Serving up hour-long doses of Black pain for amusement is deeply irresponsible, when that pain remains so deeply real.

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Last night, members of the “alt-right” and KKK gathered in Charlottesville outside of the University of Virginia for a “Unite the Right” rally, organized against the removal of a Confederate statue at Richard Spencer’s alma mater. Virginia’s governor Terry McAuliffe released a statement advising people to stay away from the rally that will carry into Saturday due to those “who may seek to commit acts of violence against rally participants or law enforcement” — a statement that sounds like it is in the best interest of the protesters.

So far there has not been any forceful police intervention. There has been no tear gas. No one has called these men thugs. Although the Charlottesville Police Department has just issued a Declaration of Local Emergency, one doesn’t need to imagine what immediate actions would have been taken if Black people stormed an area with flaming torches. We have seen what happens to protesters with the wrong skin color, even when they are acting peacefully. These men (and possibly women too) no longer even bother wearing their hoods, like the KKK once did to hide their identity. The world we live in now lets them boldly put their racism, bigotry, and hatred on display, knowing there will be little consequence for their actions.

One doesn’t need to imagine what immediate actions would have been taken if Black people stormed an area with flaming torches.

According to several tweets from people who were at the rally, pro-white chants echoed through the air, including “White Lives Matter” and “Jews will not replace us.” Meanwhile, the hashtag #unitetheright spread across social media. And then, another hashtag re-emerged on Twitter: #NoConfederate.

That this rally is taking place just weeks after a major network announced plans to create a show imagining what it would be like if the South did not lose the Civil War says a lot about the state of America in 2017.

On July 19, HBO announced its plans for a show requiring creators and writers to fantasize about slavery still existing. As the network announcement put it, the series would feature “an alternate timeline, where the southern states have successfully seceded from the Union, giving rise to a nation in which slavery remains legal and has evolved into a modern institution.”

The laundry list of reasons Confederate should never have been greenlit is long, and seems self-explanatory, echoing in many ways the fight of activists like Bree Newsome to have confederate flags taken down.

Chief among these reasons is the fact that slavery didn’t just disappear when the Civil War ended; it just looks different now. Systems of oppression have been reborn in new forms, like the prison industrial complex and institutional racism. The descendants of slave owners continue to benefit from generational wealth, profiting off the oppression of Black people. The fact is, our country has yet to figure out a way to even the playing field for Black people after the dissolution of the institution of slavery.

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Confederate has subsequently been met with sweeping and justified backlash — not just for its patently problematic premise, but also because it would be executive produced and written by the creators of Game of Thrones, which has received criticism for making very little room for people of color, specifically Black characters. Moreover, over the course of seven seasons, the Black characters who have been featured have been restricted largely to the roles of servants. (Confederate would also be executive-produced by Nichelle Tramble Spellman and Malcolm Spellman, who are Black, a fact that has not assuaged concerns over the show’s direction.)

But even after #NoConfederate was promoted by activists on Twitter—including the creator of the #OscarSoWhite hashtag April Reign (@ReignOfApril) and Rebecca Theodore (@FilmFatale_NYC)—a statement was issued by producers stating that the show will go on:

“We have great respect for the dialogue and concern being expressed around Confederate. We have faith that [writers] Nichelle, Dan, David and Malcolm will approach the subject with care and sensitivity. The project is currently in its infancy so we hope that people will reserve judgment until there is something to see.”

I have zero interest in finding out whether my legitimate outrage over such a ridiculous and exploitative premise is premature. However, there is a silver lining in all this — it was announced this week that a secret project by Will Packer (Girls Trip, Straight Outta Compton) and Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks, Black Jesus) had been greenlit by Amazon — and it essentially posits the exact opposite premise. The show will be titled Black America, and envisions what the world would look like if Black people actually received the reparations they were promised upon being freed from slavery, showing a completely fictional scenario in which Black people thrive without having to contend with the systemic hardships of white supremacy. Instead of the billionth piece of entertainment that portrays Black history as nothing more than slavery, Black America could actually uplift Black people.

In contrast to the problematic Game of Thrones producers behind Confederate, the creative duo at the helm of Black America seems uniquely well-suited to tackle this controversial topic, thanks to their experience with projects that have deftly explored fraught racial themes. I am confident in their ability to represent not only Black people and their unseen potential, but also to embody the humanity of the Black community in their storytelling.

Already, the interviews coming from the creators of Black America show promise, as they have explicitly included discussion of the dangerous impact Confederate could have on present times. Like many others, Packer and McGruder have said they won’t be tuning in to Confederate. “The fact that there is the contemplation of contemporary slavery makes it something that I would not be a part of producing nor consuming,” Packer told Deadline. “Slavery is far too real and far too painful, and we still see the manifestations of it today as a country for me to ever view that as a form of entertainment.”

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Many are saying there’s a double standard here: Why do we believe a show like Confederate is abysmal, whereas a show like Black America should be celebrated? The answer is fairly simple, and in many ways connects to the heinous KKK rally that’s taken place in Charlottesville.

Since reparations never happened, Black America is an actual fantasy, envisioning a world that does not exist. But America stealing Black people to have them enslaved and build their plantations, and then remaining systemically racist decades after? That’s not fiction; it’s reality. Serving up hour-long doses of Black pain for amusement is deeply irresponsible, when that pain remains so deeply real.

If you need evidence of this devastating fact, look no further than the KKK rally in Charlottesville — at the faces of its unmasked white nationalists who are calling for the death of Black bodies, and who are being protected by the government and police as they do.

Confederate asks us to imagine a world in which the South did not lose, and white supremacy won. The rally in Charlottesville — and the systemic forces protecting the white nationalists behind it — proves that we are living in it.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/miley-cyrus-image-makeover-shows-why-black-people-fight-for-their-culture-ada67f9749b5/ Mon, 08 May 2017 18:55:21 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=2212 Read more]]> I have one question: Miley, what’s good?

In a bizarre, straight-from-Hannah-Montana twist, Miley Cyrus has resurfaced with a new, squeaky clean image. Gracing the cover of Billboard to promote her forthcoming record Malibu, she appeared almost barefaced. The picture reveals a more subdued Cyrus dressed in a delicate vintage pink Gunne Sax dress, posing in the middle of a country meadow. Gone are those raggedy dreadlocks she insisted on wearing for the past few years, along with her signature crusted glittery-party-monster-makeup aesthetic.

With this new cover story and accompanying photo spread, Miley has softened her gaze for the camera and morphed back into the basic white innocence that made her a household name in the first place. But the interview she gave to Billboard left a lot of people asking what happened to the girl who twerked her way into appropriating black culture not too long ago. Before turning over this new leaf, Cyrus was more than happy to wear her hair in cornrows, pop a gold grill into her mouth as she promoted the beat-heavy album Bangerz, and objectify black women as props in her first video, “We Can’t Stop.”

So it’s curious that Cyrus has seemingly completely changed her tune, distancing herself entirely from the culture she once appropriated. When asked about her musical influences, Cyrus told the Billboard interviewer:

“I also love that Kendrick [Lamar] song [‘Humble’]: ‘Show me somethin’ natural like ass with some stretch marks,’ . . . I love that because it’s not, ‘Come sit on my dick, suck on my cock.’ I can’t listen to that anymore. That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock’ — I am so not that.”

This kind of thinking is exactly why Nicki Minaj almost snatched Cyrus’ ass off the MTV stage in 2015. Back then, she asked the infamous question, “Miley, what’s good?” Now I want to know the same thing.

In 2013, also in Billboard, Cyrus appeared to have reinvented herself with a hip-hop persona almost overnight. Earlier that year, she uploaded a video of herself twerking to a dirty south rapper J.Dash’s song, “Wop.” This was our first official introduction to the new “ratchet” Miley, and with this transformation, she was convinced that she had abandoned her pop-star image, enough so that she started being referred to in mainstream media as as “The White Nicki Minaj.”

It’s curious that Cyrus has seemingly completely changed her tune, distancing herself entirely from the culture she once appropriated.
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But any slight chance of that comparison being valid disintegrated when Miley explained to the New York Times, “If you know Nicki Minaj is not too kind.” Cyrus even admitted to understanding why people, including Minaj, were possibly upset with her, because she’s a “white pop star,” but still she doubled down on the misunderstanding. When Minaj called out MTV for rewarding Cyrus for appropriating black culture and mocking the bodies of black women everywhere, rather than nominating Minaj, a black woman, Cyrus took an #allbodiesmatter stance. “There’s girls everywhere with this body type,” Cyrus told the New York Times, right before calling Nicki’s grievance just another “catfight.” It was Cyrus’s frightened response to the “angry black girl” trope, which included Minaj’s now-infamous question that some believe put an end to Miley’s “thug life.”

In the most recent Billboard interview, Cyrus is really trying to put that image to bed — but she comes off as the typical colorblind white woman who still doesn’t seem to get how she’s been appropriating black culture over the last several years. She calls the fact that she was called out for using black women’s bodies as props “mind-boggling” and denies any wrongdoing in “taking advantage of black culture.”

White People: I Want You To Understand Yourselves Better
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But her comments about Kendrick Lamar highlight the real issue with Cyrus wearing blackness like a costume. She has reduced rap culture to nothing more than Lambos, dicks, and Lamar. Her comments reek of respectability politics and seem heavily coded in racism, with her cherry-picking negative stereotypes from the genre she poached the first time she felt it was time to re-create herself.

Throughout the entire article, she goes to great lengths to disassociate herself from behaviors that can be coded as “urban,” and her repeated usage of the word “roots” seems synonymous with “white.” She even boasts about how she was inspired to reach beyond what she calls “outspoken liberals” to “cultivate country fans and red staters” (a phrase that could also be read to mean Trump supporters).

I know I shouldn’t be as mad as I am. But seeing Miley categorize all of her “hoodrat” shenanigans of the past few years as a “phase” is exactly why people of color constantly fight to protect their culture. Cyrus has been waiting for the perfect moment to retreat back to her country facade and the white privilege that comes with it. And it is black women who will suffer from this, who will be ridiculed for the aspects of their identity Cyrus borrowed for a profit, long after she’s shed the faux-extensions and taken out the gold grills to get back into the good graces of her white fan base.

On Saturday, after being dragged up and down on social media and Black Twitter, Cyrus released an additional statement on Instagram: “I have always and will continue to love and celebrate hip hop as I’ve collaborated with some of the very best!” She continued:

“At this point in my life I am expanding personally/musically and gravitating more towards uplifting, conscious rap! As I get older I understand the effect music has on the world & Seeing where we are today I feel the younger generation needs to hear positive powerful lyrics! I am proud to be an artist with out [sic] borders and thankful for the opportunity to explore so many different styles/sounds! I hope my words (sung or spoken) always encourage others to LOVE…. Laugh…. Live fully…. to be there for one another… to unify, and to fight for what’s right (human, animal, or environmental) Sending peace to all! Look forward to sharing my new tunes with you soon!”

Though this statement may seem innocuous, asserting herself as more “evolved” for listening to “conscious” rap still alludes to parts of hip-hop culture being inferior if they do not follow respectability politics. It also doesn’t address her complete overhaul from cultural appropriation to country girl.

Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is nothing new.
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Miley’s temporary gentrification of hip-hop music is, of course, nothing new. She is not the first talent to toss their “urban” persona as soon as they reached new heights of popularity. I still remember when P!nk actually had fuchsia pink hair and spoke with a “blaccent” before she successfully transitioned into a more mainstream aesthetic. And not long after P!nk came Justin Timberlake, who transformed from a B-Boy grabbing on Janet Jackson’s titty to singing jingles for the Troll movie. Today we have Justin Bieber going through his rap renaissance, before likely abandoning that as well.

Some — including Cyrus — may argue that this is all a part of artistic growth, but I wish these pop stars would skip the part of their career when they decide to exploit the genres that are already hard for aspiring black artists to break into. We know the only remedy is to keep on creating.

To quote Miley Cyrus, in a time where authenticity matters, black artists know this: “We Can’t Stop.”