Before was the American dream, ‘Pull yourself by the bootstraps, and you can make yourself…you can make it in America,’ all these lies that America told us our whole life. And then when we start getting in, they tried to lock us out of it. They start inventing words like you know, ‘capitalist,’ you know, things like that. I mean, you know, we’ve been called ‘n–ger’ and ‘monkeys’ and shit. I don’t care; those words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come up with stronger words.
We’re not gonna be tricked out of our position. Y’all locked us out. Y’all created a system that, you know, doesn’t include us. We said fine. We went our alternate route. We created this music. We did our thing, you know, we hustle, we fucking killed ourselves to get to this space. And, you know, now it’s like, you know, you know, ‘Eat the rich,’ and, man, we’re not stopping, so that evolution is, you know, from us.
"We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."
:fred-hampton:
One of the most vile ways to co-opt a genuinely dope Aesthetic for the most Milquetoast cultural event. It’s all really gross to show up at the super bowl, an event about celebratory destruction of Predominantly black bodies for predominately white entertainment, in the dress of a historical movement about black (and honestly everyone else) empowerment. The evil of that is layered.
During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don't laugh!). And more and more frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of waging a predatory war!
That’s heavy! Is this a direct quote from somewhere? I am Not familiar with this
I remember reading this for the first time and MLK immediately coming to mind, hooked me instantly. what a fantastic book.
Can I play devil's advocate as a fellow and a peer? I really like what Fred Hampton has to say here. However, if I were in a room with Jay-Z it would be difficult for me to explain this to him. If his story is to be believed, and I reckon it is, Jay-Z had to fight and claw his way out of horrible shit by doing horrible shit to not be in predatory, manipulative poverty. If I put myself in his shoes, I can imagine being demeaned every step of the way by people with money and I can imagine basking in the brilliance when I became those peoples' boss. When you come from a world of black poverty, overcome the odds, and drag people around you into black excellence, it would give purpose to your life. So when some rando like me comes up to you and says "you need change your vision from black excellence to solidarity with the working class for a movement that has yet to coalesce." I would not be surprised when he tells me to eat dogshit. If I spoke theoretically of the ghettos that the system upholds, he'd talk about his actual experience and sacrifice/investment for places that he knows 1st hand. I think of Jay-Z as the billionaire most difficult to dislike.
also, to your point that his record label was owned by white people or that finance is dominated by white people: even if it were black people all the way up that still doesn't mean black liberation. a group of people can't be liberated because 10% of it are exploiting the other 90%.
I get where you’re coming from. I’m a white guy, which is why I just posted the Fred Hampton quote and didn’t offer any criticism of my own. This is kind of similar to the “Hannibal Buress is a landlord” shit from a few years ago, which I will draw on for the following:
:stupidpol:
Dudes who look like me should not be specifically attacking people like Jay-Z, Hannibal Burress, and Ru Paul for their shit. Attacking their class as a whole is good. Attacking systems of power is good. Singling them out when the Waltons, Kochs, Gateses, Musks, and Bezoses are out there doing shit that’s at least as bad and on greater scale is shitty. We shouldn’t carve out exemptions for millionaires/billionaires of color, but spending all of your time shitting on Ru Paul for investing in fracking while Charles Koch draws breath is reaching for low-hanging fruit.
I think the best thing I can do in a situation like this is to elevate black voices who criticize the systems of power these people exploit and promote working class solidarity across racial lines.
“Before was the American dream, ‘Pull yourself by the bootstraps, and you can make yourself…you can make it in America,’ all these lies that America told us our whole life,” Jay continued. “And then when we start getting in, they tried to lock us out of it.
They start inventing words like you know, ‘capitalist,’you know, things like that. I mean, you know, we’ve been called ‘_____’ and ‘monkeys’ and shit. I don’t care; those words y’all come up with. Y’all gotta come up with stronger words.”TIL the word "Capitalist" was invented in 2020 to slander Billionaires of Color personally :what-the-hell:
They start inventing words like you know, ‘capitalist,’ you know, things like that.
this is the funniest part to me lmao
ITT: hexbear users predictably classist AF, throwing the c-word around like it's candy on halloween
smdh my dick head
Which replies are classist and how? Not trying to be flippant, this post and its upvotes make me feel like I'm missing something obvious.
The logical end point of liberalism. We have a similarly stratified society with rich and poor, just that the rich are more diverse.
The whole "ethnically diverse oppressor class" is not even inherent to liberalism. Ancient Roman imperialism allowed for slaves to buy their own freedom and become slave owners. This kind of thing has always been possible. People are just baffled by it because various forms of secular ethno-nationalism started taking over everyone's brains since European Colonialism's heyday in early modernity and people backwards-project that onto the rest of history.
The idea that now that black people have power and money people want them to give it away is probably where the defensiveness comes from.
Watching a bunch of no-talent whiteys breeze through the system forever and no one told them to give anything up, but now that he's made it he's expected to be better than them and share his wealth.
I don't agree with it, but like there's at least human psychology at work here instead of straight ghoulishness
That IS capitalism. This is the result of class.
This is what socialists mean when we say that environment produces behaviour. The system itself and the class that Jay Z is now a part of produce the desire to hoard their wealth. Under a different system they would be completely different people.
Colour has absolutely nothing to do with it though. They're just acting in their class interests and weaponising whatever arguments they can to defend those class interests. If he wasn't black or oppressed he would still want to hoard his wealth.
Yeah was just analyzing his words, wasn't attempting to justify them
Yeah this is bullshit. People are talking shit about him because he styles himself as some kind of revolutionary, invokes the names of black radicals and yet is still the same exploiting piece of shit as any other billionaire.
It's pretty disappointing that a comment like that has so many positive reactions, tbh.
edit, I should clarify, not your comment, the one you are replying to.
You can see the exact moment where they start to value racial analysis over class analysis, and it’s the exact moment they become a billionaire defending lib
Lol I guess I shouldnt post on zero sleep. I wasn't intending to defend him, just analyzing the statement and his attempt at justification.
I'm not justifying it myself
Fair enough, but I think this line of thought from him makes him extra bougie not less so. It’s an additional layer of bourgeois ideology to justify his exploitative position and actively harms any radical movements for racial equality by co-opting it into bourgeois systems and delegitimizing it.
Fully agree. The extra hoops he had to jump through to come to that same conclusion is kind of interesting though is what i was trying to get at.
I'm also just paraphrasing sentiments I've seen from black comrades too who are just as pissed at him.
Right. I am not attempting to defend jay-z, just analyzing where he sees himself. I agree it's bullshit
Communists didn’t tell the rich whiteys to give up their wealth and power?
:doubt:
I don't think I said that at all, just was talking about the perspective he was attempting to show. It's a shit perspective, but I thought it was worth analyzing
like there’s at least human psychology at work here instead of straight ghoulishness
I think it's
in additionto straight ghoulishness rather thaninstead of. Capitalists who are members of marginalized groups (black, Jewish, LGBT, whatever it may be) are able to rationalize their exploitative role in the economy by pretending they're taking revenge against the systemic oppression their group suffered. And it's easy to see, like you said, how that can translate into the shitty individualist psychology of "Oh so it was OK for whitey to be a capitalist for centuries but the second I do it it's suddenly time for everyone to become socialist?!?!"But obviously that's not the case since the white people advocating for capitalism have always skewed towards the racist/colonialist side of things and the white people advocating for socialism have always skewed towards the anti-racist and anti-colonialist side of things. And even beyond "advocacy" of capitalism, it was the bourgeoisie and their feudal nobility/aristocrat ancestors who set up the global exploitative economy that characterizes capitalism and imperialism today. That the exploitation of the capitalists has adopted predatory inclusion as a strategy is less an excuse for marginalized individuals to Do A Heckin Wholesome Capitalism than it is a (mostly failing) strategy by the bourgeoisie to shore up false consciousness in previously alienated groups.
In addition to is what I was attempting to say yeah. Worded poorly and it came across as a defense of his behavior instead of an analysis
yeah for sure. I was trying to take the central point of your analysis and expand on it a bit. someone said you were full of shit, but I saw where you were coming from and tried to take it in that direction while perhaps clarifying some things
also if he used his wealth and position as a Black billionaire in order to popularize socialism he'd probably get suicided or jailed for some bogus charge
although the most likely case is that he just has brainworms
also if he used his wealth and position as a Black billionaire in order to popularize socialism he’d probably get suicided or jailed for some bogus charge
I mean, that's more or less what happened to Nipsey, and he was nowhere close to being a socialist and wasn't a billionaire at any rate. But he sincerely cared about his community, even if it was viewed from the lens of (Black) capitalist realism. The pigs, of course, did not like that, and once Nipsey began moving towards brokering the truce between various LA gangs, just like Hampton and Tupac, Nipsey had to go. And to make it even more obvious who was behind all this, Nipsey's murderer was apparently a snitch as well.
also if he used his wealth and position as a Black billionaire in order to popularize socialism he’d probably get suicided or jailed for some bogus charge
Depends on how effective he is. They might just let him get away with it since being a capitalist who profits off of 3rd world exploitation while pushing for "socialism" (usually just social democratic reforms) in the 1st world serves an important bourgeois propaganda function in making socialists look like ridiculous hypocrites. Reactionaries never tire of painting socialists as entitled and spoiled. What better way to do that then to point at a billionaire "socialist" of color whose overpriced merch comes from sweatshops and to say "Look, see!"
I don’t agree with it, but like there’s at least human psychology at work here instead of straight ghoulishness
hwat? It shouldn't be any more or less disappointing than if a white person, or a queer person, or a woman said it, but it's still ghoulishness. "I've got mine, fuck everyone else" is evil regardless of who is saying it.
I'd say there's more complexities versus like your run of the mill 20th generation oil accountant being rich, but good point
I don't think anyone would have much of a problem with Jaz-Z being rich. You don't see LeBron and Oprah in the dunk tank, and they're both billionaires who happen to also be black people. Where this becomes a problem is using this language of oppression, as in somehow "eat the rich" suddenly became a thing as soon as black folks got some money. It's even more sociopathic when you consider that there probably aren't a bunch of leftists out there harassing Jay-Z and that this is some kind of publicity stunt to sell more records. Like, we have enough real racism in the US, bro, you don't really need to make up more. He's making himself out to be some kind of victim.
Complexities in the sense of how he sees himself versus the reality of it all.
Of course he's a billionaire shit head justifying it in whatever way he can, but the additional layers of what he's telling himself to make it seem like it's somehow a good thing is, idk, sort of interesting to dissect a bit.
main character syndrome "now that we have wealth" lmao dude YOU have wealth
I've seen this on a smaller scale with black nurses who have become landlords. They're literally just as reactionary as any cracker jet-ski dealer in Omaha. And as miserable and joyless, too.
Apparently I thought lecherous meant to be leech-like. I literally just learned that it has to do with being a creep.
Licentious and lascivious already mean that. We need to shut down all the Germanic synonyms until we can figure out what’s going on
We need to shut down all the Germanic synonyms until we can figure out what’s going on
why shut down the germanic words more likely to be used by the working classes rather than the latin words used by the upper classes
You really think poor workers really going around dropping licentious
licentious is the latin word and lech is a commonly used term which is germanic
Soon he will be a fox news contributer. He used to be the go to for uncouth rappers talking about his bling for boomers to stereotype all black artists as, and now he might just get rehabilitated into being into a conservative figure.
He might run for office.
https://genius.com/164356
Jay's bars start with "I feel like a Black Republican, money I got comin' in"
compared to
Nas' bars start with "I feel like a black militant takin' over the government"
It seems to be mostly black and hispanic men breaking Republican, while black/hispanic women keep voting Dem. Is conservatism mostly a machismo thing? American conservatism has always been an explicitly male-oriented ideology. I guess some guys just dig being told they are the greatest and everyone should listen to them because they are male.
There's machismo elements to being conservative for sure but I think more pertinent are the facts that 1. Dems haven't done shit for PoC for 50 years and 2. An increasing number of Black and Latino people are becoming members of the propertied class, and as such are beginning to share some of the same material interests as white bougies. Whiteness functions as a reproductive mechanism for capitalism and it will very happily extend a portion of its benefits to wealthy individuals who would never be considered white without their money or property.
I think he doesn't like Fred Hampton, I remember him mentioning it in a song once or something
