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Work is driving her crazy!

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*not all Black men

…but enough Black men come at us sideways and get things twisted like a Slinky to make me want to presently clear my throat, crack my knuckles, and get a few things off my ample chest. Today’s address is prompted by the inane ramblings of one Mr. Cory Haywood, in a fetid diatribe that he calls “From Hair weaves to Colored Contacts, Black Women Have Been Appropriating White Culture for Decades.”

Mr. Haywood’s thesis statement seems to be that, “Envelope-pushers Miley Cyrus and Kylie Jenner are often targets of criticism because they appear to be driven by an insatiable obsession with urban culture. This qualifies as one of the purest examples of hypocrisy in recent memory.” And straight out of the gate, he asks, “Hey, sisters: How does it feel to be hypocrites?”

At this point I’m going to Kanye myself with an Imma let you finish, but… moment: we haven’t even gotten past sentence two of Mr. Haywood’s blathering, and we can already clearly see that it is the kind of low-rent rant that we ordinarily wouldn’t give the time of day. And indeed, I’m generally far too busy to devote a thousand words to every degenerate misogynist pig with a wi-fi connection and a WordPress username, but I’ve got time today.

This particularly virulent strain of “man” is doing far too much damage, and Black women have enough to battle without the call coming from inside the (racial) house. These hotep hustlers in sheep’s clothing are often men that we should be able to look to for community, and they’re too busy looking down on us or stepping over us to even notice or care that they are causing divides between us. So, even if we completely dismissed Cory’s trash collection of un-sentences and twists of phrase on sight, as well we probably should, they speak to a bigger problem that I would like to put to a bed forever.

The very first thing that needs to be said is that intelligent people know how to make a case for their opinion without denying the existence of the situation at hand altogether, and in his inability to do so, Cory betrays himself in exposing his fundamental ignorance of what appropriation even means.

The entire internet might be about to collapse under the weight of discussions of appropriation, and I know I’m about to add another one to the mix, but I’m sick of seeing my sisters and myself attacked as though we’re making something up when we’re not.

For Colored Girls Who Consider Clapback When Attacks from Black Men* Are Enuf  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com

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