Culture

Here we go again mang…

21 Feb , 2018  

Today the internet’s went crazy with posts about a young black Prince adorned in a corporate sweat shirt. The anger seemed to be over the wording “coolest monkey in the jungle.” Now while the image is open to any number of interpretations, let’s assume arguendo that it is a racist mockery of afro culture in Merica. Yet again the man, the machine makes us Melanted folks look bad.
Mostly likely the offender, HM will apologize and by Xmas we will forgive and forget. That itself is the problem. We complain, loud and forgive even louder with our dollars. How much longer are we going to keep another cycle going?

As a people our greatest asset is our buying/spending power and our cultural impact. As a collective, as a community we control neither. We basically buy watery versions of ourselves from corporate America at a premium. What results is usually someone who doesn’t care to understand us offending us  by assuming they know what we want, HM is no exception and won’t be the last offender.
That last point assumes the ad wasn’t purposeful to drive engagement and hashtags by creating controversy. In either scenario we have to ask ourselves how can we prevent this altogether in the future.

What us the answer you ask? Simple boycott, not for a month or a year,but longer. Hell brands of the past that were accused of racism took years for us to forgive em. At this point zero tolerance should be the policy. We have tons of dope brands that are by us and for us. Let’s make Melanted brands great again. If they wont hire you, dont line their pockets. Then we can laugh at these attempts at attention/profit.

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