A Respectability Rumble of Hotep-tly Hostile Proportions Is Brewing. Ashiness Expected to Follow

Before we begin please join me, my kings and kweens in a word of prayer:

First, giving honor to Black Jesus, who is the head of my life.

Secondly, Black Jesus, I’d like to say thank you for giving me the divine feminine right to dwell in the Hotep House of the Lord forever and ever.

For we know, it was only by Your grace that Plymouth Rock didn’t land on us, but instead we landed on it. We thank you for your eternal mercy and favor. In the name of the ancestors, respectability, and ashiness we pray, Asé.

Now that that’s out of the way, on to the announcements.

There seems to be quite a bit of respectability rumbling going on between two of our brethren: Dr. Umar Johnson and “Youtubian Opportunist” Kevin Samuels.

For reasons we’ll arguably never know or understand, the two “gurus” are apparently not seeing third eye to third eye, with many online speculating that Dr. Umar vehemently disproves of Samuels’ ideology and men like him who espouse the same. Referring to them as the “Dirty Dozen of Division,” Dr. Umar recently went on Instagram Live to air out his grievances.

“I don’t like it,” Umar says. “I can’t appreciate Black men trying to make a dollar off of making Black women feel bad—and unfortunately our Black women, some of them are so thirsty for validation that they’re participating. They’re participating in the attacks and slander within the Black female community, see? And that’s not acceptable.”

Wait. I never thought I’d ever say this but—he’s actually got a point. We’ve long known of the existence and utter idiocracy of Hoteps, but their female equivalents, otherwise known as the “Pick-Me’s” are equally as ridiculous and harmful.

If you’ve learned anything from any one article here at The Root, it’s that respectability politics and the games people like to play while wielding it have no place when it comes to the betterment of Black people. And while Umar may have made a point here, the larger point I hope you take with you is that adhering to any sort of the ideals put forth by him, Kevin Samuels, and the like do nothing to add to the societal or civil advancement for us Black folks. The only thing they do is make you more susceptible to ashiness—and who wants to walk around looking just as pale as the white folks they claim to distrust so much? I know I don’t.

So, by all means, please stop the chaotic coonery. Black Jesus would not be pleased.