29/05

This Is White Girl Privilege

By Geisha Bar

Within just a couple of days of seeing the incredibly powerful and creative video for Childish Gambino’s This Is America, we were confronted with the polar opposite of powerful and creative.

There is a video circulating called “This Is America – Women’s Edit”, made by a YouTuber named Nicole Arbour (who I’d never even heard of until now). The video is all about being a woman and how oppressed women are, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RFE WHITE, WEALTHY, THIN AND ABLE-BODIED, apparently. There are only like 3-4 women of colour in the entire video, which is basically Nicole parading around like a twat (and after watching a couple of her other videos, it’s clear that this is all she is – a one-dimensional bag of unoriginal shite; she has stolen Jenna Marbles’ schtick and not even done it well).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a woman also, and I would consider myself a feminist. HOWEVER. What the actual fuck, Nicole Arbour?

At a time where black people are being killed willy-nilly with zero provocation by the people who are supposed to protect and serve all Americans, a video like Gambino’s needs to be given a lot of space and thought in society. What it DOESN’T need is a no-talent privileged white girl with zero originality ripping it off and taking focus off it. Whether she thinks she is paying homage to it is irrelevant. She is stealing part of the teeny tiny limited space that black rights get to occupy at all in this climate. The fact that black women were so underrepresented in her rip-off video is even more insulting.

So listen up white people; if you are considering trying to profit in any way, shape or form by plagiarising any piece of art created by a minority, then you are an actual piece of shit and you need to learn a lot about the shitty world we live in.

\endrant.