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Youth Control Complex

Victor Rios published a brilliant analysis of the criminalization of black and brown youth, in a book titled Policing Black Brown Boys.

In this interview for Dalton Conley’s book, You May Ask Yourself, Victor Rios discusses his research on gangs and the policing of Black and Latino boys.

theupliftedunderdog-deactivated

Masculinity and Intersectionality

Masculinity is a common theme that can be found over class, race, and even gender. In each society we can see masculinity playing a different role but in most societies it does play a leading and important role that is important to critically analyze. When critically looking at masculinity from a Black and Chicano, low income, youth status we can see that masculinity has a huge role in these youths lives. From being policed around their masculinity, to be ridiculed for it, and even stereotypes that many young people feel like they have to fit into because that is what society is telling them. This hyer policing of masculinity has major ramifications that ultimately end up hurting more than just boys in our society.

Masculinity intersects with many things when mapping how it is policed. One of the most important thing to keep in mind when mapping masculinity is class. Victor M. Rios, in his book, Punished: Policing the LIves of Black and Latino Boys, explains the huge class divide when talking about masculinity. “While wealthy men can prove their masculinity through the ability to make money and consume products that make them ‘manly’, poor young men use toughness, violence, and survival as a means of proving their masculinity” (Rios, 132). This speaks to our culture of needing to prove manliness. Many youth feel the need to prove themselves and when they cannot do it in a way that our white patriarchal capitalistic society said they should, which is buying a lot of things, then they revert back to animalistic patterns. Unforentaly, class is not the only thing that intersects with masculinity greatly. Race also plays a huge role.

Time and time again in Rios’s book there was evidence of racism because of ideas that have been socially constructed around black masculinity. Rios explains it as such, “Ronny (the youth he is talking about, but also many other youths) had been socialized from a young age, according to him, by his White female teachers to overcompensate around White women to go the extra mile to show that he was not attempting to harm or disrespect them. This behavior may have been a result of stereotyped expectations of Black men as criminal and sexual aggressors, which is deeply root in American culture and which Ronny had to contend with as a young Black man” (Rios, 101). Even though Ronny never asked to be seen as ‘scary’ or a ‘threat’ those are real things that have been mapped onto his body from teachers, strangers, and most of society. These are real things that youths, like Ronny, have to live with the rest of their life. Always making sure that everyone, especially white women, know that they are not violent. Some people may even call it, proving your whiteness. As though being white is only ‘good thing’ that every child should want to grow and be. A youtuber, Jaded Culture explains it as this, “We see either men being ‘hyper-black’, or being ‘white washed’. So on the one hand you have the ‘radical black angry’ dude, and on the other you have the black guy that looks black but acts white, has white friends, and has a white job, case in point ‘blackish’” (Jaded Culture). This stigma of being treated like a normal youth only if you are ‘acting white’ is something that is often swept under the rug, but in reality is something that everyone in America watches every day. Barack Obama brought this issue to light calling attention in one of his senate speeches, “Children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white” (Rios, 154). This idea that Black and Latino youth are inherently dumb, and by the off chance that they are smart are often called anomalies or that they are just acting white, is stereotype that roots masculinity into categories of ‘educated’ and ‘uneducated’.

The last thing that is important to look at when analyzing masculinity is gender. Rios acknowledges that masculinity does not always align with sex, but rather with many other genders as well not just male (Rios, 133). This battle with masculinity can be easily seen in the film Gun Hill Road. When a father, Enrique, finishes doing time in prison to return home and find that his child, Michael, is wanting to transition, Vanessa. Enrique has a very hard time with this and ends up being not only verbally but also physically and emotional abuse to his child. He tells his friends that his child’s masculinity is everything, because it reflects back to him and how he did raising his child. (Gun Hill Road).

This concept of masculinity needing to be the, one all be all is something that we often are taught by society. By recognizing that masculinity is very complex and needs to be thought about in an intersectional way, we can start to break down some of these stereotypes that are continuing to hurting youths like Ronnie, Vanessa, and really all Black and Latino youths.

-TheUpliftedUnderdog

Keeping it grounded with

Rios, Victor, Punished: Policing the LIves of Black and Latino Boys (2011)

JadedCulture, Are Black Men Hyper Masculine? Black Masculinity and Stereotypes (2015).

Gun Hill Road. (2011).

socialistalternative

WHY WE NEED FREE PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION NOW

Published On September 27, 2015 | By James Hoff

We Have Nothing to Lose but Our Debts

Like the struggle to win a $15 an hour minimum wage, the movement for free public higher education in the United States has gained significant momentum over the past two years. What was once the struggle of a dedicated few has now become a national debate, and several states (including Tennessee, Mississippi, and Oregon) have already passed or are considering legislation to make community colleges tuition free, and President Barack Obama has called on all states to eliminate community college tuition. Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential hopeful and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has gone even further, introducing legislation in May that proposes to make every public college and state university in the country free, and calling for a million student march on Washington. Though Sanders’ legislation is unlikely to pass, it is clear that the current neo-liberal agenda of austerity and privatization is increasingly untenable, and support among the 99% for free public higher education is rapidly growing. Actually winning such a victory, however, as Elan Axelbank notes in his June article for Socialist Alternative, will not be easy and will require a sustained and even more determined mass movement of students, educators, and activists. In what follows I will explain briefly why Socialist Alternative’s demand for “free, high-quality public education for all from pre-school through college” is so important, what a free higher education system might look like, and what we will have to do to make it a reality.

What Went Wrong?

It wasn’t that long ago that many of the nation’s most prestigious public university systems were entirely or mostly free. Both the University of California and the City University of New York systems, for instance, charged little or no tuition until the 1970s and 1980s, when capitalist crises and a conservative tax revolt led to reduced public spending and steady increases in tuition and fees at almost all public universities and colleges. More recently, powerful corporate interests and politicians from both parties, driven in part by an ideological commitment to the supposed virtues of the free market, have conspired to mount a full-on assault on the public sector. Through a process of strategic underfunding and privatization, these forces have managed not only to radically reshape the landscape of American higher education, but have also aimed to convince ordinary people that education is not a right to which they are entitled as citizens, but rather a good they purchase as consumers.

This model of education as product has had a devastating impact on the culture of higher education. Students are now frequently treated more like customers than citizens, and administrators often view their schools as corporations rather than public institutions. As a consequence, a corporate ethos of marketing, cost-cutting, and competition has replaced the guiding tenets of critical inquiry, access, and public service that fueled the progressive rise of public education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Boards of Trustees, stacked with corporate executives, have wasted billions on sports stadiums and luxury student centers designed to attract new students and have increased pay for presidents at many schools to corporate CEO levels, all while raising tuition, cutting services, and replacing good-paying campus jobs with low-paying contingent employment, including the increasing use of part-time, adjunct faculty, who are often paid near-poverty wages.

Not surprisingly, this corporate climate and the continued underfunding of public higher education, combined with increasing education costs, have led to skyrocketing tuition increases and massive fees that often hit working students the hardest. At the University of California, for instance, in just one decade yearly in-state tuition increased from an already unaffordable $4,354 in 1996 to more than $12,804 in 2015. That’s more than $50,000 for a four- year degree, not including books and room and board. Meanwhile at the City University of New York, a system with a historic mission to serve the poor and working class of the city, tuition and fees have increased almost 40% (to $6,330 per year) since just 2010, and the percentage of university costs covered by state and federal funding has plummeted since the 1990s. To add insult to injury, federal Pell Grants, which have historically helped the neediest students attend college, were cut in 2015. As a consequence student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt in the United States, averaging $35,000 per borrower, and total student loan debt in the US is now more than $1.2 trillion. That’s more than the combined credit card debt of every person in the country.

Although the problems facing higher education are enormous, the solution to this affordability crisis is, on one level, quite simple: make it free! If we want to fix higher education we must fight for greater funding, the complete elimination of tuition and fees, cost of living and book stipends to all students who need them, and demand that public colleges and universities finally live up to the promise of their original missions: to provide a rigorous and broad education to the mass of working and middle class Americans. Though such a move might sound radical, the benefits would be enormous. Not only would it lead to greater economic, racial, and social equality, it would also drastically improve college access and graduation rates, reduce costs, and positively alter the way we think about the value of education.

Greater Access and Higher Completion Rates

Perhaps one of the most important changes we would see if we were to shift to a tuition-free system of public higher education would be a steady increase in the number of students who both enroll in and complete college degree programs. President Obama has said he wants more Americans to attend and complete college within the six-year window that has become the new average time for obtaining a bachelor’s degree, but he has done little to address the underlying reasons why they don’t. Making public higher education free and supporting students with stipends, as Sweden and Germany do, would not only encourage more students to attend college, but would ensure that many more of them finish their degrees in a timely manner. The logic is clear: the less students have to worry about making ends meet (the less they must struggle to pay for tuition, books, transportation, and housing) the more time they will have to study and focus on their schoolwork. When students don’t have to choose their classes around their work schedules, they will be more likely to complete requirements without taking additional semesters. And when students have more time to spend on campus, they will be more likely to be involved in the kinds of extra-mural activities that keep them engaged and interested and which help them to succeed academically.

Currently, in the United States, only about 50% of students who attempt to obtain a bachelor’s degree do so within six years, and graduation rates for 25-34 year-old students have fallen sharply compared to other countries where tuition is free. In fact, of the 25 countries compared by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) in 2012, the United States, which in previous measures had been ranked at or near the top, was ranked just 19. Meanwhile, countries where higher education is free have, despite their own struggles against austerity, seen huge increases in college attainment. Currently in the US only about 39% of 25-34 year olds will graduate with first-time bachelor’s degrees, while in Iceland, where education is free, more than 60% of people in this age cohort are expected to obtain degrees, and Iceland is predicted to outpace the United States for the total percentage of college graduates per capita soon. Furthermore, three of the other top six countries with the highest rates of first-time bachelor’s degrees, including Poland at 53%, Denmark at 49%, and Finland at 47%, also have no tuition fees. It is clear from the statistics that at the very least there is a strong correlation and likely direct causal connection between free public higher education and increases in college attainment.

Reduced Costs

But what about costs? Wouldn’t making public education free require a huge amount of new investment and massive increases in taxes? Although making college free for everyone who wished to attend would in fact require more public funding than is currently provided, the actual numbers are less than you might think. As Ann Larson and Michael Checque have pointed out, the US government already spends billions on higher education subsidies, such as tax exemptions on student loan interest and Pell Grants to rapacious for-profit institutions like the Corinthian Colleges (which account for a significant percentage of student loan defaults). If you take into account this money currently spent or wasted on for-profits, plus all of the money state and federal governments already spend, the total additional cost to make public higher education free across the country would be just $15 billion. To give some sense of how little money this is, consider that the Pentagon’s F-35 fighter jet program was $163 Billion over budget! So making education free is, quite simply, imminently affordable.

But providing tuition-free education is also much more cost efficient than charging tuition. Under the current system of funding (a combination of decreasing public spending and increasing tuition and fees), public universities are compelled to compete against each other and private colleges to attract more tuition-paying students, wasting billions on stadiums, luxury dormitories, recreation centers, and extravagantly paid “star” professors, the cost of which is then passed on to students in the form of fees and tuition. Remove tuition and competition and you remove the dual incentives to waste money on non-academic needs, while prioritizing the academic mission of universities. This means that tuition-free public universities could actually provide a higher quality academic experience for less money per student.

But of course if we want a truly equitable and socially productive public university system, we will have to do more than merely cover the costs of tuition and fees. Most students will still need help with living expenses, books, and transportation, costs which are often paid for through student loans. Therefore billions more would have to be made available each year to cover the cost of quality dormitory housing, books, and living stipends for working and middle class students. Efficiently planned, such benefits could easily be provided to all public college and university students for just a tiny fraction of the trillions wasted by the Pentagon or the $100 billion in tax exemptions provided to corporations each year.

Social Benefits

This readjustment of priorities would also have a profound beneficial impact on our society as a whole. Not only would it practically eliminate future student loan debt and create greater social mobility and economic equality, it would also provide a living model for the public funding of other human necessities such as healthcare, electricity, and internet access.

As mentioned earlier, average student loan debt in the United States upon graduation is $35,000. Even though they frequently attend more inexpensive colleges and universities, this debt burden still falls disproportionately on the poor and working class students whose parents cannot afford to pay the costs of their education, and this burden has significant consequences. For many students, the cost of college and the thought of a life-time of debt is itself a massive deterrent to pursuing a college education. As the Illinois Student Assistance Commission documented, “Financial constraints was the number one reason (79%) given by college counselors for why some of their college prep seniors did not go on to college.” But the problems do not end there. As The Atlantic recently reported, while many millennials are struggling to get by in the recession economy, those whose parents paid for their educations are doing significantly better. Because they begin their adult lives debt-free, these lucky few are, among other things, much more likely to purchase homes earlier than their debt-burdened peers, which means significantly greater wealth over the long term. It’s easy to see that college costs are a clear contributing factor to the destruction of what little social mobility still exists within the United States, reinforcing the already deep divides between the haves and have-nots. Providing free access and living stipends for college students would mean no student would have to worry about whether or not they could afford college, and that graduates would be able to begin their adult lives debt-free.

But there are other non-material benefits that would also accrue from making college education free. The first political benefit is that a system of free higher education, in which students are fully supported by the public, would operate as a model for removing the profit incentive from other industries such as healthcare and energy. If we could provide a free high-quality public higher education to everyone who desires it, why could we not provide free high-quality healthcare, clean, low-cost energy, and free internet access? Free public higher education would be an incredibly popular program and would offer Americans at least a small taste of how a socialist political economy could function. In addition to the political victory free public higher education would represent, it would also positively alter the way that we think about the value of education itself. Currently, because of the economic risks involved, many students view higher education as a commodity to be purchased, or as some kind of investment towards greater future earnings rather than an opportunity for intellectual growth and development. Because of this they frequently pursue “safe,” career-focused majors, limiting their exposure to the liberal arts and sciences that provide adults with the foundation they need to become active and engaged citizens. If higher education were made available to absolutely everyone who wished to pursue it, then education would no longer be seen as merely a means to end. Instead, like secondary education, it would be viewed as a benefit to society and a path to human self-actualization.

The Struggle Ahead

A student protester confronts London riot police in Parliament Square December, 2010.

The benefits of free public higher education are many and creating such a system would be economically viable without any increase in taxes. But while the economic challenge is easily surmountable, the political challenge, the struggle against the bipartisan policies of austerity and privatization, will be much more substantial. Although the vast majority of Americans, (79% according to Gallup) believe that higher education is unaffordable, and though some politicians say they support measures to make higher education free, it is unlikely that such proposals will stand much of a chance in the U.S. Congress or state legislatures unless there is a mass movement in support of them. Like in all struggles for social progress and change, we cannot sit idly by and expect those in power to do the right thing. This movement will have to begin at the grass roots, with the students who are most directly affected by skyrocketing tuition, and build out from there to engage with larger communities of workers, parents, and the poor. Over the last four or five years there have been several high profile mass student protests from London to New York City against cuts to higher education and increases to tuition and fees—a clear sign that students are fed up. But we have yet to see a sustained national movement for free tuition. Though it’s important that we continue to fight against future cuts and increases to tuition, it is also imperative that we begin to build a movement that demands more than merely the maintenance of the status quo. Like the movement for a $15 an hour minimum wage, we must demand more than what the system is willing to give, otherwise, we gain nothing.

To actually win this fight, however, and we can win, we will have to build a massive and sustained movement of students and educators willing to shut down their campuses and to coordinate national and state-wide actions to demand free public higher education. Are you ready?

http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/09/27/free-public-higher-education/

UCSB Daily Nexus Repost

Campus >> Current Events 101 >> Feature >> Isla Vista >> News International Student Alagie Jammeh Risks Life to Speak Out Against Homophobia July 28th, 2015at6:15 pm by Emile Nelson How Social Media Created a Political Enemy International student Alagie Jammeh risks imprisonment and execution to speak out against homophobia Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus After speaking out, Jammeh had his scholarship revoked and lived out of his car. Through the help of the Office of International Students and Scholars and other organizations, he has secured temporary housing and a job. Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus “No one should be denied their fundamental basic human rights because of their sexuality,” Alagie Jammeh posted on Facebook in September 2014. By November of that same year, Jammeh found his world crumbling around him. Jammeh is a third-year global studies major at UCSB who could face life imprisonment or worse for his pro-LGBTQ views if he ever returned home to the Gambia. Jammeh came to California as an international student from the Gambia on a presidential scholarship in 2011. After posting his views on Facebook, he was cut off from his scholarship, friends and family, and may still lose his life. The Washington Post quotes President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia as having said, “If you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it.” Having grown up in the Gambia under the rule of President Jammeh — his distant uncle — Jammeh learned that homosexuality was one of the greatest sins humans could commit. “They keep teaching people that homosexuality is evil and bad … They have this big law that homosexuality is the worst crime you could do as a human being,” Jammeh said. “When I got here [California], I see a different story.” Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus After learning his roommate and good friend identified as homosexual, Jammeh began to question the anti-gay views he was taught in his home country. And, in an attempt to show solidarity with his roommate, Jammeh wrote those 14 words that may one day get him killed. Within hours after posting the message on his Facebook, Jammeh received a call from a relative in Gambia saying, “If the government sees this thing, you are dead.” “I deleted the message,” Jammeh said, “but it was too late.” The comment Jammeh wrote directly contradicts the views of his uncle, the president, and he soon found himself stripped of his scholarship, ostracized from his country and fearful for his survival. “Going back to the Gambia is like committing suicide,” Jammeh said. “There are people who might feel sorry, but not really sorry.” For months after posting this message, Jammeh was forced to sell many of his personal belongings, live in his own car, shower in the Recreation Center and hope for his next meal, all while continuing to attend UCSB and maintaining a GPA well above average. History Department Chair Sharon Farmer taught a class which Jammeh attended during this time, and said she was amazed to discover he was living in his car the entire time. “He is clearly a very sincere student, and to find out that the whole time he was in my class [he was living in his car] … He made it through two quarters and didn’t tell anybody” Farmer said. Jammeh said during these months he was still expecting his government to begin providing him financial support again, but he never saw another penny. “For two months, the money was on the way … never came,” Jammeh said. “When I go to class, I couldn’t concentrate — I kept having these suicidal thoughts.” Despite his inward struggle, Farmer said Jammeh was “such a nice guy” who was “very motivated” in his studies. After coming forward with his situation, Jammeh began working with the director of the Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS), Simran Singh, to find a way to continue to attend UCSB and survive. According to Singh, Jammeh’s case has been taken very seriously by the administration and continues to be a primary concern of her office. “You do not have a student come in and make that up,” said Singh. “It’s gone up the ladder — everybody is aware of the situation.” According to David Whitman, the director of LGBT services and the Resource Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity, Jammeh’s case is a perfect example of “how alive and well homophobia is.” “This isn’t out of convenience or luxury, this man is facing life in prison or worse for being supportive of the LGBTQ community,” Whitman said. “Give this student a penny, a dollar, because he is facing life in prison and he deserves it.” Acting Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Mary Jacob said Jammeh’s case is “really a challenge” and that options for Jammeh are limited because of his status as an international student. “He’s been supporting people who are gay, which could be viewed as supporting criminality [in the Gambia],” Jacob said. “He would definitely be imprisoned, and I really fear for his health and well-being.” According to Singh, there have been many attempts to communicate with the Gambian government through their embassy in Washington D.C., but there has been no response from the President. “The ambassador seemed pretty much helpless unless he got help from the Gambian government,” Singh said. “The money needs to be transferred from Gambia.” Nonetheless, the university has temporarily allowed Jammeh to continue attending classes while he struggles to come up with funding and also seek political asylum, without which he could be sent back to the Gambia. “Right now, the school said they were going to let me go to school for fall and then I have time to work and see if I could get some scholarships from somewhere, and I have also applied for asylum … So it’s 50-50,” Jammeh said. External Vice President of Statewide Affairs and fourth-year sociology and black studies double major Mohsin Mirza said he looks to the UC Office of The President for its support of Jammeh and believes a community effort is absolutely necessary in supporting Jammeh. “It’s a difficult situation, but I’m hopeful that the people can come together and donate to help and that administration and UCOP can take the actions needed so that Alagie can stay,” Mirza said. Through the help of the OISS and other local organizations, Jammeh has secured temporary housing through the summer with local resident Mariela Marin and her family, as well as a job on campus. “I can honestly say that [Jammeh] is someone who is clearly dedicated to the journey of understanding his world and others,” said Marin. “We’re just really lucky to have him.” Nonetheless, Jammeh’s future remains highly uncertain, as it is unclear where he will live after the summer and whether or not he will be able to continue to attend the university. Despite having deleted the original message and Facebook account, Jammeh now has a rainbow flag on his new profile picture and maintains that he is very firm in his belief that the LGBTQ community should be treated equally as human beings. The Facebook status Jammeh posted defending homosexuality directly contradicts the views of his distant uncle, president of the Gambia. Now he cannot return to his homeland without fear of death. Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus The Facebook status Jammeh posted defending homosexuality directly contradicts the views of his distant uncle, president of the Gambia. Now he cannot return to his homeland without fear of death. Lorenzo Basilio/Daily Nexus “If I could do something to change one person’s mind in Gambia, I would do that,” Jammeh said. “Freedom is a really expensive thing.” Jacob, Farmer, Whitman and Singh each said the primary way to help Jammeh in his situation is through his gofundme.com account at gofundme.com/zzc9s24 that aims to raise money to pay for his next year of tuition. “I really hope everybody can support him,” Jacob said. “He’s just a really fine human being, a fine student and I really want to see him graduate as a Gaucho.” Jammeh says local communities have been instrumental in helping him to survive and continue to study towards his graduation. “I feel really overwhelmed with the support I’m getting,” said Jammeh. “People helped me without asking any questions.” A version of this story appeared on page 1 of Thursday, July 30, 2015’s print edition of the Daily Nexus. Print Friendly Share this: FacebookTwitterEmail Related Former Member of A.S. Wins MTV Scholarship Contest November 28, 2001 In "News" Friends Mourn Loss of UCSB Police Chief January 21, 2005 In "News" Cancer Takes Life of Honored UCSB Professor April 29, 2008 In "News" (This is the original post from the Daily Nexus UCSB.)

lavernecox

My Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Whenever I have spoken up and out about issues that are important to me I have tried to do so in ways that illuminate the discussion, put it in historic and cultural perspective with love, empathy and understanding. I have never been interested in interpersonal attacks, feuds or ‘checking’ individuals publicly. Whether people perceive my work in that way or not, my intention is always to have conversations with love, empathy nuance and understanding.

When in answer to Andy Cohen’s question on “Watch What Happens Live” on July 12, “White girls and cornrows, yay or nay? “I said what I said in an attempt to not get involved in what I understood at the time to be an Instagram feud between someone with whom I was not familiar and Kylie Jenner on the topic of cultural appropriation. I have never been interested in getting involved in any celebrity feuds.

In that moment, I also felt that the topic of cultural appropriation needs way more than the 10 seconds or less I had to respond at the end of the show to fully unpack. I said as much to Andre Leon Tally after the cameras stopped rolling. So on camera with seconds left in a live broadcast I said, "Bo Derek” the first iconic example of a white woman wearing cornrows I could think of. To be clear I understood when I said, “Bo Derek” that her rocking of cornrows with beads in the 1979 film “10” and that look on her subsequently becoming a cultural phenomenon when the black folks who had been rocking cornrows for decades before her had not similarly become a sensation is an example of the ways in which what bell hooks calls imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal systems privilege certain bodies’ performances of cultural traditions over others. This is when cultural appropriation can tend to erase the marginalized people from whom the culture emerges.

Many are taking me to task for not defending Amandla Stenberg who I now know is a 16 year old black actress known for her work in the “Hunger Games” who has spoken out quite eloquently on the topic of cultural appropriation. In researching Amandla’s work and words, I was very impressed with a video I saw from her on cultural appropriation where she chronicled a recent history of cultural appropriation and black hair specifically. (https://youtu.be/O1KJRRSB_XA)

I was most moved by the question she poses at the end of her video, a question I, too, have asked from lecture stages. “What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?”

For me this is the question at the heart of the discussion about cultural appropriation. What of the people whose culture is being mined for the ingredients that can be used in mainstream contexts to spice up the otherwise familiar recipes?

Far too often culture is appropriated without an understanding of the history and hardships from which that culture emerges. How do we lovingly make people aware of that history and the potential affects of cultural appropriation that further marginalize and stigmatize those already the most adversely affected by systems that disadvantage certain experiences, bodies and identities over others? These are points Amandla makes beautifully in her video.

We live in a multi-cultural society where being influenced by cultures different from ours is inevitable. But when the traditions and practices of marginalized communities are used by those in power and the material conditions of those who are marginalized are not changed individually and systemically this is when cultural appropriation is deeply problematic and even potentially exploitative.

These are some of my brief thoughts on cultural appropriation, thoughts that I felt needed a context different from the 10 seconds I had on live TV on Sunday night.

I am writing this in the hopes of continuing a dialogue about this issue in a loving, empathetic way that is not about individual attacks but about individual accountability. I always hope we can celebrate cultural differences without erasing those from whom the culture originates.

bell hooks in her essay “Eating The Other” talks about this way better than I can. Read it here: http://genius.com/Bell-hooks-eating-the-other-desire-and-resistance-annotated

“But the Bible says…”

huffpost

i-am-america-deactivated2016121

*slow clap it the fuck out*

afrorevolution

prettindpearledd

mindfucked.

afrorevolution

This whole we have been mocked and didn’t even realize.

zendayasauntiewig-deactivated20

oh my gawd…

sage-soaked

Shit

opmparty

afro-textured hair along with big exaggerated painted lips and a big fake red nose. the whole idea of circus clowns stems from racism and the mockery of black men who were slaves at the time

brittanibisou-deactivated201801

Holy shit

dboybaker

honestly why didn’t this occur to me sooner

bathobatsho

Oh God. Whaaat? And i thought i was woke!?

prettyboyshyflizzy

BRUHHHHHHHHHHH maybe at a certain point they changed from black face paint to white face paint when blackface stopped becoming socially acceptable 😦😧😦😧😦