Sunday, August 30, 2015

Reaction to the VMAs: One Small Step for Miley, One Giant Leap from Manaj

On 7:30 PM by Unknown in , , ,    No comments
Nicki Manaj's acceptance video has been a buzz all throughout social media for the past few days.  Her firm, assertive stance on white artists winning awards by appropriating black artists' styles has earned her a title as a revered voice of reason in the music industry: a beacon of light. Manaj further inspired fans on stage at the VMA's, where she called host Miley Cyrus out for her tone-policing comments in a recent Time interview  where she claimed that Manaj was hurting her cause by not being "polite."

As awesome as it was, the speech was the end all to a greater issue. Not to cultural appropriation, and especially not to tone-policing: an issue that remains a huge threat to oppressed peoples outside of the pop culture scope.  However, as Maisha Z. Johnson points out in a recent Everyday Feminism article, the whole ordeal does provide an important lesson to be learned, and creates an ample opportunity to those blinded by their bias to step forward and educate themselves. 

Check out the article here.

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