Nerdy Black Girl

Nerdy Black Girl

Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
The Secret Fight of the Black-Girl Nerds
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The life of a “nerd” typically involves a certain amount of loneliness and other social challenges. Try being a black girl on top of that.
Sure, mainstream culture has its ways of portraying nerd-dom as trendy and cool (hello, The Big Bang Theory ), but this treatment is generally reserved for men … most often white men. So it’s not uncommon for a young black girl who may be into comics, science fiction, horror or anime to ask herself, “Am I the only one? Is there something wrong with me?”
“As black women, just based off our gender and race, we do have two strikes against us,” said Jamie Broadnax, creator of BlackGirlNerds , an online community described as “a place for women of color with various eccentricities to express themselves freely and embrace who they are.”
“When I started my site, I typed ‘black girl nerds’ into Google and nothing came up, which was crazy to me,” Broadnax recalled. “There wasn’t any sort of online nerd-centric community that spoke to black women.”
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Luckily, with the growth of the Internet and its accompanying social media platforms, it’s become much easier for women like her to discover that as nerds who happen to be black, and happen to be women, they aren’t alone.
“Social media has been a really great conduit for us to connect to each other,” said Broadnax. “We’ve always been around. Unfortunately, mainstream TV, film and media doesn’t really depict black people as being nerdy, but you’re seeing more of us prevalent now as opposed to five, 10, 20 years ago.”
Broadnax isn’t the only African-American woman who supports others in the embrace of interests and hobbies typically linked to geekiness. Ashlee Blackwell has created Graveyard Shift Sisters , a growing community for black women who are into horror.
“One of the reasons I started my website was because I told myself that I was not the only one,” Blackwell told The Root. “I didn’t like the fact that being a black woman was being totally excluded from a community that I loved so much, when we were there from pretty much the beginning.”
Broadnax added that through Twitter and podcasts, people have been able to “come into their own,” creating their own niches and circles to embrace their identities.
Of course, having a place to belong doesn’t mean that racism and misogyny magically cease to exist when you enter the nerd realm. The lack of diversity within the fandoms, as well as the lack of knowledge of black characters, is a much-discussed problem.
According to Broadnax, merchandise that fans buy from very popular mainstream nerd sites rarely include representations of characters of color, particularly female characters. This prompted her to start regularly spotlighting black female characters from comic books. When she focused on the first black female superhero, Butterfly, the reactions to the post amazed her.
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve never heard of her,’” Broadnax said. “[And] some of those people were comic book illustrators and editors. Somebody has got to put it out there that these characters exist … White content creators, they just don’t know that diversity is an issue. When you’re surrounded by people that look like you, it’s easy to write content and publish information that speak to fandoms that affect you and your environment, and diversity may not always be a part of that.”
However, even when the diversity issue is drawn to the attention of content producers, Broadnax said, they sometimes still refuse to address or acknowledge it.
“It’s obvious that people are telling you, ‘Hey, you need to change this,’ and you’re still keeping things very vanilla,” she said. “It’s a battle that I fight … every day. And it’s good to be on the flipside in this space because now I can serve to these pockets of diversity that you don’t get to see on a mainstream level.”
For Blackwell’s particular fandom, it is the misogyny that feels much more prevalent. A particular gripe of hers is when she says white males attempt to undermine her commentary because, as she puts it, “[They say], ‘How could you as a black woman know about these hardcore scary movies?’”
While managing negative respones like these, she also focuses her attention on spreading the word about things like the fact that black women have been present in classic horror films from the very beginning. “It’s really about celebrating and highlighting these black women [horror actors] who are overlooked at conventions because of their skin color. Who are overlooked even on podcasts,” Blackwell said of her blog. “We’re never even the women discussed. … It’s really frustrating to me to not hear the people who are so jazzed about horror even talk about [black women].”
Of course, that is not to say that these self-proclaimed nerdy black girls haven’t had great experiences. They proudly celebrate their immensely supportive and diverse reader bases. But that positivity is dampened when they go on to mention the aggressions, micro or otherwise, that they’ve experienced or heard friends talk about. Nor are they naive about the situation they face in the space as black women.
“Mainstream culture has got to catch up,” Broadnax told The Root. “Our subculture is more than the progressive. Unfortunately, when things get crossed over to mainstream, which is usually white, then all of a sudden there’s a problem with diversity or gender.”
A prime example was the recent announcement that Sam Wilson (aka the Falcon), who is black, will be the new Captain America. “When race swapping happens—which happens in comic books all the time—when these comic book characters become mainstream and are movie stars, essentially, it’s all of a sudden a problem,” Broadnax said.
Despite all this, black-girl nerds say they’re here to stay.
“The universal answer is to not feel alone, even when you do,” Blackwell said. “No matter what your passion, there’s always going to be a community out there for you.”
“We exist, we’re not unicorns, we don’t live somewhere in a castle or far, faraway land in folklore somewhere,” Broadnax said. “We’re here and there’s a lot of us. It’s a huge community and we’re crushing stereotypes because of it. There are plenty of women out there like you, who are willing to support you.”
Breanna Edwards is a newswriter at The Root. Follow her on Twitter .

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We wait all year for events like Comic Con that bring together glorious, witty Black Girl Nerds. There is nothing better than meeting fellow nerds over a happy hour or a four-hour line for an interesting panel. But what if it was easier to meet cool, smart ladies between events?
Hey, nerds – we have a way! Black Girl Nerds has partnered up with free networking app Shapr to offer the easiest way to connect with our community and other like-minded folks. Shapr is a completely free app that introduces nearby people who share your interests and want to grab a cup of coffee.
The app allows you to quickly set up a profile that includes a profile picture, your job title, and the reason you network such as finding new friends in your area or launching your startup. From there, you add up to ten interests – these can range from more professional interests such as #photography or #writing to more nerdy interests such as #comicbooks.
Shapr’s smart algorithm will then create a daily batch of profiles for you to browse. Swipe right when you want to meet someone, and left when you’d rather pass. You’ll be notified when there is a match and can then message your match to make a plan for meeting up.
To be clear – the goal is professional and friendly networking, not dating. So if you are either looking to get your foot in the door at interesting conversations or just connect with someone who shares your interests and grab coffee this app is for you .
To find the Black Girl Nerd community on the app, make sure you add #BlackGirlNerds as one of your 10 interests on the app . This interest tag will help connect you with the entrepreneurs, bloggers, and geeks already in our community. You may find your next colleague, co-founder or comic con companion.
So what you are you waiting for? Click here to create your free Shapr profile and join our community!
Jamie Broadnax is the creator of the online publication and multimedia space for Black women called Black Girl Nerds. Jamie has appeared on MSNBC's The Melissa Harris-Perry Show and The Grio's Top 100. Her Twitter personality has been recognized by Shonda Rhimes as one of her favorites to follow. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and executive producer of the Black Girl Nerds Podcast.
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