Your grammy, your aunty, your momma, your mammy
I’ll take those flannel zebra jammies, secondhand, and rock that motherfucker
The built-in onesie with the socks on that motherfucker
I hit the party and they stop in that motherfucker
They be like, “Oh that Gucci, that’s hella tight”
I’m like, “Yo, that’s 50 dollars for a t-shirt”
Limited edition, let’s do some simple addition
Fifty dollars for a t-shirt, that’s just some ignorant bitch shit
I call that getting swindled and pimped, shit
I call that getting tricked by a business, that shirt’s hella dough
And having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don’t.
–Macklemore, “Thrift Shop”
Blogger’s note: Black readers, particularly Black women, please read this one for entertainment if you wish, but the admonitions herein are only for my fellow white people. Y’all already did the work for people too ignorant to even realize they need your help; take your well-earned rest wherever you see fit.
Given that Pres. Fuckstick L’Orange is doing his little-bitty best to cancel Black History Month, it’s more important than ever that we white people, particularly white women, uplift Black people, especially Black women, and amplify their stories, their experiences, and their excellence. Black history IS American history, and practically all the best parts of our everyday lives – food, music, electronics, books, TV shows, movies, art, fashion – are rooted in Black culture.
Why do you have to make everything about race? my mother is spitting at this very second.
Because it’s always been about race, that’s why. Y’all made it about race when y’all decided the only way to succeed in the New World was not to get off your fat, lazy butts and work but to go to Africa. Once there, on other people’s land (as is white people’s wont), you kidnapped and tortured a bunch of folks, transported them in the most inhumane manner conceivable to a place they most certainly did not wish to go, sold them as if you had any right to do so, broke up their families, and then imprisoned them for a couple hundred years. And y’all kept it up for so long that your lineages became increasingly ignorant and ineffectual. Eventually, they were so below-average that they had to do stupid shit like make it illegal for Black people to eat vanilla ice cream except on the Fourth of July to make themselves feel better about having all the privilege in the world and yet never managing to become anything more than boring wastes of space (in addition to not knowing how to wash their own asses, a trait that persists in many white men to this day). And now, the dregs of humanity descended from those slavers and Jim-Crow-era Nazis are the same people wearing goofy red caps while proudly proclaiming that they’re anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion. So, yeah, it’s aaaaaaaallllllllllllllll about race. (Thanks for the link, LeVette.)
(For the record, I wash myself as though there is a Black woman IN THE SHOWER with me, watching and judging me, because one day, with any luck, there just might be. Giggity.)
(I’m sorry. That was probably inappropriate in a post about Black History Month. I think.)
(But, you know, if you dislike inappropriate asides, run-on sentences, and too many parantheticals, what are you even doing here?)
Lest you think I’m lecturing my fellow white women from some Northeast-Atlantic ivory tower filled with intellectuals, please rest assured most of my family are the kind of people who are so unaware of themselves that they call Kamala Harris, a woman with more education than my entire immediate family combined, stupid and – are you ready for this? – unsuccessful. (It goes without saying that none of my family, myself included, are likely to write a bestseller and/or go on an international speaking tour any time soon.) I’m not better than anyone – quite the opposite – I simply have the desire to be worldly, curious, empathetic, and compassionate and the courage to examine my thoughts and actions.
To that end, I decided last summer to continue my education, which has necessitated me going back to university, literally. The first semester, I took all online classes, so I only had to visit the campus once the entire time. There is, however, a class I absolutely must take in order to graduate, and it is offered by only one professor once per year, in the spring semester, and it is strictly in-person. Say it with me now: Fuck.
As long as I had to be on campus this semester, I decided to go ahead and take any and all classes necessary for graduation that are usually only offered in-person, so I go to school two days a week from 9 am to 6 pm. It’s a long day, but one of the ways I power through is getting dressed up. Some people see getting dressed “up” in the morning as a chore, but I’m not one of them. Like most women who grew up loving clothes and fashion, I’ve had “It’s not a fashion show” sneered at me enough times that I finally said, “Well, it sure as hell is NOW”; as an adult, it’s literally always a fashion show with me. I am proudly and unapologetically overdressed for everything, and, god willing, I always will be. Clothes, for me, are like armor – a great outfit can imbue me with a sense of invincibility. You can knock me down a hundred times, but I’m coming back a hundred and one, maybe bruised, broken, and battered, but dressed like a goddamn daydream.
Obviously, dressing like a professor at FIT makes one stand out in most settings, but I was horrified to discover there’s now, essentially, a uniform on college campuses:
-sad-colored matching lounge set
-plain white sneakers
-sad-colored ball cap
-Stanley tumbler, usually pink
-sad-colored backpack, no pocketbook
The boys wear exactly the same things with jeans instead of lounge pants and a beat-up water bottle in place of the fifty-dollar go-cup.
Y’all. What the fuck.
This is what late-stage capitalism does: When people all over the world are buying all the same stuff from a tiny handful of places (Amazon, Shein, Temu, etc.) via links from three or four apps (TikTok, Instagram, LTK, etc.), they quickly turn into clones of one another. The oligarchy wants conformity in all things – appearance, values, perceived enemies, et al. – because it makes dissent that much easier to root out and quash. And I can’t speak for anyone except myself, but I’ll hump a Lucky Dog cart in front of St. Louis Cathedral before I’ll give Musky and his ilk what they want. To quote our poet laureate, Macklemore, “I call that getting swindled and pimped.”
Looking like an individual is a radical act of resistance. As a white person, especially in the South, being anti-racist is the best way to actually be an individual. Here in Louisiana, every single system, from medical care to education, from the legal system to the real-estate market, is engineered to punch down as hard as possible on anyone who’s not white, straight, male, and a self-proclaimed “Christian.”
My fellow white people, you want to talk about it? OK, let’s be about it: Vote with your money; that’s all many of us can do right now. Stop shopping at retailers that no longer (or never did) support DEI and/or don’t offer products made by BIPOC creators. Spend your money directly with locally-owned Black businesses. (Google “[Your city] Black-owned businesses”. Here’s a list for New Orleans – it’s by no means comprehensive, but it’ll get you started.) Pay cash as often as possible to avoid card fees for the merchant and creating revenue for credit-card companies, all of which are predatory. Climate change disproportionately affects Black people, including water and air pollution, and the fashion industry is one of the biggest contributors. There are currently enough existing garments to clothe every single human being on Planet Earth for the next six generations; when you’re not buying from BIPOC businesses, shop at second-hand stores. I don’t care what that 20-year-old influencer says, you’re not an icon if every woman in your cul-de-sac can buy your exact outfit in three clicks, Kathleen.
We’ve said it a million times since 2020, but no one seems to be internalizing it:
If you “don’t see color,” you’re a willfully ignorant pussy.
It is no longer enough to be pro-BIPOC.
Now, especially now, you have to be radically anti-racist.
You have to raise radical anti-racists.
You have to call out racism every single time you see it, even at your own dinner table.
Even in your own bed.
Even when it’s scary.
Even when you don’t want to make a scene.
Even when you don’t want to get involved.
Even when it may cause you harm to do so.
It’s take-no-prisoners time. Are you punk rock or not, Becky?
As it happens, one of my personal fashion icons also happens to be my favorite revolutionary, academic, writer, and anti-racist, Angela Davis. She showed the world how to wear the ever-living hell out of a turtleneck, and she taught this white gal, in particular, the history of “Bombingham” after I’d lived there for NINE YEARS. When I first read Angela Davis: An Autobiography, I realized to my horror that, in my lifetime, I’d spent more time researching the lost fucking colony of ROANOKE (spoiler alert, they bounced and didn’t leave a note) than the violent, racist history of A CITY WHERE I ACTUALLY LIVED. You know why? Because my parents and teachers made it crystal-clear what they did and did not consider worthy topics of study, and they considered Angela Davis and those like her (read: educated, outspoken, and Black) to be dangerous.
I get it now. They were right. Women like Angela Davis are, indeed, very dangerous to their comfort and unearned sense of superiority.
I am, too.
Join us.
Dispatches from Storyville 
One response to “Excellence”
SO MICH THIS. We as white women especially need to step up and speak out so much more. Use our inner Karen to rebel and not reinforce the racist bs our privilege has taught us since birth.
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