Since we last spoke: The OG Aunt Viv (not the lite-skint remix, though I’m sure she’s a nice lady) used Jada Pinkett Smith’s plea for black divestment from the Oscars as a perfect opening to give Jaden and Willow’s pop some long-overdue work (and not the kind she’d been out of).
The Academy vowed to start kicking its dustier membership to the curb so it doesn’t look like the dusty, default-racist organization it—and most organizations chiefly made up of dusty white folks—tends to be.
The perennially questionable ATL rapper B.o.B took it upon himself to roll up on everybody this side of Pythagoras with a bunch of flat-earth garbage that some of y’all would buy full price if it were on Worldstar.
Mulder and Scully came back (once Gillian Anderson got better than the lowball they offered her, in case You Want to Believe there’s no such thing as a gender pay gap).
A cop actually got sentenced to 243 years for sexually assaulting more than a dozen black women, yet another case of This Wouldn’t Have Happened Five Years Ago, So Keep Fuckin’ Up They Program.
And, lastly, Macklemore did exactly what Raz Simone said he was about to do, and released the nine-minute “White Privilege II.”
(What is up with Seattle rap making these long-ass event songs? Raz? Fatal? Uh, Bingx dude? Ain’t none of y’all Queen, so do like the Genius said and make your shit “half short and twice strong.” “Ether” was less than five minutes.)
Far be it from me to try to force anybody to listen to Macklemore, but this song ain’t really for those who wouldn’t in the first place. Nobody should be forced to endure the uncomfortable trials of white allies trying to figure out what white allyship looks like. (Big shout to my sis Hollis, Nikkita Oliver, Chicago vocalist Jamila Woods, and every POC/WOC that helped guide and inform this song—this is one instance of crowdsourcing I vibe with.)
But if someone were to ask me what a white person with superstar privilege and access could do with it, this pretty much satisfies those criteria. (The actions that follow this statement, as Mack himself acknowledges, are what he should really be judged upon.)
I’ll keep my cookies, but I’m looking for the other white pop stars who are saying… anything. Nah? But you ain’t gotta give it a pass, a listen, or an ounce of respect. Anyway, that new Bieber’s the jam though, huh? What’s a couple N-words and KKK jokes? Speaking of, shout-out to the person who left a Klan robe at the thrift shop in Redmond (that should be a Raz Simone album title). Either they’re a terroristic piece of shit, a thoughtless piece of shit, or a repentant piece of shit. Ask me again why I hate the Eastside!
Oh yeah, and KUBE 93 moved to Tacoma. You can’t get it in Seattle no more—the end of an era. In the end, it was a sorry excuse for black radio—but even it got priced the fuck out of town. This shit ain’t a metaphor or a game. Hold tight! 