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.
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
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
Much appreciated
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
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.
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!"
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