Month: February 2020

So, this Wednesday past marked the beginning of the Lenten season and I have planned to do a special Lenten series on this blog. I know that you are probably hovering over that exit button, but it is not what you think. As a blog, we are going to go over toxic people that we need to cleanse ourselves during this Lenten season and hopefully after these forty days we don’t allow them back in our lives or our timeline. I want to kick off this series with the woman who inspired me to make it. The queen of uncontrollable teenagers herself Danielle Bregoli, also known as Bhad Bhabie.  Bregoli came to us a the tender age of 13 when she appeared on Dr. Phil and muttered the infamous line “Catch me outside how ‘bout that!” sparking vine dances and challenges mimicking her mannerism that most agreed where laughable. However, somehow Danielle Bregoli has turned her 15 seconds of fame into a multi-million-dollar career. [how ‘bout that?] She has been featured on tracks with Megan the Stallion, NLE Choppa, Lil Baby, Tory Lanez, Ty Dolla Sign and even has a budding friendship with 5-time Grammy winner Billie Eillish. [Side note what is up some of these rape names? NLE Choppa? Comment down below with what you would want your rapper name to be.] In 2018, she was named on the top 25 most influence teenager list. So why do I believe we must cancel Bhad Bhabie. Put together all the worst attributes acquainted with black women and then paint it white and you have Bhad Bhabie.

For some that don’t understand what I mean let dive deep into how Bhad Bhabie maintains her fame. [I’ll give you a minute to guess. Okay minute over.] Constantly the rapper has found herself in the center of the drama, which did not exclude fighting other celebs and civilians on-camera, threatening to attack people, and cussing folks out online. “Essentially, Bregoli has been getting a pass or receiving praise for actions that would have different results if a Black person did them (Moore)” Over the summer Bregoli was called out for actions after she posted herself wearing single braids. Many viewers of the video said that Bregoli wearing the braids where cultural appropriation and made her look even more like a caricature of the black woman. Of course, the rapper did not take to the criticism quietly and replied back to her “haters” via Instagram story.

[Warning the content below is rated AS for A lot of Stupidity]

“To all the black females that are saying my hair anit [sic] meant for box Braids,” she started on Instagram stories. “Guess the f*ck what, y’all hair anit [sic] meant to be straight but y’all glue whole wigs on to your heads and sew brazilian/Indian/Peruvian hair which is anyhting [sic] like your natural hair texture at all and I don’t say a god damn thing neither do the other cultures that you get the hair from.”

She continues:

“I completely agree that it would b [sic] out of line and cultural appropriation if I was trashing black girls for wearing braids them [sic] getting them but that’s not the situation at all so leave me tf alone or imma start getting real disrespectful.” She ended her thoughts by saying ‘We all know I look fine asf with any hair style I do from any culture because I’m just that b*tch, I hope ya’ll bald headed hoes stay up all night thinking about this.”

Bregoli went on to post a video with her box braids along with the caption “I want to deeply apologize to everyone who’s life’s [sic] have seriously [been] effected [sic] by the way I wear my hair and from the bottom of my heart I wanted to tell you suck my d*ck.”

The disrespect that Danielle Bregoli had from the same people that she takes from didn’t cease. Recently, Bregoli has found herself in the center of another controversy after going on Instagram live and accusing actress Skai Jackson of being a “Disney thot” because of a comment under NBA Youngboy’s recent Instagram post by an account named @disneyprincess.  In Bregoli Instagram live she threaten to kill Skai Jackson multiple times over the incident.  After getting no immediate response from Skai Jackson herself she goes under Skai Jackson’s mother’s post. And to show how juvenilia this situation sounds their mothers begin to go back and forth with each other.

Hours later Skai Jackson filed for a restraining order for Bhad Bhabie given her past of actually trying to fight celebs and fans. Now if this is not a reason to cancel someone, I don’t know what is. But again, I am just stating the facts and you can decide for yourself who to cancel for lent.

So, I have been rattling my brain for weeks on what I was going to write for this week’s blog post. It felt like I had an additive pressure because of Valentine’s day. Now I have done a few blog posts talking about dating;(Shameless plug) if you want to check them out after reading this blog. However, Valentine’s day just feels more official, so I wanted to do something more sophisticated. While googling all I could about the holiday, I stumbled across another holiday that takes place a day before Valentine’s day. Black Loveday.  The Valentine day alternative is the 3^rd nationally commemorated holiday, the first being Kwanza and 2^nd being Martin Luther King Day.

In 1993, Ayo Handy-Kendi, the founder of the nonprofit African American Holiday Association (AAHA), created Black Love Day. The holiday is based on five tenets: love toward the creator, love for self, love for the family, love for/within the black community, and love for black people.  These five tenets are thought to be carried out throughout the entire. On this day, people of other races are thought to mend their racial tensions through loving actions.

Handy-Kendi prides herself on creating a holiday that is meant to strengthen the bond between black and white communities by reassuring self-love and trying to eliminate the stigmas that have been created in both communities about each other. “ The goals of this day are to increase peace, stop violence, end Black self-hatred and White supremacy/racism, to offer a spiritual, African-centered, alternative to the commercialized, and sometimes violent, Valentine Day(Kendi).”

This year marked the 27^th celebration of BLD, and for 2020 the theme was “Reparations 2 Repair 2 Reconcile 2 Restore the LOVE,” which emphasizes the 5th BLD Tenet, which is “To Demonstrate Love for the Black Race.” Aware of the controversy, Kendi wanted to highlight this year that Black people must love themselves enough to have these uncomfortable discussions. So we can reconcile our distrust, a part of slavery’s conditioning, release our anger, and push forward to heal and grow in unity.

Now I want to explain how I perceive this holiday, thinking about how this holiday may come off more exclusive than inclusive with the name BLD. But I recognize this to be the same as the #BlackLivesMatterMovement. We know that all lives matter, the problem there is that black lives aren’t being valued. BLD is tackling the same situation; black people are devaluing themselves off of the sheer fact that they are black, and this day is to encourage that black culture and black lives are valuable, can be loved. I was unaware of how much I needed this message that of self-love leading to unity. And it is something that I could not agree more with as the world is becoming more interconnected it is very easy to feel inferior. The world seems to value black culture (i.e. Hip-Hop, Jazz, break-dancing, braids, etc.), but they neglect and devalue the people for which they come from. This may sound corny, but I was always taught to love your neighbor as you would love yourself; if we can love ourselves more, maybe we can see more love towards others despite; ethnicity, race, age, or class. That what I believe Black Love Day is striving towards.

 

 

 

 

Happy Black History Month. The time we were accustomed to as to reflect over the lives of key black figures in history benign to us what that really meant. But there is often another occasion that falls into this month sometimes and that is the Super Bowl. Now, I am not a huge football fan (I consider my self more of a basketball person) but I do watch the Superbowl for two things the commercial and the Halftime show. I always get excited to see if one of my favorite artists would weasel their way into headlining the halftime. So, when I heard in 2018, that Justin Timberlake, King of nine-year-old dreams was going to be the headline act. I knew that I didn’t care where I was (my best friend’s birthday party). I was going to find my way to watch this uninterrupted. Now as I was expressing my excitement to my fellow Nsync-er ( my mother) she did not great me with the same enthusiasm. If I accounted for her words correctly it was something like “Justin…..Superbowl…Yikes!”

Now her dismay for the topic is probably because the last time Justin Timberlake performed at the Halftime show there was infamous Nipplegate [insert dramatic gasp]. Now, this is something that I knew about, as it seems to be a topic brought up often during black gatherings. However; I didn’t really understand the extent of this issue until I dug a little deeper.

Justin’s first response to the” wardrobe malfunction”, a term the singer coined, was covered by Hollywood Access in which he said, “Hey man, we love giving ya’ll something to talk about.” Like the end of Janet’s career. His very insensitive comments insinuated that the action was planned. And instead of the blame being placed on Timberlake for doing the actual action. It was put on Janet. The heat that Janet was receiving from the media was terrible. They said that events caused trauma to children watching and the NFL ban her from ever performing at any of their events again. Janet immediately had to issue out a video apology for the incident and any “mental trauma” [insert eyeroll] that it might have caused. The Princess of Pop was ban from all of the award shows despite her album peaking number one that year. All of her projects after that were shelved, the only place her music lived on was in urban audiences. She never had a chance to recreate the success that she once had despite the quality of music improving.  Justin, However, who was the guest performer at Janet’s halftime show, went on to gain tremendous success. As the incident, for him, propelled him into becoming a household name. You think that Justin would be apologetic towards Janet, but Justin himself went on to capitalize even more of the incident by mention Janet Jackson decline of success in a diss track. He also attacked Prince, who were some of the people to defend Janet, by saying he was just butthurt that he was no longer making hits.  Even though years later in 2007, he acknowledged his privileges as a white male in incident never once did he say sorry. Now in 2018, Justin had a chance to make things right. But what did he do? Nothing.  It was unclear if he even extended an offer to Janet to perform with him at the halftime show.

I believe that this incident perfectly highlights how the same situation can impact people differently based on the intersectionality of their identities. Justin, a white young male who fits into the mythical norm perfectly comes out of a situation like this unscathed almost loved by the public. While Janet Jackson, who is arguably a part of the most marginalized groups in America, black females, gets her legacy erased.  To say its unfair would be looking beyond the institutionalized racism and sexism that we have in this country. By our logic, what happened was fair. It was just. Because it upheld the balance of the community. Only one person can get a pass to the top and Janet did not fit the genetic criteria.