Justin Timberlake Dragged Over BET Awards Tweet

When it comes to Justin Timberlake's music, there are a lot of people out there who compare him to a modern-day Elvis Presley when it comes to appropriating black culture. And during Jesse Williams' speech at Sunday night's BET Awards, the actor made mention of those people who profit off black culture. Suggested Reading Three…

When it comes to Justin Timberlake's music, there are a lot of people out there who compare him to a modern-day Elvis Presley when it comes to appropriating black culture. And during Jesse Williams' speech at Sunday night's BET Awards, the actor made mention of those people who profit off black culture.

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โ€œWeโ€™re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment โ€ฆ ghettoizing and demeaning our creations, then stealing them; gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing isโ€”just because weโ€™re magic doesnโ€™t mean weโ€™re not real,โ€ Williams said.

And then came what some call irony when Timberlake praised Williams' speech on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/jtimberlake/status/747257470314131456

That was quickly followed by the sโ€”t storm of people side-eyeing Timberlake, saying that they thought he was the epitome of what Williams had referenced:

https://twitter.com/chrystallll/status/747262891859021826
https://twitter.com/back2skoolagain/status/747269248871972865
https://twitter.com/sockruhtese/status/747263005050691585

Timberlake did respond to one person who asked if he was planning to stop appropriating black culture:

https://twitter.com/MrErnestOwens/status/747273043379052544
https://twitter.com/jtimberlake/status/747276674073395200

Maybe someone should inform Timberlake that a person who steals from a culture is not the same as the one who created it. But of course, culture vultures wouldn't understand something they directly benefit from. I mean, why would they?

Straight From The Root

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