@LanaDelRey ‘s essay was steeped in old archaic colonial tropes, white feminism and racism. The fact that she does understand or refuses to, is actually the most racist part. Let’s meet History right quick, shall we.

Whites women have dominated the image of beauty, womanhood and sexual desire for centuries. White men have made sure of this as well but we are focused on white women for now. They are the center of attention (Renaissance Art)! They have never been outside that realm.

If we look to Renaissance art we see that black women/black people are the subjects. The white womans eyes address the onlooker where the black subject looks to the white woman. (Art History 101) These ideas matter & have circulated for centuries. Let’s move a little more close..

to home. White women have literally been pushed down our throats. Pin-up Girls from early to mid 20th could be found in every space one entered. They were the standard of lust & sexuality. While black women were reserved for the shadows & erotic beastial sexuality. More attention

For white women. While black women were always beautiful but unaccounted for by dominant society, WW took center stage for the world to view & desire. I’m skipping a lot of history but you get the point. We are looking at who dominated the scene.

Our black culture along with beauty had been suppressed for so long. Whites would benefit from us where we created the genre, style, beauty standards & images. We create, they steal...Betty Bop, Elvis & other Hollywood glamour queens.

Blacks people have always had an under culture since emancipation. Since we were not able to be apart of dominant society we CREATED OUR OWN, FOR OUR OWN! It was to serve black People. We need relief, joy, love & laughter from our music, style & creativity.

So we fast forward through the 70s, 80s, and stop to view the 90s. We see major shifts take place. Blacks are the most unapologetic they have ever been. However, social media isn’t around to broadcast what we do in our daily lives and teach everyone how to be “cool”.

Black Women don elaborate acrylic nails, vibrant colors, rings dressing each finger, iconic hairstyles, bright make up, urban clothing in the black community. This was for us, bc we were proud! This was seen as Ghetto and classless for 20-30 years. It doesn’t get popular...

Until whites and other non-blacks are viewing black culture from social media ready to claim it as theirs.

Ww in this era not yet concerned with black women because they are still the dominant narrative. The lens is still focused on them & black women are for the underculture.

White women and many non-black women in the 90s early 00s are steadfast in keeping that idea of White womanhood alive. While you had a view like Madonna etc, WW generally did not shift their image much!

Black women/culture/music had been singing, rapping and talking about subjects of sex, love, hurt, life and being a WOMAN since 20th but it was contained to “black music” or hyphenated not meant for the mainstream.

So the 2010s approach and after a century of the mainstream trying to prevent BLACK MUSIC, AESTHETIC, STYLE, CULTURE suppressed... Blackness comes roaring in with a temperature unmatched.

This is White Womenes first struggle in long time where the lens is being changed!

With the narrative being challenged, White women must etch out a space for them to shift that lens back. Black aesthetic that is demonized on black People is profitable for them. Black body images are now worn by non-black women. Dominant we must stay relevant or else...

They will be confinded to the shadows like black women have been for so long. Thus we begin to see White girls/ women dress up in your image that was damned for so long.

A fight for survival...take what makes black women black and put it on you is the name of the game.

More than a game but commodity, a monopoly...BIG MONEY! Not to be black but to be better. Now you have your new and improved. To be Black adjacent is the move.

This provides another struggle for black women but no one cares because it’s 2010s (20s). Now that we had had a...

Now black people have lived through this, our grandmother, aunts, sisters and so on...we recognize it. Then Ms. @LanaDelRey comes along with her message to the “culture”! She proceeds to call out black women/WOC who are dominating center stage. Saying she is tired of what...

They are representing. (Whats Lana representing tho?) I’m trying to wrap this up now. Black women have been twerking, singing and rapping but you know, underculture and all.

But we have emerged from the shadows only for her to deepen her covert racism with

In that final conclusion she masculinizes black women, clenches to the tired old trope of white woman= pure, clean, dainty, virtuous, patriarchal, delicate UNLIKE the hypersexual black women who know how to fight.

Basically she can sing about sex and striping but they can’t...

Because it’s different when black women do it. And now the attention is on black beauty something unattainable for whites women because they are not black

Whiteness has created this mess of separating the two, making whiteness rely on the subordination of black to reign supreme

Some how black women are at fault for this mess not the past 800 years of blackness being under the rule of whiteness. So she asked society to place her “white women” back at the center in her right place!

There is a backstory, a history to nearly everything that pops up on twitter, IG, FB...blacks people have been fighting on every front, especially black women. Instead of joining in our culture which is being more mainstream now I urge you to take a look at the chapters before.

I know there was so much more to say, but this was to serve as glimpses into this topic of music, feminism and black women! It’s up to your to read more scholarly resources and put to pieces together!

please keep reading and acknowledge the depth in these waters!

** note that many times people use nuanced phrases and convert language to convey a more diplomatic approach when in reality, they mean something far more sinister.

Check out McCarthisym and Dog-whistle politics to get get a better understanding of this tactic.

And excuse me for all the typos & grammatical errors. Y’all know how it goes!