The Wrong Colour Buttocks

A Guardian headline brings to light another pressing issue for its readers to fret about:

Why does a black butt only look good in white skin?

Our fearless interrogator, our prober of deep mystery, is Yomi Adegoke, who tells us that she “writes about race, popular culture and intersectional feminism.” Heavens, what a surprise. It’s not Ms Adegoke’s only question, though. She has more:

So the attributes that black women have so long been shamed for have finally been given the… seal of approval due to a new Aryan aesthetic?

Oh my. An Aryan aesthetic. She went there, being so fearless.

Ms Adegoke’s article is at times hard to follow and extrapolates a little too wildly from things that someone said on Twitter. It isn’t without its gems, however – candidates for our ongoing series of classic Guardian sentences. Among them, this:

The black female body is still played for laughs as butt prosthetics become the new blackface.

From what I can make out, our indignant Guardianista is upset that some white female celebrities have been happily drawing attention to their fulsome hindquarters, which are, it seems, the latest must-have fashion item among the suggestible and insecure. No, I hadn’t noticed. Possibly on account of my total lack of interest in MTV and celebrity tattle magazines. But apparently it’s a thing, the hugeness of one’s arse. And this pride in ample buttocks simply will not do. Not when ladies of pallor are the ones doing it:

White women popularising what black women have always had is the latest example of the mainstream media’s cultural appropriation… The era of the big booty has neither started nor ever stopped for black women… Despite what the mainstream media told us, black women never stopped aspiring to possess the curves society so hated.

It turns out that the well-upholstered rear has been “appropriated” in “a world where white is right.” Two ladies named Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry, possibly pop artistes, have been,

using huge novelty bottoms as performance props in a bid to appear contemporary and comedic while accessorising the black aesthetic.

A pop cultural detail that had hitherto, and regrettably, escaped my notice. Doubtless all pale women, being so determined to appropriate and oppress, will soon be turning up to work with huge foam bottoms attached to their person. And according to Ms Adegoke, larger than average buttocks are a “part of black culture” - a part that is “now deemed good enough to gain a level of mass respectability after getting a belated thumbs-up from white society.”

You heard her. Thumbs-up or not, big buttocks are black culture. So you white folk mustn’t pinch them.

Comments

[Sam]

But apparently it’s a thing, the hugeness of one’s arse.

From 1978.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yti0gEmTkyk

[Mike]

I like big butts and I can not lie...

I've been a white guy with a nice round ass my whole life. Finally, I'm fashionable!

Of course, I'm also "accessorising the black aesthetic" and must be punished forthwith.

[sackcloth and ashes]

Ms Adegoke is getting her arse kicked in the comments.

[Jon Powers]

I like big butts, and I cannot lie. I guess it's a product of my White Privilege.

[Joan]

I blame Kenny Everett.

http://youtu.be/b8e7bo0Y_Zk?t=1m18s

[David]

You have to wonder how such precious creatures make it through the day.

[Anna]

Nobody mention hair straighteners.

[pst314]

Nobody mention musical instruments that were invented in Europe.
Likewise electronic recording devices.
Etcetera ad infinitum.

[Steve 2: Steveageddon]

Is it racist to point out that Grace Jones was the worst Bond henchwoman ever?

[mojo]

Hello. Bustle, anyone?

Primary sex queues are instinctual. Oog liked big butts every bit as much as Sir Mix-A-Lot.

[svh]

Parody horizon in… 3… 2… 1…

[Henry]

big buttocks are black culture. So you white folk mustn’t pinch them

That had to be on purpose, David

Ms Adegoke is getting her arse kicked in the comments

Rather than pinched?

[David]

Our specialist in “pop culture and intersectional feminism” seems to be arguing for a kind of cartoon cultural purity along crude racial lines, one in which the size of one’s arse is a precious and proprietary cultural value. It’s odd how the studiously right-on are so often the ones doing the othering of people based on their melanin levels.

[David Gillies]

Has anyone ever seen the writers for CiF and the writers for Viz in the same room?

[sk60]

If white women think big bums aren't attractive this is bad.
And if white women think big bums are attractive this is also bad.

[Hal]

Is it racist to point out that Grace Jones was the worst Bond henchwoman ever?

Ehn. Actually the overarching issue there is simply that the two worst Bond movies ever were the two with the word "kill" in the title, where her movie was itself the all out, hands on, worse of the two---including in overall profit, as I recall.

So Jones merely got bitten along with everyone else in that turkey.

[Hal]

Oh, and as far as the overall topic . . . .

Siiiiiggggghhhh. Oy.

I suppose having no life has its attractions, but I'm not seeing what they are . . . .

[Joe]

Actually it has to do with preference of well upholstered hind quarters imputed to black men, and the delusions of girls posing as "bad girls" seeking to appeal to this predilection.

In other words it's about shallow, momentary "wigger style" kind of put on, phoney trope.

[Watcher In The Dark]

Around my part of the world there are many white women with big rears. And I mean broad and wide and, er, vast. Not sure it's a copy-culture thing, other than they do no exercise and stuff their faces with rubbish food all day. Does this count in the great buttock debate?

[rjmadden]

So the attributes that black women have so long been shamed for have finally been given the… seal of approval due to a new Aryan aesthetic?

Christ. Half the great painters in European history could not be reached for comment.

[Patrick Brown]

Can't beat this wonderfully sincere reinterpretation of the classic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCWaN_Tc5wo

[David]

Can’t beat this wonderfully sincere reinterpretation of the classic...

Heh.

No, wait. I denounce this heinous example of cultural appropriation.

[David]

The Amazon widget at the top of the page is content-sensitive and displays items that may be relevant to whichever blog post it’s next to. It is, therefore, offering me a chance to buy something called a “Silicone Buttock Bum-Enhancing Brief.”

[dicentra]

Ample buttocks were appropriated by Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez?

Those naughty white wimmens and their fake bronzer…

[sackcloth and ashes]

'Has anyone ever seen the writers for CiF and the writers for Viz in the same room?'

That, my friend, is the written equivalent of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRGpTjI20j8

You're the chap in white, by the way.

[dicentra]

And if white women think big bums are attractive this is also bad.

Only if they attempt to acquire them. To be proper, white wimmins with tiny buttocks should pine away for envy of their pigmented sistahs.

Cultural appropriation. ::spit::

I reckon we need to stop all those Asians from playing Mozart, and shut down the karate dojos outside of Japan and the Yoga studios outside of India and the ballet studios outside of France and the opera houses outside of Italy and each and every ethnically themed restaurant that doesn't match the cultural heritage of the dirt on which it's located.

Because if consuming Thai food isn't cultural appropriation (and digestion and elimination) I don't know what is.

[Hal]

I reckon we need to stop all those Asians from playing . . .

Why, Di, how Germanically thorough of you!

[Charlie Suet]

Cultural appropriation only applies to inferior cultures...

I think er her use of the Roman alphabet is er itself cultural appropriation, er deriving as it does from the Phoenician er alphabet used by the ancestors er of those who are oppressed in Palestine, er..

[newrouter]

ot
laurie penny news

The Incoherence of Liberal Feminism

http://theothermccain.com/2014/09/23/the-incoherence-of-liberal-feminism/

[Craig Mc]

I blame white male privilege.

[randian]

Let me get this straight. Liberals have long been trying to get whites to abandon their culture if favor of of the "superior" and "more vibrant" non-white cultures, and now that they've succeeded they're damning whites for doing it?

[Allan]

So what I've learned from this site is there is potential nothing more racist than a fat chick with dreadlocks. Thankfully here in Aus we actually have laws against upsetting people on the basis of race. I intend to litigate the next heavy-set hippy i come across.

[R. Sherman]

The Struggle Continues . . .

[David]

The Struggle Continues . . .

Oh my.

That sound you hear is from the exploding heads of a million teenage boys.

[Karen M]

black women never stopped aspiring to possess the curves society so hated.

Society "so hated" curvy women? Really?

I just love it when someone thinks they speak for all black women.

[David]

I just love it when someone thinks they speak for all black women.

Quite. And it’s a little odd to base a sweeping sociological claim on the onstage gyrations of a professional attention-seeker, someone whose career depends in large part on making stuffy people splutter.