I am so sorry everyone. I know nobody wants to do this, but it must be done. It has become imperative that we have a talk about Bhad Bhabie. Yes, you’re right she already gets enough attention, Dominique.  She’s like car accident you can’t look away from on the highway. I can admit that I too have watched a video or two of her ranting on Instagram and fed into the nonsense. But as a Black woman to see this teenage white girl profit off our look is enraging. The sheer fascination and yet dehumanization that she exhibits through her cultural appropriation needs to be put to rest. The fake “blackcent”, the braids, and the dark tan have become the only reason now why people talk. She is basically a walking caricature. But it just leads me to ask, why is she so obsessed with Black women? I mean I get it; Black girls are magic but that doesn’t mean that you can just up and decide to try to be one.  

It’s not just her incessant need to try and replicate the aesthetic but her harassment of Black women as well. She has been in the public eye for a while now and yet somehow, she has curated these attacks against Black women for their critiques of her. If anyone has seen her rants on social media, it seems as if she is harboring some deep-rooted anger. There’s so much rage in her speech. Which I don’t understand. Like what are you mad at us for?  You don’t want to be Black, but you want to look Black. It is apparent that she realizes the privileges of her whiteness while still yearning for the aesthetic of the Black woman. White and nonblack women see cultural appropriation as wearing a mask that they can take on and off. They know it’s wrong, but they don’t care. That’s where the dehumanizing element comes into play. There’s no respect for our culture, for our humanity. We don’t deserve to have a say in what other people do even though its hurtful. Whenever you call someone out on their culture appropriation its trivialized. How can you really say you love Black people and even create life with them but still feel as if you can wear their cultural aspects like a costume.  

It seems as if now more than ever, the Black woman has become the unofficial standard for beauty. Our hairstyles, our jewelry, and just overall taste are what’s hot. Still, we are not given our just due. It’s scary to see women that don’t look like you try to look like you. In all seriousness though I don’t understand why White women and nonblack women try to wear these hairstyles clearly made for Black women. Like why go through all the trouble to damage your hair. But alas that’s a different topic for a different day. Ultimately, I feel like more than ever before our job as black women are now pay these cultural appropriators dust. If they are not going to celebrate us, then we must continue to celebrate ourselves. We don’t need validation from anyone else. Will we ever be able to stop nonblack women from biting our swag, who knows? But one thing for certain two things for sure is that for a fire to die out you must stop fueling it. We must ask ourselves what would really happen if we tried to stop calling out cultural appropriation? Forcing nonblack women to acknowledge it doesn’t stop them from doing it, so what if we just stopped altogether?