Please pardon me while I take a deep breath and decide how I want to tell you this story. It has so many layers, and I want to get it right.
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Maybe I should tell you about the lady who wants to pull a Kylie and Kendall by taking โ90s-era hip-hop artists, putting her name on it and selling it as a childrenโs book. I could write about how she and her husband-boyfriend chilled in blackface. How she made a commercial using Jay-Zโs โ99 Problems.โ Or how they use the words โnigga,โ โOGโ and โghettoโ like they invented them and made them cool.
Perhaps I should frame this in terms of how white people stole and appropriated every piece of art ever created by black people and transformed it into something โAmerican.โ They did it to jazz and made Kenny G the highest-selling jazz musician in the modern era. They did it to the blues and rock โnโ roll and made the Rolling Stones โthe Worldโs Greatest Band.โ They watched the slaves on Saturday nights and invented โAmerican dance.โ Every American art form is a remix of black art.
Or, instead of a lesson about cultural appropriation, I could make this a macro think piece about the overall historical boldness of white people (I refer to it as โcaucasityโโwhite audacity). How they refer to colonialism, land stealing and gentrification as โprogressโ or โexpansion.โ How they think that everything belongs to them. How they donโt think that claiming something that doesnโt belong to them is the same as stealing.
Nah, Iโll just keep it simple.
It all started when a tweeter named Illuminaughty noticed this on Facebook:
A B to Jay-Z (I guarantee that they think this name is so clever) is a childrenโs book that was created by Jessica โJ. Painโ Chiha, who came up with this project with her โbaby daddyโ Danny so they could โget moneyโ for their own โghetto superstarโ (OK, I know the language makes you wanna throw up in your mouth, but they wrote it, not me).
Seems legit, right? Who wouldnโt want to teach their kids the ABCs by looking at rap songs? I know it sounds like the most Caucasian idea ever, because there is already a centuries-old, verified way to teach children the alphabet, but if white people werenโt always tinkering with shit, we wouldnโt have the microwave oven or atomic bombs.
So Illuminaughty messaged the publisher because she wanted to know who was getting her money. And also because her Twitter name is @sweetfacedinero.
Apparently, despite all their supposed knowledge of hip-hop, the Chihas didnโt understand that, while it may work in their neck of the woods, โno answerโ is not an acceptable response in black culture. Illuminaughty wanted to know more, becauseโdid I mention her Twitter handle? So she did a little digging and found this:
And this jewel on the Instagram account:
After people discovered the book, they complained so much that at least one website removed it, and the Little Homie (the Chihasโ company name/social media brand) made its social media accounts private. But the pair have already raised over $8,000 on Kickstarter.
So there you have it. The caucasity of dopes. It is more amusing than it is infuriating because we have seen this too many times. Either they donโt know what culture is or they donโt have one of their own, soโas they did the land of the First Nation and the bodies of Africansโthey just took it.
Some people will call this โoutrageโ because anytime something happens on social media, they easily dismiss the voices that object as being outraged. No one is torch-and-pitchfork angry at the Chihas (yโall do that, not us).
Maybe we should stop allowing them to even touch our culture if they arenโt willing to respect it. Perhaps we should completely cut off the Kardashians, the Jenners and people who blithely suck the sweet parts out of any civilization they see, swallow it as if it were their own and try to make a profit off the remnants they vomit back up. At the very least, we should call them what they really are:
Thieving bastards.
Straight From
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