Jennifer Lopez’s performance at the 2019 Grammys was trash and I mean that in the in the nicest possible way. I have nothing personal against Jennifer Lopez, but if I have to be frank, she’s no friend of the African American Community and that makes this honor even more absurd. As a matter of fact, I think Jennifer Lopez has made certain shifts in her personal and professional life to purposely disassociate herself from the African American Community.
J.Lo left the dance floors of “In Living Color,” hopped into the left side of an unmade bed with Puff Daddy and rolled out right into the arms of Ben Affleck. Dear sweet Jennifer transformed herself from Jenny on the block to Maid in Manhattan in a heartbeat and she never looked back at the African American community, until her Grammy performance.
Speaking of the performance, Jennifer Lopez misrepresented Motown. During her performance not only were her vocals weak, but all that gyrating and swinging around her long hair like a cabaret dancer was unimpressive and uninspiring. It was clear from her salsa she lacked any real historical knowledge of Motown, even while giving her heartfelt thank yous, she neglected to thank Barry Gordy, the Founder of Motown, seated in the audience.
So why did the Grammys choose Jennifer Lopez to perform the Motown honor? I dare say it was because she had just enough color without being black. In other words, The Grammys wanted to honor Motown and carefully chose a woman of color—as opposed to a black woman. I guess they did this in the name of inclusion. I suppose it didn’t occur to them that there were plenty African Americans they could have included to pay real tribute to the Motown Sound, but with colorism as their main motivation it’s no wonder they considered no alternatives.
I could just be cynical in accusing The Grammy’s of committing such a crime, but then there’s the winner of the best Rap Album of the year. Not only did this grand honor go to a woman, it went to a woman of color as well. CardiB won Rap Album of the year for, “Invasion of Privacy,” an album that glorifies bitches and hoes that makes money, popping pussy. CardiB beat the likes of PushaT to win this honor and even more important, she did something, Mc Lyte, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot, Eve and Lauren Hill, (the greatest female rapper of all time), never accomplished. It’s clear like J.Lo, CardiB fit the color script
Maybe I’m being too hard on the Grammys, after all Danny Glover broke records for “This is America,” winning four Grammys for that song. Ironically the song goes against everything the Grammy’s stand for—but I digress, at least Glover is a true African American. H.E.R. won a Grammy for Best R&B Album and best R&B Performance, so I do give them some credit, but not much.
In all honesty, I don’t think this idea of colorism is restricted to the Grammys. You can gleam this in the programs we watch on television. We live in a day that have limited amount of African American Shows. And most shows depict images of skinny lighted-skinned or coffee colored blacks with long straight hair. All too often black shows will force a white character to make the point: I have white friends too. As an African American I feel like I’m forced to watch these water-down versions of myself and my community.
There is some consolation to this overindulgence of fakeness, every Saturday BET airs reruns of the sitcom “Good Times.” That’s a show that deals with black issues faced in America. The episodes are generally about the African American struggle for survival in a world systematically designed to hold them back. There is no coloring in Good Times, the characters are black. There isn’t a great deal of integrating others or pretending the other is down or friendly or real. Black is not convoluted with light skin and straight hair and even when whites are introduced its natural and unforced.
African American sitcoms today have a light skin mother and a dark-skinned father and children with light skin and straight hair, except that one kid with the dark face, that’s included because it’s politically correct. It wasn’t that way in the 70’s when shows like “Good Times,” or “The Jeffersons” or even “The Cosby Show,” depicted blacks as blacks. Not some watered-down version of blackness. One could argue the Cosby children were a mix of blackness. Theo, Venessa and Rudy were darker skinned. Venessa had thick hair and Ruby had straight hair. Denise was fair, and Saundra was fairer. It was the same with “A Different World” and “Living Single,” blackness and black culture was celebrated by black people.
What’s clear to me is America and the overreaching media is strategically replacing blackness with light-skinned people of color. It’s okay to be black—but you better not be black-purple and most certainly shouldn’t be the size of Hattie McDaniel. There are very few opportunities for dark-skinned black roles, unless you’re starring in Black Panther, Power or even more awful--Precious.
This same style colorism is prevalent in politics. While the world embraces Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as an intellectual woman of color, they’re overlooking people like Ayanna Pressley. Recently, Ocasio-Cortez was praised by the Huffington Post and other Liberal outlets for her performance during a House of Representative committee meeting on voter rights, ethics and campaign finances. While she was considered brilliant and intellectual, Huffington Post ignored Pressley all together, even though her questions were much more enlightening. It’s the same for Kamala Harris, she’s embraced by the African American community for being a woman of color; Meanwhile they all but ignore Stacy Abrams—treat her like a step child.
I think African Americans need to start opening our eyes, recognize the program and call-out the Grammys and other social media groups for numbing down blackness. Terming every other race, outside of White American as people of color is blatantly ignoring African Americanism. Even more than that I am not a person of color, I am now and will always be African American. When I watch shows like the Grammys I expect no less than a true representation of my community. Anything else really is colorism and that is racism.