Cardi B and the Projection of Respectability Politics

Most of us fell in love with Cardi when she came on the scene saying, “She say she gon do what to who? Let’s find out and see” so what we’re not gonna do on this here day in the year of our Lord 2018, is act surprised when she does JUST that.

What throws me its the same women who criticize the Kardashians for coopting the Black aesthetic without honoring the Black creators. It’s the same men who criticize Kaepernick’s white critics for only wanting to be entertained by Black athletes without acknowledging the Black struggle.

Paul Mooney said “Everybody wanna be a nigga, but don’t nobody wanna be a nigga”. And the truth is, that’s about some of us too. It’s about bougie Black folks who sing her songs at Trap Brunch or Trap n Paint or Trap Karaoke or Trap Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but only listen to Ledisi at work as they smile when faced with their coworkers’ microagressions. It’s about Black women who wish she had “pulled a Ciara” and “married up” to a lighter, more respectable, less controversial man. It’s about Black men who can never respect her because she was a stripper. It’s about everybody who got to know her on Love and Hip Hop because reality tv “makes them feel better about themselves”. It was entertaining when she threw a shoe then, but it’s disgraceful now because she refused to bow to the white gaze? Miss me with that.

You don’t get to divide her up and just have the parts that work for you. Just because you compartmentalize yourself and your Blackness and your background and your ratchetness, doesn’t mean you have to project that onto her.

She chose a career where she gets to be her authentic self, all the time. You didn’t. And you will deal.

She told yall she didn’t wanna hear no sneak dissin. She told yall playing with her money is like playing with her food. She told yall she would smack you and the bitch that you act like. She told yall she knows you think she too ratchet and wild. She told yall.

Cardi is who she says she is. And yall gonna let her be exactly that.

She got enough bras, yall aint gotta support her.