Is there anything more abhorrent than folks that profit off of Black ingenuity, cultural innovations and struggles without knowing and actually appreciating Black people?
Without honoring the diaspora.
Or even being familiar with it?
This goes waaaay beyond Vlad.
It’s been on my mind and spirit for a minute, actually. There are folks out there that legitimately don’t care to distinguish the difference between hip hop culture and Black people.
It seems to them that Blackness is caricature, foolishness, circus and outlandish drama. But appealing because it’s dangerous. Except not really when you’re not actually Black right?
The thing is, we know that’s how they see us. But there are very little standards and practices put in place.
Folks that think that growing up poor or having lived a life of crime makes you more Black. These folks are loudest. I had a White boy say to me the other day that he earned the right to use the N word. He said it with his chest too. Like...... he really meant that shit!
I had another one before that tell me that he grew up in the group home system and underprivileged so he’s entitled to it.
I had another one say to me that he’s “blacker” than I am because he’s been more in the streets than me. Blacker than me?
A girl with two African parents who speaks a tribal language and lives in South Bronx, been to Africa and has MELANIN.
Has been held back because of it too.
There’s no concept of monolith concerning Blackness in this mental space. It’s pure vulturalization. It’s willful ignorance. It’s one dimensional. It’s ignorant. It’s harmful!
Vlad always looked like one of these Flighty Whiteys to me.
People like this seldom have Black friends that don’t reaffirm stereotypes or have major clout.
They’re swagger jacking off in one way or another.
Reminds me a lot of the White men you see running shit in high roller nightlife. They don’t want Black faces in their establishment but need Black public figures around and hip hop bumping through the speakers to look cool.
“They try us on like costumes” Jesse Williams said.
Why does this always go so undetected?
There’s such an emphasis placed on White girls that appropriate trends and so little on White men like Vlad!
There’s a blinding subconscious objective for White acceptance that’s incepted within the minds of Black people.
This keeps shit going.
But I don’t give a fuck and I’ll tell you to your face. I’m with the shits.
But the lines get blurry when we talk about hip hop and what’s going on within the industry. Hip hop is not definitive of Blackness and she’s very much for the streets right now.
Hip hop has become heavily commercialized and has turned a lot of Black people into millionaires and business men. But it’s turned quicker wealth for the White folks behind the scenes. Less affected by the stress and traumas, more business wired gives them that exploitative reign.
But does it really make sense to complain about it if there seems to be so much vested in these alliances? And buffoonery so rampant?
I don’t know. Black people need to be accountable for how they fit into this mess.
Its time to wake up.
