White people don’t listen. It seems to be the case that ignoring social cues and boundaries are a part of their superiority complex. They do and say whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want at the detriment of others in society. Not a day goes by that ecrues are not slighting, harassing and offending humankind. Black people have certainly taken their behavior to heart and rightfully so. Long before 1619, when the first documented slave pressed his feet onto American soil, Black folks have been gravely affected by alabaster bullshit. We’ve been kidnapped, human-trafficked and forced into bondage. For 400 years, Black people across the diaspora have been subjected not only to rape and pillage of our bodies and our lands, but also white weirdness, racism, fetishizing, appropriation and phoniness. And for 40 decades, among the list of physical and psychological servitude, Black people have always attempted to consult and steer whiteness into the ways of rightness. And in the words of Deontay Wilder—”Till this day”—Black folk are still doing it; and white people still don’t listen. So in one last attempt of the year, AUNTIE shares seven things white folks should totally not carry into 2023.
1) White Girls Twerking
Dear white girls, make it stop. Miley Cyrus got y’all fucked up since she publicly tooted and booted her subpar buns on Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. We understand why y’all wanna twerk. Witnessing free and indirect bouncing of a Black ass looks quite liberating but don’t let those elliptical machines at OrangeTheory Fitness gas you up. The Black y’all lack is not based on the color of your skin, but the context of your twerk. There’s a certain jene se quoi that goes into ass clapping. It’s called rhythm and a lot of Black women have an innate ability to make it look like art. Sorry you don’t. Those stiff back pelvic gyrations are convulsions, not ass rolls and ass drops. Let it go. Give it back.
2) Public Yoga
White folk, y’all take up too much damn space as it is to be shutting shit down for yoga. You and your political representatives are the progenitors of the no flex zone. Like yall have literally created penal codes and laws against the “general” population for loitering, disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. Yet, when y’all perform public yoga, you are loitering, disturbing the peace and committing disorderly conduct. Move bihh, get out of the way, people are trying to commute. Go sit your ass down somewhere, anywhere. And if you must stretch your extremities and do handstands in the public arena, do it on a beach, in a park, at the zoo perhaps. Just don’t do it on a Harlem sidewalk, at Starbucks, or at the airport. People are trying to catch planes for Christ’s sake.
3) Jerk Chicken Mashups
White beloved, we know you think y’all can pull off anything, but nope. Cooking culturally specific foodstuffs ain’t it. It’s surprising you all haven’t learned to not attempt this after the macaroni and cheese debacle and that cardboard potato salad with raisin fiasco. If there is one cuisine white folks stay far the fuck away from it’s Jamaican food dem—particularly, jerk chicken. Campbell’s Soup should know better. Ikea learned this the white hard-headed way when the Swedish retail chain unleashed a picture that showed of their version of jerk chicken and rice and peas. Once the social medias got wind, the company was clowned everywhere from Twitter to Kingston. Days later, the NY Post reported that Ikea had apologized for the food appropriation. Most can agree that an apology may not have occurred, if the dish had not been plagued with ridicule or had significant success. It can also be agreed that you white folks should stick to the unseasoned plates and menus that you are used to. Try spending money with those cooks who really jerk chicken.
4) Blackfishing
Fetishizing Black bodies is at an all time high. It is evident by the extreme ways white women internalize them. Hairstyles, tongue, behavior and dick is one thing, but skin, hips, tits and ass is another. It’s like a pseudo reboot of the 1978 horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Rachel Dolezal went hard with her transracialism theory, but Kim Kardashian and her clan are the grand divas of Black body snatching and reproduction. Perhaps white women need to be sympathetically reminded of the concrete reality: that it is quite OK to be a white woman in a white world dominated by whiteness. No cap. It is OK.
5) Black Face
Oops, they did it again, but it never seems to be the “oops” white people play it off to be. Whether it’s an elected official masquerading in a yearbook picture or Halloween flicks or frat boys just blackface’n for fun—it’s nasty work. Caucasians ain’t slick and Black people aren’t unassuming. We know blackface is the microaggression of choice for cowardly porcelain people. White rage, envy and mediocrity are hidden behind those painted on faces. Afterall, all Black everything is hard to digest: Black beauty, Black brains, Black excellence, Black style and Black resilience.
6) Fake Allyship
I’ve never said “some of my closest friends are white” in order to convince someone that I have white friends when I really don’t, and white people shouldn’t do that when they really don’t have Black friends either. Especially, if the Black people in your life only exist at the margins, and even more so if you will not speak out and act against oppressive, racist systems and people who harm them. If that is a problem for you as a white person, you’re no ally or friend. You’re just a white person who might know Black people. See how that works?
7) White Fragility
Hey white folks! Dialogues about slavery, white supremacy and the afteraffects of racism is hardly ever about you, until you center yourself in those conversations. When you implement yourself by glossing over the realities of worldwide whiteness, or denying your white social status, or somehow equating white blues with Black blues, you are diminishing the Black experience and perpetuating white fragility. You are basically shitting on our Black ass reality to absolve yourself of white guilt. We understand the shame that comes with belonging to the trash race. However, Black people know the difference between institutions and individuals. We are well aware that having universal privilege is not the same as being a racist descendant of the Confederacy. We know benefiting universally from the Transatlantic slave trade does not mean you are the grandmaster of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, but do white people know it? If so, share tell your cousins to cut the shit.
8) Racism
“Do white really need to be told this in 2023? Well, Of course, they do. Is voter suppression still a thing? Does redlining and gerrymandering still occur? Are immigrant families fractured thanks to ICE? Is gentrification live and kicking? Does Flint have clean water? Are niggas still being gunned down by police? Is a pig’s pussy swine?
