CORE POST

In Bell Hooks article, it was interesting to see how many white female celebrities try to appropriate pieces of black culture for their own interests of looking different. When in reference to Madonna, I never had a huge interest in Madonna so I barely had any background info but I knew she was often a pop idol for her styles throughout the years. I completely understand the anger felt by the black community when people of the inappropriate background try to appropriate things of other cultures without really paying any respect to that culture. When Hooks explains that Madonna is primarily unpopular amongst older black women it's primarily because she basically took parts of black culture and falsely portrayed it to the masses with no real credit given to where the culture originated from. When Hook speaks of how people of African American descent went through years of pain and anguish as a race, she's stating that because of this they pride and uphold their culture or "black pleasure" to an extreme extent to combat the years of struggle they had to endure. I see this involved in everyday life as well as I am currently taking a hip-hop class. My professor, since day one, has heavily emphasized that although he is teaching us elements of African American dance and hip-hop, these elements have major cultural ties and we must respect the people and the communities it originated from. I can see the frustration with black women in their likeness towards Madonna when a white celebrity is able to appropriate elements of black culture because she has more freedom due to white privilege. Hook states that often "mainstream culture... reads the black female body as sign of sexual experience" (Hook, 160). With this societal view, of course black women would be "disgusted by Madonna's flaunting of sexual experience" as this is "the very image of sexual agency that she is able to project and affirm with material gain" but for black women this is "the stick this society has used to justify its continued beating and assault on the black female body" (Hook, 160). Reading this article it just never occurred to me how many aspects of different cultures are used by celebrities to try and appropriate it into their own image to seem "fresh" or "different."