COLDPLAY'S COLORBLIND HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND

Cultural Appropriation in white music videos is not new. Beyonce' participating is not new either. Nobody is going to accuse Bey of being a brain surgeon, not even of the Ben Carson variety.  

Sooo... Let's see what we've got.

1) I see cultural appropriation event #25 for Beyonce.

2) I see Beyoncé appearing very nearly white in some shots...again.

3) I see Indian children break dancing like black kids.  

4) I see Cold Play with another light-skinned black woman made even more acceptable by being otherized via Asian culture put on like a costume. The black woman in their video can be anything but a straight-up black woman.

In my opinion there's some cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation and cultural sharing (maybe) some exotic fetishizing of light-skinned black woman with a Asian twist. More importantly though, I think there's some colorblind race theory here too. But let's stop looking at Beyonce. It is Cold Play that has the pattern to worry about here.

COLD PLAY COVERED IN COLORS
AND GUEST SINGERS BEYONCE AND RHIANNA

Beyonce is using Indian Culture like a costume in this Coldplay video. Rhianna just played a "China Princess" in another one of their videos. Nicki Minaj oughta be dancing through a Coldplay video in Japanese garb any day now. Then again, Minaj may not be the lead singer's taste. Maybe if Halle Berry could sing, she'd be the one to slink her way through one of their next music videos in a Japanese get up. 

The white men of Cold Play and the Indian children in "Hymn For The Weekend" are all painted in different colors. And it seems to me that all these pieces together are sending the same old message: 'I don't care if your red, blue, or purple because I love everybody. I don't need to respect differences because i don't see any. Color blind race theory reigns supreme AND cultural appropriation doesn't exist. Racism is entirely about hate and nothing else.' 

This ignorant, predominantly white, interpretation of race, ethnicity, and racism is at least 50 years old.

In 2016, we need to look at the message maker NOT the deliverer.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
AND
COLORBLIND RACE THEORY
TOGETHER
WHEREVER
THEY
GO
?

When the I-don't-see-race folk stop insisting on being on the same page as KKK members, maybe the anti-racism movement will increase in size. I like Coldplay's music. But I'm going to continue to take a pass on their videos. And I'm going to join "woke" people of color in raking them over the coals until they get it. (You can keep trying to get Beyonce and Rhianna to think if you wanna. I"m kinda done.)

Changing how Beyonce' presents herself in this video is the key to fixing it. If she had been a straight-up black woman learning from a woman that's from the area, dressed in traditional clothing, and that woman was either showing Beyonce different things about her culture or teaching Beyonce a dance etc, that would have fit into the "cultural sharing" and "cultural appreciation" zone for 75% of people that are conscious and respectful of other cultures.

If they could have gotten a real Bollywood actress, Priyanka Chopra of the television show "Quantico" to perform in the video along with Beyonce, as described above, That could have been a kind of advertisement of/support for the television series, which has Priyanka as a lead actress and another black actress, Aunjanue Ellis as a supporting actress.

This music video could have been win, win, win and win for Coldplay, Beyonce, Priyanka's Quantico, and reaching and teaching on cultural appropriation.

And oh yeah, I would keep the little Indian kids break dancing like little black kids. They were way cute.




VIDEOS

RACE IS JUST A LABEL /WELL-MEANING IDIOCY. (Makes me mad so many brown-skinned people participated in this mess)

THE NEARLY SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE-MUSIC VIDEO IN QUESTION COLDPLAY"S "HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND"
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