What’s Good, Medium?
12–1–2016
Garfield Hylton is over carefree Black girls and boys:
Perhaps the poster child for “carefree blackness” lies in Cardi B. It feels like such a long time ago when I saw Cardi in a Twitter video saying “I don’t need a coat because hoes don’t get cold” and now she’s verifiable star who’s being tapped for a role in BET’s Being Mary Jane.
What’s hilarious about Cardi B’s ascent is I remember when people who looked, sounded, and acted like her were “hoodrats.” Furthermore, I also have memories of when people of Cardi B’s ilk were an “embarrassment” because they didn’t represent all the good things that certain segments of the Black population felt should be on display. Funny how things change.
There’s also this strange bit of dehumanization in both terms. There’s a privilege given to those who can wear the label and those who can’t. It’s cool for Cardi B to be a hoodrat but the girls in her neighborhood aren’t getting hit with the “carefree” label. It’s cool for Thug to dress up in a lavender — or periwinkle — dress but Rodney from the hood is getting called a slur.
suprihmbé says she’s an “anything girl.” Here’s what that means:
anything girl- 1. A [black] girl or woman who is perceived to be more sexually or otherwise adventurous, i.e. fun and easy, particularly by men. Can be impulsive, and may be an experience junkie. Tends to be branded a “rebel” or “free spirit,” at the most positive & “hoe” or “crazy” on the negative end of the limiting-women spectrum. 2. Also could be a synonym for a “ride or die chick” with similar qualities, i.e. “she’s down for anything.” Similar: Manic Pixie Dream Girl[1], Penny Lane.
According to some people, I am a free spirit. According to others, I am a hoe. My mother claims I am a contrarian, a know-it-all, a self-absorbed freeloader. My family thinks I am a disobedient almost-adult. Some people think I am ugly. (I might be.) Some people think I am crass. (I might be.)Some people wanna slap the shit out of me. (I mean…) Some people hate me because they know me, and some hate me because they don’t. According to a friend of my ex’s whom I have never met, I am an attention-hungry jackass. According to my first ex, I am a goddess, and a survivor. (But he hit me anyway.) According to a friend of mine, I am talented and rare. But in my experience I am always too much of something, not enough of something else.
Ezinne Ukoha is not here for Kevin Drum’s Mother Jones piece in which he calls white supremacy a “fad.” She gets him all the way together in her response.
It is beyond painful to have to point out the obvious to a White writer who is tackling a subject that is so above his pay grade. I can only wonder how editors of reputable publications sell their souls for the glory of clicks while bastards like me fall for their approved offerings in ways that translate into responses that only help to make their nonsensical deliveries even more relevant.
But, I can’t help myself. I lived through the excess of the eighties and survived the period when Y2K was considered a serious threat — even though it really signaled the avalanche of heightened technology that surpassed whatever we dreamed under the stars of the Millennium.
How dare a White man tell people of color what to feel about White supremacy and the darkness that comes with the realization that we are being undermined by people that inherently believe that they are better than anybody that doesn’t quite fit into the slot of appeal.
Drum’s point of view is offensive but definitely not isolated.
It’s also fucking dangerous and reckless of this writer and his ill-guided editors to publish a piece that sets us back even further and gives President-elect Donald Trump all the ammunition he needs to fill his Christmas tree with ornaments that refuse justice and embrace the temperament of anything that makes people of color feel righteously inferior.
