Oh, Madonna. You silly bitch.

FACT: Celebrities say stupid shit.  Why?  Because they are just people, and people are inclined to say stupid shit from time to time.  Simply being a wretched mortal means that your existence will be a veritable hotbed of fallacies, flaws and faults.  Worse, if you’re any kind of public figure, a lot of the mistakes you make will be recorded for posterity, and replayed ad nauseum until your career and credibility lie in shreds at your clay feet.  Let’s be fair: if those rules were suddenly applied to all of us, the global suicide rate would  skyrocket. 

 

Stop RIGHT there, Madonna! Put your neo-colonial fantasies down, and just let the little boy go...

 

Having said all that…Madonna is officially tap-dancing all over my last good nerve.  Seriously.  Now, let me just explain myself.  I am a Madonna fan from way back.  Really!  Remember back in the early 1980s before people knew who she was, and “Everybody” was being played in a funky loop on every R&B/urban station in the country?  That’s right, I’ve been a Madonna fan since back when people thought she was black.  (A brief aside: I’m so sick of hearing people talk about artists who “break the color line” – i.e., white folks who sound like black folks, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Duffy - like the shit is new.  It’s as old as time and, in light of continued racial oppression, arguably the most damaging kind of cultural appropriation.  Because black R&B and soul singers are continually pressed to sound more “mainstream” in order to be signed and marketed.  In other words, you can sound as “black” as you want, as long as you’re not actually, you know, black.  Just something that hurts this classically-trained former singer’s feelings.  SIGH…I digress.) I still think that she is the best possible convergence of business sense, intelligence, talent, charisma and sex appeal that the modern world has ever produced.  She’s also a queer icon, and as such holds a special place in my heart.  The people I love the most in this whole world, the family I chose for myself, are almost exclusively queer-identified people of color.  Madonna bashing, in my little microcosm, is Against the Law. But oh. Oh. This child needs a whooping.  Here’s a quote from Esther’s (and what was that  all about?)website “Raising Malawi:”

From the moment I began my work on behalf of Malawi’s ONE MILLION orphans, people have asked, “Why did you choose Malawi?” I always answer “I didn’t. Malawi chose me.”

The first time I read this quote, I had to re-read it several times over, just to make sure that I had read right.  You might need to do that, too.  So here it is again. 

From the moment I began my work on behalf of Malawi’s ONE MILLION orphans, people have asked, “Why did you choose Malawi?” I always answer “I didn’t. Malawi chose me.”

Oh, come on! COME ON! COME the FUCK on!  Who uses the White Man’s Burden argument in 2008?  WHO?!  Now, celebrities using their fame to help the less fortunate does not bother me.  Bono has made this virtually an art, and he has been doing it for so long that you know he actually means it.  So if he’s preachy sometimes – okay, all the time – it’s understandable; he has more than earned the right. Celebrities picking up little Third World orphans (because, you know, children of color in this country aren’t stuck in foster homes or waiting to be adopted or anything) and whisking them on to a “better life” faster than you can say “Angelina” doesn’t bother me…that much…anymore.  (Another side bar: I remember when Angelina jump-started the Third World baby craze that I remarked sarcastically to a friend that this is what the girl who has everything gets for herself on her tour of Asia: a baby.  I’m inclined to feel that this is First World acquisition lust at its worst.  Don’t believe me?  Google “Australia’s Stolen Generation.” The idea and the guiding urge are the same.) 

What does bother me, what irks the living SHIT out of me is the idea that Africa somehow needs you. You, in all your saintliness, all your spiritual enlightenment, all your awareness.  The people you deign to help don’t even matter, really - they’re just the backdrop that highlights your benevolence. UGH!Celebrites who make ”Africa” their pet cause make me throw up in my mouth. I’m well aware that African nations have staggering poverty rates, high infant mortality, and a whole host of woes that it would be absolutely inhumane to not properly address.  But I’m also well-aware that there are a slew of non-profits and NGOs whose sole purpose is to provide impoverished nations with no-strings-attached relief when  governments can’t or won’t.  (The World Bank and IMF, in all their sickness, actually gives poor countries “loans.”  Fantastically ironic, since poor nations are poor because colonialism, slavery and neo-colonialism perpetuated by wealthy nations, the ones holding the purse strings, keeps them that way.  Africa is the world’s most resource-rich continent, and yet is home to the world’s poorest nations…and none of these celebrities ever seems to wonder why that is.  A little critical thinking goes a long fucking way.)  Celebrity  time and energy would be better utilized if they urged the U.N., World Bank and IMF to make saving the lives of people - and holding corrupt governments accountable – a priority.  Celebrity money would be better spent by setting up funds and helping sustain projects (like the new clean water projects, and initiatives to distribute malaria preventative drugs to villages) that actually help the folks in the trenches do their jobs. Now, none of that makes for great T.V. or a nice semi-documentary for your little TriBeCa world premiere.  But all of it makes a real, honest-to-God difference.  And shouldn’t that be the thing that counts?

Explore posts in the same categories: Celebrity News, Media, mainstream, Pop culture, Racism, non-malicious, that's that BULLLLSHIT!

Tags: Africa, Appropriation, International adoption, Madonna, Philanthropy, Silly bitch

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