“Doesn’t this simply fall into the old stereotypes Black/Brown people have fought against for years — e.g. bad English, too ignorant to do otherwise, using oppressive language (that is not, no matter what people claim, empowering because it’s never actually practically won people of color anything politically, economically, etc.), baggy pants, gang members and so on — because people of color understand our potential and capacity is greater than being the caricatures put before us? “
I’m sorry, but this is utter bullshit. Seeing different aspects of African American/Black culture as lowly IS internalizing that very racism, that very hierarchy that white supremacy has created.
Black culture stands like a rose in concrete in stark juxtaposition to the abuse and the degradation and undermining black folks’ experienced at the hands of whiteness. It is a culture of resistance, of making something out of nothing or out of fucking shit, out of miseducation, slavery, and genocide. It isn’t always pretty, and the history or root of the culture might be downright shit, but most importantly, it is ours.
Yes, wanting to move forward as a community and to show the community’s best is important, but that should be defined by us, not by whiteness, and by white supremacy’s hatred and fear of anything black, “ghetto”, “hood rat”, etc.
We have to hold whiteness accountable not by mimicking them but by saying you MUST respect blackness in whatever forms in takes. We have to hold ourselves accountable and say you will respect our roots to move forward, not spit on them, press your hair, put on your sunday best and call it “progress.” The stereotypes and the victimization and abuse of black folk based on them is not black folk’s fault, it’s white supremacy’s. The way shit is defined as “ghetto” or “jank” as speaking “properly” or “improperly” is racist as fuck.
I truly, really dig POCO and stand by a lot of what goes on at the site. I have contributed a few pieces as a guest contributor that they’ve been posting on the site, and for that I am extremely grateful. That said, right now I’m having one of those “Commentary and views espoused therein are solely the views of the person speaking and not of the people associated with group on a whole” moments. This isn’t cool at all.
