Mykki Blanco is not just another black rapper! She is also a queer-gender drag queen and made history when she came out as HIV-positive, becoming the only living rapper who acknowledges having the virus. Here's why that matters!
- http://www.hivplusmag.com/people/2015/10/08/mykkis-mad-genius
But she has also been criticised by some white people for oppressing Native Americans as a drag artist despite all the stigma oppressing herself in our globalized, white, middle class, cis-gendered, able bodied, or even christian western world!
Here's her response:
The rapper wrote on Facebook: “To acknowledge the reality of the most silenced is not in my opinion a "pitting of opressions". I have realized that so many "progressive activists" hush the systematic genocide of Native Americans by an attitude that is so dismissive it’s almost and I’m not being dramatic, like people who don’t believe the Holocaust happened. We can so willingly give our attention to the queer rights movement, trans rights (and) #Blacklivesmatter but as a whole Americans and even American so-called radicals seem to become mute when it comes to a group so silenced and so oppressed it is unimaginable these people endure the living conditions and high poverty rates and youth suicide rates within our borders. When you say “Don't pit oppressions against each other” you not only cease to even listen you become the oppressor by silencing the truth. Everything else seems trendy right now to support except the rights of the Native People, I guess that’s just too nostalgic for most of you activists.”
Blanco has spoken out passionately and truthfully about equality issues before, from her HIV positivity, to Ferguson and LGBT rights in Russia. Read some of what Blanco had to say on Twitter below, and check out the rest of it on her feed
- http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/25692/1/mykki-blanco-speaks-out-native-americans-black-lives-matter
It's a pity that almost all the mainstream rap artists in my home country, Greece, are sexists and racists or, even if they are not sexists and racists themselves, they never have the courage to open up and speak out so passionately about equality issues.
I got the idea for writing about this topic because there's a lot of conversation going on in my home country via the social media lately, but all people seem to be critical about the artist named Tus without knowing what is really going on in the USA or acknowledging the fact that what Tus really does is exposing and taking advantage of the sexist or even racist and fascist beliefs of almost all the Greek middle or even working class cis-gender people. And that is why he has so much success even now, by promoting his so-called disgusting "humor" about human trafficking!
But it is so shocking we all have also forgotten the story of the so-called "Ruins Documentary" (http://ruins-documentary.com/en/), the story of a group of HIV-positive women who were detained by the Greek Police, forcibly tested, charged with a felony, imprisoned and publicly exposed, when their mug shots and personal data were published in the media, in the run-up to the country’s 2012 national elections. In a society where all this shit happened so few years ago, and when the politician mainly responsible for this shit is still member of the Greek parliament, it is highly hypocritical to only judge a rap artist!
If we do not open up and speak out passionately but also truthfully about racism and sexism in all forms of art, we will never be able to really stand up for any human right! But i have to dedicate this small article to the Greek antifascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas (aka Killah P), who was murdered by Golden Dawn neo-nazis in Keratsini, Athens (17/9/13). Rap music not only can, but also has to be antiracist, but also antifascist!
This is one of Killah P's songs roughly translated as "I won't cry, I won't fear", with english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUVGzyrUmgA
It is based on a former song with the same title, by Giannis Aggelakas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS-l3DTIGAI
You can follow him on Twitter, or via his Facebook Page.
You can also visit his blog!