'Hunger Games' Star Criticizes Taylor Swift, Madonna for "Rampant" Appropriation of Black Culture

Mr Uncle Leroy

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Hunger Games star Amandla Stenberg is calling out several of today's biggest pop stars.

The 16-year-old actress, who played Rue in the first installment of the popular film franchise, recorded a video for her high school history class in which she criticizes white celebrities and singers for borrowing from black culture to make money. The video, entitled "Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows," was posted to her Tumblr page several months ago but has recently gone viral.



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"[In the 2010s,] pop stars and icons adopted black culture as a way of being edgy and gaining attention," Stenberg says. "In 2013, Miley Cyrus twerks and uses black women as props, and then in 2014, in one of her videos called 'This Is How We Do,' Katy Perry uses Ebonics and hand gestures and eats watermelons while wearing cornrows before cutting inexplicably to a picture of Aretha Franklin. So as you can see, cultural appropriation was rampant."

The video features clips of Kesha and Kim Kardashian wearing cornrows and Madonna with a grill over her teeth. Footage from Taylor Swift's hip-hop influenced "Shake It Off" video is also shown.

Stenberg, who has also appeared in 2011's Colombiana and on the Fox drama Sleepy Hollow, addresses that Azealia Banks criticized Iggy Azalea for not speaking out after a grand jury decided not to indict the police officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold.



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"I've been seeing this question a lot on social media, and I think it's really relevant: 'What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?' " Stenberg says at the end of the video.

The full video can be seen here.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/hung...s-taylor-swift-madonna-rampant-040009929.html
 

Jhoon

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More people speaking up isn't/cannot be a bad thing. I'm weary of certain people speaking because they usually have an ulterior agenda that clashes with their first words. But, I will let her cook.
 

1stPick

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I dont think Taylor Swift appropriates black culture because she made one hip hop influenced song :mjlol:

That girl is as white as it gets but this is the reason I'd like us to have less of a media presence. While we're in the spotlight all the damn time, doing whatever for the whole world to see, Indians/Asians are chilling in the backround building
 
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VOID
"I've been seeing this question a lot on social media, and I think it's really relevant: 'What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?' " Stenberg says at the end of the video.

We wouldn't be getting killed every 8 hours by police...that's for sure.

It's seems all we're worth in this society is our ability to sing and dance and entertain and shoot touchdowns and score three pointers just to make rich white people even richer. If we don't got the ability to do that, then we're as good as dead in their eyes or better off in prison.

But what can you expect coming from a country where black people were slaves longer than the actual country has been in existence?
 

Willy Waffle

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#GIANTS #KNICKS #RANGERS
Young movie stars out here waking up

word, :salute: whoever the fuk her parents are

i aint got no kids but got damnit i'd be proud to have her be my daughter speaking like this

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