I made up a story on the spot and told him I got hurt the following season and it ended my playing career but that now I'm a grad assistant at Youngstown State. Mans was so proud, dapped me up with the bro hug and told me: "Keep grindin' young bwoy!"

I returned to my room after getting breakfast, grabbed my bags, and before leaving took one last look at myself in the mirror. Then it hit me as I said to myself: "For a dude on the verge of 40, you're a damn good looking, youthful ass mu'fukka. Black REALLY don't crack."

Safe to say I've been feeling myself ever since that.

 

[8WON6]

I’m “introverted” too I guess and even I know what it means



Introverted just means you prefer to be alone. And it isn’t some social game, it’s just a way saying wassup and isn’t even a conscious thing that’s done (on my part).

It’s no different than saying wassup brotha or wassup black man, I see you, and keeping it moving.


I notice a lot of people talk this pro-black shyt online but don’t move that way outside it.

I’m not even “militant” either.

should you be considered a c00n or a psychopath because you didn't give another Blackman a headnod in public?

People in here have applied all kinds wild negatives to their fellow Black men who don't do this headnod shyt.

I'm simply stating that not everybody is wired the same, just like you are stating...i don't see what the problem is.

It's weird that me actually trying NOT to vilify Black people over a meaningless made up social cue is considered wrong. I've simply stated that some people are wired different. Hell that Black man might be going through something like losing a family member and here comes some random person on the street worried about some funky ass headnod.

 

[Kiyoshi-Dono]

I would’ve agreed with this back in the late 90s early 00s but this shyt is different now
I did the nod a couple of years ago and a nikka asked me
What’s good
Literally had to tell breh
Just acknowledging you breh that’s all
You can call this comment respectability or whatever the fukk
But you being disingenuous if it ain’t nikkas out here on 10 just looking for a reason
Unless you are an older black man
I just keep it pushing unless you initiate it first
I’ll be a self hating jiggaboo sambo to you coli militants

 

[The God Poster]

I'm very introverted. I just don't think the people that live and die with this headnod type shyt realize that not everybody is playing the same social game with them. Some people can't even think beyond "how come they not trying to fit in with me?"

I was gonna type out a whole thing, but i think these sentences kind of cover it.

lol it was a simple yes or no

I’m also introverted but if someone speaks or nods I’ll acknowledge them

 

[Black Excellence]

One thing I learned being on this site, it’s a bunch of fake militants on here.

This isn’t real life, nobody is actively looking down on another person for not fukking head nodding lmaoo.

I live in NYC, people are focused on running to where they got to go to, you think they trying to look in your eyes for confirmation of togetherness? They gonna ask what the fukk you looking at lmao.

On top of that, there’s so many different people with their own shyt going on, there’s introverts, folks that are socially awkward, etc.

I go out of my way to head nod but trust me it’s not as deep as this thread is making it. Folks can’t think outside of their own selfish perspective and end up creating some bullshyt out of thin air about the very people they supposed to be locked in with. You ever think maybe there’s black people who don’t know about the head nod & just be in their own bubble?

Draining, negative motherfukkers…..who would even want to be around y’all? “If they don’t nod back they not black” and people agreed with that dumb shyt.

 

[The Burger King]

I’m on the more introverted/reserved side, but I will initiate or respond to the nod in most cases.

But some of ya’ll need to calm the fukk down and stop taking shyt so personally.

People have their own shyt going on. Brehs are worried about work-related stuff, bills, relationships, etc. and may be too caught up in their own heads to notice you and that’s OK.

I have a hearing issue in one ear because my eardrum bursted when I was a child. Sometimes you have to speak up extra loud for me to hear you.

I’ve had so many sensitive ass nikkas get upset and act like I’m disrespecting them by “ignoring” them when in actuality I just didn’t hear them.

Threads like this make me wonder how many dudes have lost their lives over perceived “disrespect” that wasn’t really disrespect. We gotta work on that.

 

[Umoja]

should you be considered a c00n or a psychopath because you didn't give another Blackman a headnod in public?

Yes.

 

[Rick Fox at UNC]

This fool literally said he wouldn’t send his kids to an HBCU and got the audacity to utter the words “we all we got”

FOH

I don't believe the value of an HBCU education or network comes close to matching the value of, say, Stanford or HYP and networking with Black students there (who are fukking incredible).

Would even argue schools like Georgia Tech are more ideal choices.

Separate arguments. Don't expect you to understand. We are at different levels.

 

[Belize King]

Kinda true

Back in the day, especially in non-black spaces, the nod was a normal thing. The Nod kinda meant a lot and not joking really.

Had a homie telling me about nikkas at one location and told me to be careful there. nikkas wouldn’t nod and I didn’t think nothing of it until I saw what he meant.

Where I’m at now it’s like a mix. A lot of young cats don’t nod back and they suspect to me. Older cats are cool tho


And the nod is more of a subconscious habit. Kinda like we came from the same places where certain things don’t need to be said to be understood

Facts.

I been in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Kenya, Djibouti, and now Japan these last 10 years on this DoD contractor shyt. Every time I see a Brotha, I make sure to nod. We out here getting this easy money. I respect the hustle and grind.

Less than half nod back.

We have to network and stay together. You never know when you need a job. Those same brothas that was getting that overseas money, should be plugged in when Iraq and Afghanistan shut down.

I hope they all landed on their feet but keeping to yourself or not respecting the OG’s doesn’t help.

These young marines and airmen here in Okinawa are weird as hell. Different generation that don’t really care about black pride.

 

[DeuceZ]

Type to eagerly help someone else with directions but ignore your entire existence...i seen the type... want to be the "only" so they feel special

 

[feelosofer]

Yea. There are def a lot of non verbal cues that Black men share with each other and it's all understood. Almost like a Morse code of sorts. It could be a greeting, warning to just a general acknowledgement. But I feel that language ended with the millennials maybe early Gen Z.

 

[Barlow]

I make sure to nod at most black men/women I come across. These new nikkas just weird/chronically online(coli brehs) so they don’t understand human interaction. I was also raised in the south.

 

[The Wall Is Undefeated!]

Wait a minute, he and some of the comments on this thread remind me of somebody!?

 

[JadeB]

It’s not checking in.







It’s an acknowledgement of brotherhood. Some of y’all nikkas grew up in front of a tv and didn’t go outside or around other black people unless you were at school.

There's brehs who aren't FBA and never heard of that stuff you know.....