Once upon a time, black people had to be accountable to ANYONE who asks and so I fell like this is a holdover from those times. I always advise friends and family that they should have a core group, a community group and everyone else. And how seriously we take people depends on their group affiliation. For instance, I will not take anything serious (flattery or criticism) from the everyone else crowd. Conversely I will take to heart people who exist in my core. People in the community know enough about me to be able to have some weight but not to extent that the core has.

Haters gonna hate is a real thing, I just don’t take it that much to heart. They don’t know me one way or the other and so nip that in the bud.