Separating Reality from Entertainment

6/9/2018

Separating Reality from Entertainment & Black Celebrities Personal Lives (A Short Essay)
By: Prince Onyx

I will make this short, simple and to the point. African-Americans, Black people, we need to separate ourselves from black celebrities, just because they are black, half-black, fully black, mixed black, etc. doesn’t mean anything. As the saying goes “just because you’re skin folk, don’t mean you’re kinfolk” In other words just because you are black like me, doesn’t mean you are my type of “black” meaning our skin may be the same but if our ideologies don’t match then, I can’t vibe with you nor trust you.

See my ideologies when to come to black people are the following:
create and build our own infrastructures (from entertainment, to businesses to the tech/coding field, and so on) thus erasing the need to depend on a racist system that continues to screw us over at every given turn creating generational wealth that stays within our communities therefore causing us to leave something for the generations after us to come so that they can maintain and uphold a black community that is dependent on themselves and not outside resources
Hiring our own people, which will in turn eliminate the high percentage of unemployment especially for black men who do have the highest unemployment rate among other groups of men in this country.

Now when it comes to black celebrities for example: Issa Rae and her statements about how black women should date Asian men, whether she was being funny or not is besides the point, she has employed more black people than more of the hoteps online and the hypocritical cherry pickers on black Twitter have ever done.

Another example is Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino, with his show Atlanta he too is another example of a black person who has employed more black people than his detractors online. Granted Mr. Glover has said very problematic things about black people and his depiction of dark skin black women on his show are harmful stereotypes that painted our dark skin women as angry, bitter, loud mouth, ghetto hood boogers, yet he depicts light skin/biracial women as the complete opposite such as docile, beautiful, desirable, the most sought after, etc. On top of the fact that he is married to a non-black woman.

These are two examples of black celebrities who have been doing more for black people in the industry in terms of employment and representation. Even though their personal lives, viewpoints don’t seem to match what they’ve been doing, my point is, is that while Donald is married to a white woman, and Issa suggested that black women date Asian men, we shouldn’t let these viewpoints or relationships of these celebrities, personally effect you, if you don’t date outside the race and believe in black love then you should continue to do so.

What these black celebrities do or say outside of the realm of entertainment should not loom over our heads, we do not own them, and they are not pieces of property to be brought, sold, and traded like our ancestors before us. They are their own beings, their own individuals, and while some may disagree and say that they represent us, I say the hell they do, Donald, Issa, Lena, Kanye, Stacy Dash, Candice Owens, do not represent me whatsoever! Just because they are skin folk, does not mean they are kinfolk. They all have internal issues when it comes to dealing with black people, their blackness, etc. all of which needs to be addressed by way of therapy which they can afford!

But us regular, every day, average black people that don’t have the same access to resources like them, need to remember that these people are entertainers, they are here to entertain us, that’s it, that’s all. They make us think, laugh, cry, and help us to escape this brutal, cold, harsh world at times even if it is only temporary. Now anything that they do or say that is damaging, hurtful and problematic when it comes to us needs to be called out, examined, questioned and discussed however let’s not let our emotions get the best of us thus causing us to become emotional attached to people who don’t even know our names nor are in the same tax bracket as us.