Loving Black culture has never required loving Black people

Evidence

It’s true that the proliferation of Black culture across the planet—the proliferation, in so many senses, of being Black—constitutes a magnificent joke on American racism. Yet that popularity hasn’t strayed far from that covetous encounter between T. D. Rice and the Black man he watched groom that horse. Something about white America’s desire for Blackness warps and perverts its source, lampoons and cheapens it even in adoration. Loving Black culture has never demanded a corresponding love of Black people. And loving Black culture has tended to result in loving the life out of it. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1136

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense paradox: global Black popularity is both vindication and continued theft — the affection itself is the mechanism of appropriation, not just the economics around it.
• SEED: Essay idea: the specific mechanisms by which adoration ‘loves the life out of’ Black culture — from T.D. Rice to Elvis to modern streaming-era white artists mining rap aesthetics.