Cultural Appropriation

[bennyboy]

So I was hanging out with my cousin the other day and he shows up dressed as the worst black stereotype available. Like a total Lil' Wayne knock off. And this idiot opens his mouth and says "I'm all about that thug life." I of course look at this fool like he's lost his damn mind. We were raised in pockets of accountants and bankers, in gated communities on the shores of Lake Erie WTF does he think he knows about "thug life". But it all got me thinking, can black people appropriate black culture? For instance I love blues music but do I really have comprehension being cosseted most of my life to appreciate it in its fullness, or am I just siphoning off a cool sound?

Plenty of obnoxious white kids appropriate black culture-- little white suburban homies with their hats on sideways and their pants falling down or whatever.  So certainly if a black kid wants to do it, that's no greater an evil.

Or maybe it is.  Maybe black kids embracing black stereotypes makes them traitors to the efforts of real black people in being seen as individual humans with their own tastes and views.  But at least it's not this: