Gucci Mane
Why Gucci? Why?
Most of us welcomed Gucci Mane back from jail with open arms. But he hath forsaken us, at least in failing to recognize that it's dumb as hell to utter the words all lives matter, let alone name your concert the inherently racist and extremely problematic phrase. Just the other day it was Jennifer Lopez, now you. The show will take place in Biloxi, Mississippi on September 24th and proceeds will go to the families of 37 year-old Alton Sterling and 32-year-old Philando Castile, which is great and all but why'd you have to name it that? The show is also being billed as a, "Stop The Violence Concert." That would be a much, much better name. Just take out the all lives matter portion. Please.
The founders of #BlackLivesMatter Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, in the Herstory section on the organization's website write about why they use the phrase #BlackLivesMatter and their feelings on its racist reincarnation - all lives matter. Read it below. Oh, and yeah #BlackLivesMatter.
"#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important–it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on Black lives, we understand that when Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole. When we are able to end hyper-criminalization and sexualization of Black people and end the poverty, control, and surveillance of Black people, every single person in this world has a better shot at getting and staying free. When Black people get free, everybody gets free. This is why we call on Black people and our allies to take up the call that Black lives matter. We’re not saying Black lives are more important than other lives, or that other lives are not criminalized and oppressed in various ways. We remain in active solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for their liberation and we know that our destinies are intertwined.When we deploy “All Lives Matter” as to correct an intervention specifically created to address anti-blackness,, we lose the ways in which the state apparatus has built a program of genocide and repression mostly on the backs of Black people—beginning with the theft of millions of people for free labor—and then adapted it to control, murder, and profit off of other communities of color and immigrant communities. We perpetuate a level of White supremacist domination by reproducing a tired trope that we are all the same, rather than acknowledging that non-Black oppressed people in this country are both impacted by racism and domination, and simultaneously, BENEFIT from anti-black racism.
When you drop “Black” from the equation of whose lives matter, and then fail to acknowledge it came from somewhere, you further a legacy of erasing Black lives and Black contributions from our movement legacy. And consider whether or not when dropping the Black you are, intentionally or unintentionally, erasing Black folks from the conversation or homogenizing very different experiences. The legacy and prevalence of anti-Black racism and hetero-patriarchy is a lynch pin holding together this unsustainable economy. And that’s not an accidental analogy."
H/T: Hypetrak
