So I’m a bit disturbed by this article. You go on at quite some length about why you think whites are obsessed with black culture. By the way, that’s the one truth in this article. The obsession is clear and it’s long. If that’s all other whites got from reading this piece, then you did good. There usually is this idea of newness that never ceases to amaze me. Presley, the Beatles, all those white folks got their billions from stealing black culture.

But I’ll try to be a bit more organized in my thoughts here. One of the things that disturbs me about you writing this is, first, who are you to delve into this? You go on and on about what you see as the connection which at times came close to beginning to touch on some of the issues. But when you then wanted to finally get to your point and ask the question of why whites like black culture but not the blacks themselves, your only observation came from you parents?! Are they the experts here? Not that you shouldn’t ask them, but, I mean, come on! My culture, the appropriation and condensation of everything we are, the definition of all that gets reduced to what 2 “pretty liberal” white folks think? You just became a poster child for the main part of this problem. And that is that white culture is at its base nature one of presumption and theft. Blacks were stolen from African to work for free (yes, that’s what slavery is!). And from then on, there is this continued concept of presumption and theft. The very nature of appropriation is theft. Even as you wrote about Al Jolson “becoming” someone based on stealing characteristics from black culture, or any number of white performers stealing lips, braids, sagging pants to feel hip, edgy, or whatever they need to stay “current” and stay in the lime light and make money. Braids are black culture, but still even today, if a black woman or man wears braids in a corporate climate, it’s seem as problematic, but if a white person wears it, it’s trendy. The big butt trend is never appropriate for black women, whom it is appropriated from, and big lips are an issue for black women, but beauty for whites and we have to deal with Kim K. and whoever else gets the spotlight, because she has a big butt or big lips?! To me, it’s theft, pure and simple.

And worse, you did two things:

1. appropriate black culture as thug, rap, and crime, none of which is my culture. So you’d likely be one of those white people who would say to me, “Oh, you,… you’re different. You’re not really like, you know, not really black.” or something equally scathing. How dare you decide that you define black culture so narrowly. You just became part of the problem. You just white-splained. I didn’t see anywhere where you asked any black folks about their opinion. You, like all the other thieves, have defined for yourself what you think is worthy of theft, write about it and make conclusions, which then does even more disservice to me in that it continues to steal the humanity of an entire race of folks by reducing it to your caricature. Now, other people like you can talk about reading “this article” about “black culture” and sit over their lattes and discuss it, making themselves feel more liberal.
2. excuse white folks from caring about the very struggles they created in the first place by bringing up the “black-on-black”, “you-destroy-your-own-neighborhood”, 50-cent-fights-with- whomever you mentioned, thing as a reason to not care about black people and their struggles. Oh, and your mom talking about her own problems as why she can’t have the time to care?!?!?!?! I bet she or her liberal friends send money to orphans in another country. I bet she cares about the whales/lost puppies/God knows what else, or even starving Africans in Africa, but is afraid of the black person in the elevator, the very fear of them being the made-up image resulting from the dehumanizing experience for black folks your parents and all their liberal or non-liberal community have contributed to by their apathy.