#raceissue

the incluseum

Really dude ...."Last niggaz in paris"?!?!

Last week Jean Touitou founder of french street-wear brand A.P.C dropped his FW15 collection. As usual at the end of the show he holds a board with a phrase that corresponds to the collection, this time it read "last niggaz in paris" SMH. His explanation for using the phrase was it was a ode to his & Kanyes friendship and the collection had heavy "hood signifiers" along with using words like niggaz,ghetto,and hood  he said "In the ghetto, it is all the Timberlands, all the big chain". What a shit show , even as he was presenting the phrase he said “Oh, I am glad some people laughed with me"..... eh duh  so he knew  it was wrong controversial as he was doing it... no no no Jean touitou no you don't. I could give 2 f**ks if Kanye gave his approval for the idea, he nor any other being can speak on how an entire race feels. C'mon guys this country is already tense enough with bringing race stereotypes into fashion.......In my own opinion the collection was more then a hop,skip and a jump form hood and its all a publicity stunt to hype the normcore-ness of the collection among the urban community.

Following the statement Timberlands cut their ties with A.P.C and canceled the 2015 collaboration..... those Timbs were fire tho.....oh well for every action has a reaction. 

This doesn't make any sense. Remember when there was that whole controversy over Beyonce' not wearing her "true match" so that she would be lighter skinned on camera? 

I'm not even gonna go into full detail of some of the things that were said by the women that were interviewed because I want to focus on what this all really means. When black women are supposed to be telling a story of what it "means" to live the daily life of a black woman, to be more "relatable", they're expected to have darker skin. Now as a light-skinned person I don't really agree with this. Mainly because I'm still black. So that is entirely null and void. But just for kicks, let's talk about this. 

How in the hell are we letting this be our environment. Not only are we already struggling for our independence hundreds of years later, the light-skinned vs. dark-skinned situation is THEIR FAULT?!?! Because look at it this way: models are "more beautiful" when they're light skinned but when they're supposed to depict "real" black people they're expected to be more brown. Oh. Awesome. 

Essence Atkins, and all of her pretty glory said that she "questioned [her] worthiness of being black" because felt like she wasn't "black enough". Imagine being told that in an audition... Just terrible. 

Other household names among this list of light-skinned Black women interviewed for this documentary include Raven-Symone (yes), Chante' Moore, Amber Rose, Erica Hubbard (sister in Akeelah and the Bee), and Kim Whitley. And of course, the spokesperson for battered women, Iyanla Vanzant is also in it, so you know it's deep. I'm almost afraid to watch the whole thing because of how disturbed I was after watching Hidden Colors so, y'all got this one.

Raven-Symone said she used to tan three to four times a week for That's So Raven so that she could be "more pretty". I never knew she was someone who was worried about her skin color; she always seemed so confident. (What concerns me is how Caucasian girls are always trying to tan. But that's a different story.) And I just love Raven. In the midst of all the controversy she's found herself in in the last couple years about her sexuality, and Bill Cosby, etc, her responses have always been tasteful. I don't care if people think she's weird; I love her. Lol 

This is about Trayvon Martin, but from another perspective than the posts I've seen most lately.  This post includes both race and religion, two things that are important to me.  I've read many many posts since the verdict and since I can't post them all, I chose this one because it seemed more unique to me.

I wish there were more white people who thought like this about the case.  At least from what I've read, there aren't enough.