This Wrath Month, writer & activist Alexander Leon recently posted a viral infographic on Instagram regarding a guide to sexual racism for white people in response to the queer community’s rampant racism on dating apps.
And as history would have it, white people, queer ones mostly, began to respond. Their responses ranged from co-opting the slogan “My body, my choice” and “If I prefer not to date Asians, I have my fucking reasons.” Whoa. Backtrack. I think it would be time to have a guide to sexual racism for racists, which is a term more aware of how we all perpetuate white supremacy. In my opinion, one of the best ways to analyze the modern state of sex relations is rap music, especially if you need it through the eyes of men.
With hip hop, no one is asking you to do anything else but remember that you should think for yourself, not let other people think for you.
Luckily, around the time I came upon the graphic, Pop Smoke posthumously released an album on July 3, executive produced by 50 Cent. 50 Cent did it for free, kindly reinforcing the young black boy idea of 50 Cent being a superhero. In the New York Times, when meeting with Pop Smoke, 50 realized that Pop Smoke was recording everything 50 said on his phone. Maybe Pop Smoke really wanted to be just like 50. But Pop Smoke was gone before he could realize celebrity culture was actually quite the contrary by becoming one.
One of the things I started to realize in the late 2010s is that sometimes people can do things wonderful, genius, and still be wrong. One is supposed to outgrow that teenage phase where celebrities were idols, with perfect judgment.
And funnily enough, just this week, 50 Cent went on a show with Lil Wayne and said some of the most awful things about Black women that I had heard come from a black man’s mouth, the same time I heard some of the best come out of Pop Smoke on “Shoot For The Stars Aim For the Moon.”
I didn’t want to steal a black man’s joy on a week like this, but after the past few months and years of black men policing black women’s tone, actions and behavior, I was not shocked by 50 Cent’s remarks at all, given history. Not just 50’s own history of misogynoir but going back to when Europeans first traveled to Africa in the 17th century, they believed the Africans were sexually lewd based on the “suggestive” dancing (twerking), religions, practice of polygamy, and even style of dress. Whatever. Being closer to the equator obviously means darker skin and less clothes, duh.
I’ve noticed most cisgender heterosexual Black men in Virginia share views with 50. Men I had gone on a date with as a Black woman just openly admitted to me they have a “thing” for lightskin women, white women or nonblack WOC. They wouldn’t end the date immediately or anything but at that moment, mentally, I would be at the funeral of our love. For a long time, as a kid, I felt love would be impossible. It could have been soul crushing the first time I remembered that most men I have deeply cared for have an itch I can’t scratch, for a privilege I cannot provide, and yet, I was still there, expected to submit to subconscious rejection, happily, to be protected from the systems that want me hurt, dead, or gone.
The main problem with 50 Cent’s rant calling dark skinned women “angry” is that it’s all based on a stereotype, and calling light skinned women “foreign” or “exotic”, another stereotype. Like we are in a modern minstrel show set in the house and field days.
This white colonial idea of Blacks and other marginalized groups being sexually out of control has really never left and it’s existence is held in the minds of all different kinds of groups. To the subservient Asian woman from the jezebel, to the Latin lover and ebony porn categories. Sexual literature, porn, and cinema have always had tropes related to the sexual racism of people of color and this affects everybody. Sexual stereotypes are sexual racism in the form of biological storytelling.
Actress and 50’s ex-girlfriend, Vivica A. Fox, stated in response “He just has f**k boy tendencies. When I read that I was like, “Really?” You would say that, because you don’t want anyone to challenge you.” To which 50 responded “Vivica still in love with me…” For whatever reason you tell yourself that “it is just a preference”, just know that you are for sure telling on yourself.
Yeah, so human beings, especially the flawed and the narcissist, have legacies and empires. When I started dating, it dawned on me that their attraction to me must have tormented them when my blackness didn’t pale, but matched their own. So much so that their torment demands my submission. And it was soul crushing, but not enough. First off, attraction is complicated. Proximity, shared culture, reciprocity are all undeniable factors. Sexual racism was old school rampant; some of them were never aware for so long, since both pale and dark parties just might enjoy being hyper-sexualized by each other. Seriously, rap lyrics in the 90s and the 00s, even the 10s, were all kinds of questionable.
Growing up with hip hop and sexual racism, frankly, it just made me feel that I was an embarrassing person, like someone who didn’t deserve to be affectionate or be seen with in public because I knew I wasn’t what they wanted. Maybe if I was, I would finally be worth the trouble. Being a Jersey girl living in Virginia for the past 5 years has been something else. Half of a decade. I have been ten toes down on cursed and stolen land with people too scared of their own beauty for 5 years.
Now, I almost always expect it, even from men in my own communities, even from my music. I used to cringe during some of his lines but I knew that Pop Smoke was young, and hoped that one day he could outgrow misogynoir, things that were an OG’s downfall. His legacy now is that he will be forever young, younger than me.
I couldn’t help but spend all week thinking about Pop Smoke.
I know a lot of music is storytelling, so who is to say what he did in real life, but it was clear women and their representation in his music was important to him. He cared about a lot of women and he cared that in his music, they all felt good. Feeling good entails feeling supported, admired, satisfied, and adored. This isn’t to glorify him for it but to acknowledge how the student can sometimes outgrow the master in hip hop. Some modern Black men, like 50 Cent, sincerely do not enjoy Black women. They expect our submission and devotion, since we are wrong all the time, so misguided. Not Pop Smoke.
Fixing internal race issues, present in nearly everyone, doesn’t mean everyone has to start dating one race. Indeed it is always your body, your choice. It’s natural to just be attracted to the people of your race or culture. You gotta call yourselves out on your sexual and sexist racist biases so the youth can see. The short answer is the way you treat people matters because the future generations are watching.
So what I really loved about Pop Smoke was it was refreshing to see his brand including that he cared about women feeling good. His boundaries did not exclude the basic things like kindness, compassion, empathy and loyalty. He brought those back.
Some Black people, straight ones who probably agree with 50 mostly, saw Alexander Leon’s graphic and went into the classic “maybe you have a point but holy shit who cares” narrative and “why do you guys just not find the racism attractive, if it is racism? And why want the affections of a racist & try to change them?”
That last one is a fair question. I can promise I don’t find 50 Cent’s colorism attractive.
My issue is childhood attachment styles on adult relationships and level of commitment are some of the best predictors of the stability and quality of a relationship, not skin color, along with the kindness, intelligence, emotional stability, dependability of the person. Those traits are all about parenting, socialization and decision making. Race preferences are not kind.
For what he was unable to provide in commitment, he provided in other ways like treating women well. Evidence of his appreciation for women, in all shades, shows in Pop Smoke’s lyrics with graphic and clear direction. He’s realistic, rapping about the multiple women that have made him want to sing, but never failing to show up for the woman who looked like him, if not darker, maybe from where he grew up or maybe a dark-skinned woman from around the world. With lyrics that aren’t inherently sexual, as much as his material usually is, but just as appreciative. Uplifting. Different. “Queen like Nefertiti” in one song and on another album he says, plain as day, part of his hook: “I like dark-skins, love her melanin.”
At least 4 of the 19 songs on the “Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon” album are classic serenades, sampling R&B songs like “So Into You” by Tamia, that have been every Black child’s gateway towards imagining true love, the way every child does.Our parents and our environments are some of the biggest factors of us choosing partners for this life. After her father’s avid laughter in agreement with 50 Cent’s disparaging rant on “angry black women”, Reginae Carter tweeted “I am black! I am exotic! I am beautiful! I am enough!” For a man’s darkskin daughter to know that her father, despite at one point having full attraction to their mother, conducts paper bag tests, it starts to raise painful emotions of past generational trauma. Same idea when one starts to have siblings compare skin tones. To have racist parents try to care for something that they harbor internal biases towards is a serious backpack to unpack, but necessary so my son or daughter never feel like envying another’s skin. Sexual racism is not people just coming up with new things that have damaged people.
Today, I no longer believe I would never be able to give anyone security or safety because I could never make a man feel comfortable in his skin. Now I only worry if my true love will help me feel comfortable in mine. To have Pop Smoke display that his love is Black in all shades was a deep breath in, plentiful, deep, soulful and romantic.
What is so unique, difficult and pervasive about sexual racism is that, for black children, it hits hardest from their own community and during puberty. It appears in a child becoming an adult as a taught and learned behavior, since humans are the mammals that mimic and imitate for survival. It starts that early, a tender age. It comes from racist young men, women, and nonbinaries alike, covert racists in all shades.
This last part of the article is to warn against being reactionary and say “Blacks Only” is not the answer. Having sex only with black people, especially men, is not progressive, noteworthy or a kink. For all the colorists, like 50 Cent, having sex only with lightskin black or nonblack people, especially women, is not exotic, noteworthy, or demanding of praise. The idea that lighter skin is more effeminate and darker skin is more masculine comes from white supremacy. So you might just be a little racist. Even if it was really good.
We are teaching our young people to be insecure and unkind. Proclaiming “no darkskins” and reinforcing negative stereotypes about “sistas” is not about sexual preference, it’s racism that hurts families and keeps generations stuck.
Pop Smoke only graduated high school in 2018. I find myself wishing there was more time to make known a love that his elders could never truly know about on “What You Know Bout Love”. The album will always be as refreshing as the first time I heard it.
