Iggy Azalea’s post-racial mess: America’s oldest race tale, remixed

Even though I have taken issue with the way that hip hop fans stand for Macklemore, I appreciate that he has a vocal critique of white privilege and the way it operates in his own life and career.

Not so, with Iggy. More than one blogger has ferreted out her problematic tweets about race, which suggests that while she may love hip hop, she has very little appreciation of Black culture or the problematic ways that white privilege can colonize that culture to the tune of millions of dollars.

That Black men have no sustained critique of the politics of caping for white women in hip hop is lamentable. That their race politics don’t extend far enough to include Black women in any substantive way is downright unacceptable. Forty years ago, Black male race leaders told us that race was the only thing that mattered, feminism be damned. Now in this political moment of My Brother’s Keeper, in the cultural arena, rap crews like Lil Wayne’s Young Money Cash Money and T.I.’s Grand Hustle Entertainment throw their weight behind white women rappers without a second thought. From this, Black women are supposed to conclude two things: 1) race does not matter, except if you are a Black man and 2) if Black men do anything for any woman, it’s the same as being hospitable and/or progressive to every woman.

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