Azealia Banks has something to say to Kendrick Lamar. After reading Lamar’s interview with Billboard, in where he discusses the killing of Michael Brown, police brutality and race relations — Azealia took to Twitter to blast the Compton rapper.
Kendrick’s full quote to Billboard:
“I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it’s already a situation, mentally, where it’s f—ed up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should’ve never happened. Never. But when we don’t have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don’t start with just a rally, don’t start from looting — it starts from within.”
“When we don’t respect ourselves how can we expect them to respect us” dumbest shit I’ve ever heard a black man say. Lol do you know about the generational effects of poverty, racism and discrimination? There are things in society that benefit a select few of us. fine…. But don’t put down the rest by saying they don’t respect themselves,” Banks tweeted.
Banks then dismissed all conversation about whites and blacks “getting along” and reaffirmed her demands for slavery reparations. Banks then blasted Lamar for sharing his thoughts with a “white publication.”
See her tweets below:
"When we don't respect ourselves how can we expect them to respect us" dumbest shit I've ever heard a black man say.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
Lol do you know about the generational effects of poverty, racism and discrimination?
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
There are things in society that benefit a select few of us. fine…. But don't put down the rest by saying they don't respect themselves
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
HOW DARE YOU open ur face to a white publication and tell them that we don't respect ourselves…. Speak for your fucking self.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
I really pray for the minds of the urban youth, I really do because I was once on the side of feeling like I wasn't owed anything…
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
Once on the side of feeling like black people ain't shit because that's what America and my social studies textbooks taught me
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
Becoming an adult and doing my own research has REALLY opened up my fucking eyes, and I get upset to know that…..
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
There are still young black kids in our public schools being indoctrinated with the same shit they pumped into my head.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
And fuck all this shit about erasing racial barriers and getting along… Why does white America think blacks even wanna be here?!
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
I really just want my fucking reparations, and want you guys to stop killing my sons and telling my daughters they're ugly.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) January 9, 2015
Kendrick has yet to comment on either the story or Banks’ comments.
January 9, 2015 -
Both have valid points…you can’t acknowledge or dismiss one or the other
(on a side note: her album backs up her ‘ish talking, it’s the most innovative I’ve heard in a very long time)
January 10, 2015 -
Good to know that her album is worth listening to. I might check it out.
January 9, 2015 -
All I can say is hear, hear !! Do your own research and don’t passively accept information you receive as true. When I find the time, I am definitely going to read the work of Cheikh Anta Diop, John Henrik Clarke, and Francess Cress Welsing. Henry Louis Gates is over-rated and have written some items deserving of a side-eye.
January 10, 2015 -
For real I saw one conference of Anta Diop ! Deep and so enlightening !
January 10, 2015 -
Check out High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything you Know About Drugs and Society.
This brother goes into the real cause and effect of what occurs in our communities and why. Really good read.
January 9, 2015 -
A broken clock is right twice a day aka Azealias mouth. She’s still messy as hell and I’m not shocked about Kendrick’s interview.
People are underestimating how many black men love white women or see them as harmless. There’s no threat a white woman rapper like Iggy can give Kendrick or any black rapper for that matter compared to white male rappers like Macklemore or Eminem.
Its simply not their problem.
January 9, 2015 -
I don’t like that Kendrick said that. I clicked on this article fully expecting to be siding with Kendrick. But that is ridiculous in this current climate to say a thing like that, to billboard!! There are young liberals out there wanting to understand how we feel, for this to be what they’re reading, thinking he speaks for us.
But when we don’t have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us?
January 10, 2015 -
Azealia Banks (mostly) gets it on the racist and White supremacy front. In the past, she has tweeted some historically inaccurate things and in her recent interview with HOT 97, her comments re: the sexual assault allegations being levied against Bill Cosby bothered me. However, I definitely give her credit for understanding and publicly articulating truths about structural White supremacy, White privilege, racism and anti-Blackness, all of which are evidently lost on Brother Kendrick Lamar. I got faith in Kendrick, though. All he needs to do is read and educate himself, and then he’ll start to denounce the respectability rhetoric.
January 10, 2015 -
The Reconstruction era was time that some would argue as the strongest period of Black political, social, and economic engagement in American history. This period of time also birthed the Ku Klux Klan and the highest number of documented lynchings of Black people. There is no amount of self-respect that can sway a sector of society that chooses to see Black people as less than human. One may dress up their Blackness in the most respectable way, yet some will still see an animal.
January 11, 2015 -
Preach!!! Yes!
January 11, 2015 -
Well Said , I am at the point where I expect nothing from AA men in the biz so when you expect nothing you cant be disappointed
No mater how well liked they are they eventually crack and show their Stockhausen Syndrome
Pharell Jay Z now Kendrick all asyptomatic of being completely ahistorical
January 12, 2015 -
I’ve made my thoughts on Uncle Jemima very clear here before, Can I be the jerk that says that their actions are symptomatic of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’? Although, having studied Karlheinz Stockhausen’s music in the past, ‘Stockhausen Syndrome’ NEEDS to happen–it’ll blow the minds of the surviving Beatles.
January 10, 2015 -
100% with Banks. Like mom says :” let us wash our dirty linen in private within the family” to me he’s just ass kissing majority and he’s only at the begining of his career ! I can easily guess how hard he’s gonna be sucking power people D…sad
January 11, 2015 -
Certainly, we have to do our own research. I don’t know why many people want to place all black people into one box, because there are tons of black people who respect themselves, yet they still suffer poverty, racism, discrimination, etc. The problems in the world are heavily structural, so the Horatio Alger myth is just that, a myth. If we want to be free, then we have to struggle and fight for our freedom as Frederick Douglas has said. Nothing changes without struggle. Some of our people have tried their best to submissively please mainstream white society and then they became mentally, psychologically, and socially worst off than before. We just need to continue with our own self-determination, never trust those who don’t respect us, and show our blackness unapologetically. You have to give credit to Azealia Banks in telling so many great truths about the world in which we live in. Fundamentally, I could care less if they don’t respect us. I desire to live my life, I will always respect social & economic justice, I will always love my black people, and I will stand up for justice.