Working titles
"Gucci, Prada Moncler Lock Step to Show Jim Crow
in Celebration of Heritage History Month"
"February 8, 1915 to February 8th 2019 Black Face,
Making America Great Again"
by Natema Stewart
Oh that's right you don't call it that...You call it black history month and wonder why there is a projection of darkness over the so-called history, what Im trying to say is "Black History" teaches us Columbus discovered America. Heritage History Teaches us
We were here before Columbus because "Black is a Mis nomer title...Yet I think I should slow down. I'll start with
materialism.
Rich have had a stigma in history for there disdain for the poor and fashion designers have had a healthy rejection of those attempting to align themselves with a brand they feel is out of there price range. therefore, in there eyes tainting there brand, You know like "how can it be posh if 'they' can afford it?. Remember its the consumer striving to keep up with popular culture that makes them think the designers are speaking to them. Clearly a $900 sweater is being sold to someone making well over a thousand dollars a week not a month. So, the sweater was not expected to be purchased by any of "The Coolest Monkeys in the Jungle" H&M's words not mine. (Smile)
So a Boycott of a Brand that we don't purchase don't quite matter at this point, like black lives. Prada and Gucci were made infamous with drug money. Jay z can now tell you that your 'Still nigga" cause he already sold drugs and drug culture. A culture that tells you once you sell a certain amount of drugs to get you a Gucci or a Prada anything. This Wednesday February 8th 2019 Gucci Pulls there Sambo Sweater off the shelves yet this short cut to black face wasn't even meant for anyone other than those telling the joke, not the subject of the ridicule.
T.I., also a rapper, Im sure wasn't talking about feathered friends when he spoke of "Birds" and Drug Selling, something this great country was built on, this is a country that allows its pre schools to do re enactments of the "godfather' replacing the cocaine with flour or candy, google it. SO when they promote such a level of materialism there isn't anyway for the youth to now understand a call for a ban from the rubber band man.
Brothers in the hood aren't encouraged to work honest jobs to get rubber bands of cash, well maybe yet I didn't hear T.I. say in his songs his GED afforded him the opportunity to make it rain, as in snow money, if rain drops was doe$, on strippers who are considered "hoes' cause you have to pay them.
The way that a minimum wage bank accounts work is, you can't and you ain't going to be able to do it (Make it rain) on that budget. Spike lee also called for a band saying 'Black Designers" need to be in the room when these decisions are being made. Black people are in "mind" when these companies are being force to be inclusionary, last time we forced inclusion folks got shot, Rev Dr Martin Luther King whose last words to society was "Boycott' the industry you suffer at the hands of and those who refused to make his legacy a holiday now successfully have turned it into a day of service.
Have you heard of Presidents day of service? or Columbus day of service ? These holidays owe a lot to the American People for there blind support of them, they should serve the people better.
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's Holiday is a week long of carting people around for service, the opposite of reflection and study. for good reason so y'all would not know the motives of these companies today. This forced inclusion is why they are forced to show you how they feel because you insist on being a customer, insist on sharing style and swapping tips and trading recipes like we all can get along, like it's not a pagent or race to make America Great again, what once was great about America? Cowboys and Engines?
My father, May he rest in Paradise, used to say be careful when so- called white folks want to go back to a time when... cause back then wasn't that great for us. So this homage to 'black history month and flash back to Jim Crow, Blackface, sambo is just an attempt for the oppressors descendants to honor there forefathers.
Trail of tears is our story, The half cast aboriginal Aussie whose genetic was attempted assignation on generations cause there government believed you could wipe the "black' out of a half cast (mixed)
individual by "Kid Nap for Profit". The Mann Act, laws were developed as a result of Jack Johnson's (boxer) association with so-called "white" women.
So called "White" women labeled and criminalized "black males" Just like Black History Moment 2019 with "Taken" actor who claimed to roam streets with a billyclub looking for black men to beat due to a friend claiming she was victimized by a so-called "black man" that actor was Liem Lesson
Negative Black images in popular culture just like "birth of a nation" released February 8th 1915 credited for reviving The klu klux klan painting them as heros against whites in blackface pretending to be so called "blacks, King Kong, images sold to European women to make them fear or stereotype "black" what once made America great was its distain for "free blacks" and refusal to participate in negro holidays. ( Film :Rosewood)
Pop culture is Grand in the character assignation of its native and indigenous people to steal there land and make them believe they are from anywhere other than where they are even if its fictitious like wakanda as long as it isn't in the boardroom work room in powers of position or economic control.
Online resource MarketWatch.com had this to say about the Sambo Sweater recalled by Gucci February 8th 2019:
"The latest instance of that was Italian fashion designer Gucci, which produced a black wool balaclava sweater with an oversized collar that pulls over the chin and nose. It includes a slit where the mouth is, ringed with what look like giant red lips. Its similarity to blackface prompted an instant backlash from the public and forced the company to apologize publicly on Wednesday. Gucci also withdrew the offending garment from sale on websites and stores. It said the incident would be “a powerful learning moment for the Gucci team and beyond.” But the question persists: How can fashion houses that thrive on detail miss such critical social cues? Prada similarly withdrew a monkey bag charm that recalled blackface in December, saying it “abhors racist imagery.” And Dolce & Gabbana issued a video apology after one of the designers made insulting remarks about the Chinese in a private chat discussing the questionable depiction of a Chinese model in a campaign"
Online resource Washington post had this to say about the
Sambo Sweater's release just in time for Black History Month and the response on twitter:
The photos appeared to have first been shared Wednesday afternoon by a Twitter user who wrote: “Balaclava knit top by Gucci. Happy Black History Month y’all.” The same person also discovered that Gucci was selling a black hat that looked like the top half of a ski mask, writing, “They have a mask to match so you can have a chic classic black face moment without the mess of paint.” As of early Thursday morning, the pair of tweets had nearly 2,000 comments and had been retweeted roughly 5,300 times combined. `
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/02/07/haute-couture-blackface-gucci-apologizes-pulls-racist-sweater/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.56e5b85a7d45
Online resource Ferris.edu had this to say about the history of Black Face, Jim Crow and Coon Caricatures :
"The coon caricature was one of the stock characters among minstrel performers. Minstrel show audiences laughed at the slow-talking fool who avoided work and all adult responsibilities. This transformed the coon into a comic figure, a source of bitter and vulgar comic relief. He was sometimes renamed "Zip Coon" or "Urban Coon." If the minstrel skit had an ante-bellum setting, the coon was portrayed as a free black; if the skit's setting postdated slavery, he was portrayed as an urban black. He remained lazy and good-for-little, but the minstrel shows depicted him as a gaudy dressed "Dandy" who "put on airs." Unlike Mammy and Sambo, Coon did not know his place. He thought he was as smart as white people; however, his frequent malapropisms and distorted logic suggested that his attempt to compete intellectually with whites was pathetic. His use of bastardized English delighted white audiences and reaffirmed the then commonly held beliefs that blacks were inherently less intelligent. The minstrel coon's goal was leisure, and his leisure was spent strutting, styling, fighting, avoiding real work, eating watermelons, and making a fool of himself. If he was married, his wife dominated him. If he was single, he sought to please the flesh without entanglements.
Hollywood films extended the brutalization inherent in the coon image. The first cinematic coon appeared in Wooing and Wedding of a Coon (Selig, 1905), a stupendously racist portrayal of two dimwitted and stuttering buffoons. Several notable slapstick "coon shorts" were produced in 1910-1911, including How Rastus Got His Turkey (Wharton, 1910) (he stole it) and Chicken Thief (1911). In the blackface comedy Coon Town Suffragettes (Lubin, 1914), a group of domineering mammies organize a "movement" to keep their good-for-nothing husbands at home". https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/
In conclusion I say Somethings are beyond a boycott they need to be forgot. T.I's boycott is a call for a 7 day hiatus not a cold turkey take your money and run situation. Spike lee's call for an overseeing "Black" added to the budget at Gucci would only make them an ignorable minority on the job.
I say these are all signs of America going back to it's core adjenda...Slavery. Thats right. if the powers that be can be successful in swaying popular opinion to believe "Blacks" aren't contributing members of society, only criminals, coons? to be made fun of. that goes far beyond where you spend your money and more into should you have a right to have money. who would accept (Your) money.
There are key imagery in society and popular culture if you only look instead of (see) that can show you that (your) image constantly fighting for exceptance. I say Gucci didn't want anyone who couldn't afford the sweater to see it because it plays to the humor of the targeted buyer.
So, redirect your spending al together. Think about how reverend dr Martin Luther king named the brands you shouldn't trust and those brands have rebranded so a new generation of buyer won't associate its racist ties. Teach and preach that everyone is a star/ celebrity in your house hold put down the idol worship of theses designers, reach there brands and what there politics are and who they invest in.
You will find out trying to keep up with them will leave you broke or broken. Be you, it fits better than any Sambo Sweater Could. Oh and Please check out the link on the graphic at the top of the article.There is 16 days left for walk, speak 4 peace parade attached to a shoe campaign reclaiming fashion and finances from the negative forces that be. It couldn't come at a more needed time, yet it hasn't got one purchase yet.
A Philadelphia artist, activist performer,
Poetica Bey, is the designer of the limited edition shoe.
http://www.aliveshoes.com/poeticas 30% of proceeds benefit youth arts & eats after school and summer camp.
#BandTheBoycott #BuyBackYourBodies #ShameOnGucci #ShameOnPrada #ShowPoeticasSomeLove #NoSamboSweatersHere #NoKatyPerryOpenToeJimCrow
