Kendrick Lamar Proves That Black Women Want To Control Black Mens’ Sexuality

“(Black) woman, thou name art hypocrisy…”

By Mumia Ali: And in this week’s in buffoonery in Black America, we have the following news story coming out of Media Takeout:

“IT’S GOING DOWN!! Black Feminists Are DRAGGING Kendrick Lamar On Instagram . .. They’re UPSET . . . That He Preaches All That KUNTA Stuff . . . But Married An EXOTICAL!!”

Madam Noire reports: “Last week, we were so happy to report that Kendrick Lamar confirmed his engagement to his high school sweetheart, Whitney Alford. However, it appears that not everyone was pleased with the big news.

Over the weekend, self-proclaimed Dark Skin Activist Rashida Strober took to Facebook to call out the “Complexion” rapper over his wife-to-be’s appearance. According to Strober and many of her supporters, Kendrick is a hypocrite.
“Well, well, well would you looky here,” Strober wrote. “ANOTHER FAKE CONSCIOUS MUTHER FUCKER EXPOSED.
I will never support him nor his music with one dime of my money and encourage all dark skinned women not to either!”

The post spread quickly, with many cheering Strober on for slamming Kendrick. Others, however, didn’t share her sentiments.
To give you a bit of background information, Strober is founder of the Dark Skin Is Beautiful campaign and creator of “A Dark-Skinned Woman’s Revenge” and “Ice Cream Lady’s Dream” stage plays. According to the Florida native’s biography, she began advocating for people with darker complexions in 1998. She was inspired to do so after enduring years of bullying at the hands of classmates who put her down because of her complexion.”

Clutch Magazine has its say:

“Last week, Kendrick Lamar announced his engagement to long-time girlfriend Whitney Alford. Even though he received tons of ‘congratulatory’ remarks, once the dust settled, people have a few things on their minds. And once again, the subject of colorism came up.
How could someone so ‘righteous’ parade around with a racially ambiguous woman, many wondered? Was Lamar just another color-struck Black man? Others asked.
Well, the first question may be easier to answer than the last. One producer/rapper attempted to do so when he posted a photo of Eldridge Cleaver. 9th Wonder thought a photo of Cleaver and his wife, Kathleen, would answer everyone’s questions about Lamar being self-hating and chasing light-skinned women. He asked if Cleaver would be called a sell-out too?
But actually, no.
That’s not a good example. Cleaver, who was a known rapist of white woman, is basically the type of person people are trying to say Lamar is. The lighter the berry, the sweeter the juice. Even Kathleen Cleaver spoke out against how men in the Black Power Movement specifically sought after lighter skinned women, because of their own ‘light is right’ issues.”

Not to be out done, Beyond Black & White writes:

“I’ve recently been following two stories on Madame Noire regarding black men and their dating choices. The first was a piece about a self-proclaimed “dark skin activist” calling out Kendrick Lamar for having an extremely fair skinned fiancé.
The other story was about Romeo Miller whining on a talk show about all the hate mail he’s received for having a white girlfriend.
“It’s crazy to think that in 2015, when I start posting pictures of me and my girl–obviously I’m black, she’s white. I didn’t think that would be a problem. A lot of hate mail and hate comments was on there. They’re like, ‘Why are you with this girl?’ ‘She’s only with you because of this.’ It’s sad because honestly if anybody knows me, all the girls I’ve dated, I’ve dated girls who’ve been as black as Akon and white as Casper. It don’t matter. It’s all about the heart. In this time and place, she’s the one who captured my heart. She could be blue, green or yellow and it would have been her.”
So here’s two very public examples of black men getting flack for dating light skinned women and non-black women. There’s no denying it. Black women also get the pushback when we date interracially, so isn’t it even?
Not even a little.”

BB&W’s proprietor (and seemingly chief and only writer) Ms. Christelyn Karazin, then goes on to list four “reasons” as to the supposedly big difference between Black men who “swirl” (or in this case, you know, actually date/marry Black women, just ones who happen to be lighter-skinned) and Black women who do the same, and the degree of recriminations both get – of course, leaving out little inconvenient facts like, oh, I don’t know, LOSING AN EYE for daring to marry a White woman, or in this case, being hounded mercilessly for having the audacity to actually marry your light skinned highschool sweetie.
I’m telling ya, you just cannot make this stuff up.
While certainly nothing new among those of us in Black America, those outside of it may be new to this sort of nonsense. But here’s the deal: there are many Black women in Black America, like the one who got this tempest in a teapot roiling, who are of the view that they have a moral right to tell another human being, who just so happens to be Black men, as to who they can and cannot date. Rashida Strober*, self-proclaimed dark-skinned womens’ advocate, is by no means alone or unique in Black American life; one can find scores of ladies just like her, who demand that successful Black men like Lamar, date not only Black women – not only Black women that’s he’s known since highschool – but that he must date the Blackest Night Black Woman(TM) in the solar system – and if he doesn’t, he’s a sellout, a coon, a Benedict Arnold to the Black race, you name it.
What. A. Crock.
The only thing more ridiculous than having to suffer through the B.S. like that which Ms. Strober has foisted onto the rest of us, are many dark-skinned Black women’s blatant and flagrant hypocrisy when they turn right around and chase after White men or failing that, light-skinned pretty boys as mates; indeed, there is an entire sector of the Internet devoted to such an enterprise, known as “Black Women’s Empowerment”, where rejected Black women gather to cry into their beer, kick dirt on Black men, and try their hands at seducing White men, with varying degrees of success. The wailing and gnashing of teeth has gotten so bad in recent years, that even Black women themselves can be heard in other Black online venues wanting to put some distance between themselves and this sorry corner of the World Wide Web.
There seems to be a trend these days of Black Feminists whipping up on “conscious rappers” over the past few years; there was Brittney Cooper’s bromide against conscious rap fixture Talib Kweli, and now this from Ms. Strober, about Kendrick Lamar’s supposed phony act about being Black because he says one thing in his songs and does another. Only problem with that is, that Lamar’s soon to be bride has been with him since before he ever became famous, and regardless of the fact that she is lighter-skinned, she still is, and identifies herself as, BLACK.
Ahhh, but you see, Sistas like Lamar’s lady, they ain’t Black enough, you see. The darker the berry, and all that.
What this latest controversy just goes to show, is that women, in this case very dark-skinned ones, do indeed attempt to control the sexuality of Black men, especially the more high-profile and successful ones. So, can we please kill this idea that it is only men who want to control womens’ sexuality? The truth is that it’s more like a two-way street, if anything.
Finally: as I’ve shown and proved in a previous column, Black Feminists have a tangle of problems that are much more urgent and pressing than what conscious rappers say or do. Dark-skinned lasses like Ms. Strober would do well to read what I had to say in said column, for she will find much wisdom in its words.
My colleague Janet Bloomfield has an interesting theory as to why men of all skin tones might have a preference for lighter tones than their own:

Here’s a little pet theory of mine I’d like to throw out, just for the hell of it.  I think humans prefer lighter skin and hair and eye colors because those tend to be the result of recessive genes.  A man with darker tones who has a child with a woman of lighter tones will almost always see his genes expressed in the children.  Dark tones tend to be dominant.  The preference for lighter skin is a natural paternity test.

The problem, ain’t Kendrick Lamar, or Talib Kweli, ladies.
The problem, is you.
Fix it.
Please.
*I first got wind of Ms. Strober while watching a rather lengthy – and deeply embarassing – interview she did with Tommy Sotomayor. You can see it for yourself here. Let me know what you think!

About Mumia Ali

Mumia Ali, aka "Obsidian" is a Men's Issues blogger from Philadelphia who focuses on Sexual Politics, Class, and Race, from the male perspective. He is a cofounder of the Men's Issues blog collective known as Just Four Guys, and is Editor of Urban American Affairs for A Voice for Men.

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