Mischaracterizing Racism
In a blog post titled "But My Racism Is Better Than Yours", my college buddy "Ofili Speaks" said the following:
People get upset that Iggy Azalae is doing rap music but can’t understand why other people are upset about a Black storm trooper…They feel their racism is better, sleeker, much better but can’t comprehend how it’s the same thing as another person not wanting a black storm trooper because it infringes on white culture just like an Australian Iggy supposedly infringes on black culture.At the end of the day we all think our racism is better!
It would help to provide some background. His blog post was inspired by a lengthy, spirited facebook debate that took place this past weekend. Here is the status message of the mutual friend that sparked it:
That the comments tally ran into triple digits is a testament to how engaging the debate was. Our mutual friend posted the status message in response to what I think was a twitter rant (which I can't recall, too many comments to go digging) and an article from Malek Mouzon titled "The Silence of the 'Black' White Musicians". An excerpt from the latter:
I hope that by the time this article posts it no longer applies. But as of its writing, the following is a small list of musicians who have yet to make a public statement or acknowledgement of Michael Brown's murder and the racial epicenter that is Ferguson, Missouri. In no particular order, they are: Justin Bieber, Macklemore, Iggy Azaela, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus.I chose the above five for a very specific reason; they are what I like to call "Black" White Musicians. They are entertainers who have been inspired by some facet of Black culture and whether through authentic means or appropriation have gone on to repackage it for the masses under their own guise.The above musicians enjoy and in many ways reap the rewards of the best parts of Black culture and yet... are surprisingly absent when it comes to the worst.It's frustrating to watch white musicians be so ready to have legions of Black dancers/singers behind them, work with Black producers, sing about how "we" do and then be nowhere to be found when a Black tragedy takes the national stage.
Mr Mouzon's article, posted a little over a week after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, echoed the sentiment of quite a number of people on social media. On of my favorites was on twitter:
For the record, I partly disagreed with the facebook post. While I don't feel any white rapper should feel obligated to comment on any issues affecting the black community, I can understand why they would be criticized for keeping silent. As for black music "belonging" to black people, that was largely ignored by almost everyone that commented. I don't remember anyone feeling it was worth their time discussing. I've never heard any rational person say any genre of music "belongs" to any particular race and feel that was just added to the facebook status message for the purpose of sensationalism.
Now, as far as Mr Ofili's blog post is concerned, which is what I am focusing on, I felt it was important to provide some background because reading Mr Ofili's post without prior knowledge of what informed it, would lead one to incorrectly assume the racist reactions to actor John Boyega playing a Storm Trooper in the latest "Star Wars" movie mirrored those towards rapper Iggy Azalea.
The fringe minority (my assessment of their numbers is my assumption, I could be wrong, there could be many more, this is still a racist world) of people that expressed displeasure with John Boyega's casting did so simply because of his race. No one that I know that dislikes Iggy Azalea feels that way because she is caucasian. Not one of the 192 comments on that facebook post that were not fans of her based their sentiment on her race.
Mr Ofili is guilty of false equivalence in his post. Speaking for myself, I am not a fan of Iggy Azalea. I think she is a joke of a rapper without an ounce of originality. But am I "upset" that she is "doing rap music" and think she is an "infringement" on black culture, as described by Mr Ofili? Not at all. That's quite an extreme characterization that misses the mark completely. Black culture has been very accepting of white rappers. You see it in stadiums where a good number of African Americans attend concerts thrown by caucasian rappers. Iggy is free to rap to her heart's content. That's not the issue, based on the background I provided earlier.
I mean, if I'm racist because I don't like Iggy Azalea, what about the following three rappers I'm a fan of?
Eternia, from Ottawa, Canada
Invincible, from Detroit, Michigan
Dessa Darling, from Minneapolis, Minnesota
These are three skilled rappers that are good at their craft. I've never heard of any backlash towards any of them based on their race. If Mr Ofili is going to slap a "better, sleeker" racism tag on criticism of Iggy Azalea, surely that would apply to others in her genre that fit her racial makeup. But that is simply not the case.
Maybe Mr Ofili will shed more light in a subsequent post. For now, based on what he's written, I can't agree with where he is coming from
