You can pretty much set your watch to it at this point.
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A certain contingent of white people is once against incensed at LeBron James. Disgusted. Siiiiiiuuuuck with rage.
The reason?
LeBron James had the nerve, the gall, the appalling lack of shame to show love to black women on his Instagram account Wednesday.
In two separate posts with the same caption, James shared galleries of magazine cover photos featuring black women. These included Beyoncรฉโs recent Vogue cover, as well as Rihanna on British Vogue, Lupita Nyongโo on Porter, Zendaya on Marie Claire, Tiffany Haddish on Glamour, and the ladies of Pose on Out magazine.
James wrote underneath the galleries:
Nothing in this world is more POWERFUL than Colored Women!! Thank you all for continuing to not settle and setting great examples in life for so many looking up to you for inspiration/guidance and love!! My daughter is watching! #WomenPower
(OK, a little bit of a yikes on โColored Womenโโweโre going to assume he meant โwomen of colorโ there, even though he was quite clearly referencing black women specifically.)
As The Glow Upโs Maiysha Kai has noted, this has been a stellar fall season for black women landing the covers of major magazines. September issuesโthe biggest and, for many glossies, the most lucrative issues of the yearโare huge deals, and weโre seeing an unprecedented array of black celebrities and models gracing their covers. James is far from the only one to notice or point out the importance of this kind of representation (and affirmation of black womenโs beauty and cultural power), and his inclusion of trans women is particularly notable.
But the Saltine Americans among us canโt let LeBron live, predictably flooding his comments with bland, โAll Lives Matterโ-flavored tears.
The Shade Room compiled some of the best ones, including:
An Instagram user named Gavin Lombardi saying: โKinda racist to white women tbhโ
Danmads asking: โDoes that include white women?โ (The answer: Um, nah.)
Jsanchez908, in his internet yelling voice: โNOTHING IN THIS WORLD?โ
JohnnyBoy.631 with the saltine hypothetical: โLetโs do a role reversal now people. Now letโs say Tom Brady or Tom Cruise or George Clooney for that matter came on IG and said โNOTHING IN THIS WORLD IS MORE POWERFUL THAN WHITE WOMEN.โ I know ya mofoโs would be having a fit!
And chatnigga with: โlebron and beyonce best power couple.โ Okay, that one doesnโt actually fit in with the rest of these comments, I just wholeheartedly agree. Also, sorry Jay-Z.
You might recall the same fate befell Sean โDiddyโ Combs when he showed black women some love on his Twitter timeline. Itโs almost like itโs a pattern or something.
Of course, this conversation has been gone over time and time again, but oh well, itโs summer and we have time.
White people, in fact, do a version of what James did. But typically, when these white peopleโand more importantly, white institutions, like the very fashion mags James was sharingโbig up white women, historically, they just called them โwomenโ and left out everybody else. The prototypical โAmericanโ women as so white you didnโt even have to place โwhiteโ as a descriptor; it was assumed, and everyone else got the hyphen. But donโt believe me, believe the years and years and years and years of magazine covers, articles, books, movies, television shows to examine the evidence.
In the meantime, Iโll be over here, buying these covers like Maiysha told me to, and stanning for my president.
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