Dear Kanye West: Give Up on the Whitewash…

Amber Rose in African Fashion. Photo Credit: Jamati.com

…and the anti-Black, self-hating misogyny.

In the past week, I’ve been inspired by two powerful commentaries by Black women. They were responding to comments Kanye West made about his African American ex-, Amber Rose. He compared her unfavorably to his wife Kim Kardashian, who is not Black. While both women have led very publicly sexualized lives (Kardashian became well known for her sex tape with RayJ, the younger brother of 90s pop star Brandi), somehow Kanye decided to vilify Amber Rose for these actions, but not Kardashian. In particular, he said that after being with Amber Rose “I had to take 30 showers before I got with Kim.”

The two writers, Ashleigh Shackelford and Arielle Newton basically analyzed the hell out of the situation. So here’s my spoken word rant to add to the outcry:

Dear Kanye:

Of course you had to take like 30 showers after dating Amber Rose. You weren’t trying to wash off that particular woman, you were trying to wash Black womanhood off you, your mama, your grandmamma, an entire lineage that goes back to slavery, trying to wash off your desire for a Black woman, like you did by dating the lightest Black woman you could find, which didn’t work so now you’re with Kim Kardashian, but you can’t wash us off which is why you’re in the media talking shit about Amber, about all of us, you can’t shut up about us. Here we are still in your mouth, you taste us with every word you speak. You can’t wash us off because we are you, the mirror image of you, part of you. Black women are the repository for everything Black that you hate in yourself. You can fuck Kim, marry Kim, have Kim’s babies, but we are that one Black blood drop that will always live in your children, no matter how lightskinned they may be, that essence of negritude you’ll never whitewash away. Amber rose is that African bush funk smell that clings to you, the Africa you’re still looking for in Kim Kardashian’s ass, that you can’t get away from, can’t escape from, can’t run, can’t scrub out or disinfect. Go ahead, Kanye, take showers, baths, hot tubs, swim in pools, rivers, lakes, beaches, the middle of the fucking pacific ocean. Stand naked in a rainstorm, a hurricane, a monsoon, a tsunami. We are your lineage, your DNA. Go ahead Kanye, keep lying to yourself. Call us slutty, trashy, nasty, trampy, but still we stampede through your dreams, an army of aunties and grandmammas who used to hoist switches, those who’ve passed on and those still with us, legions of dead Black women ancestors who fought and sacrificed and died so you could stand up here today talking shit about Black women. And—unlike living Black women, who are pissed and removing you from playlists—these ancestor sisters will forgive you with the compassionate arms of the ascended and welcome you to the realm of the spirit when it’s your time to leave all your self-hating anti-Black bullshit behind.