To start this article off the word “Becky” must be defined for those who do not look into cultures outside of their own but want to define the word based on how it makes them feel. Becky derives from urban culture and its first appearance was made mainstream in the Sir Mix a Lot song, “Baby Got Back”, released May 7, 1992. At first the term was used to refer to the act of fellatio and the stereotype of Caucasian women being more sexually inclined to not only do the act but do it well. The name Becky itself was a popular nickname and name in white society so for urban culture it was a quick way to associate something to “whiteness” without having to say a lot, also known as slang. The word began to evolve into different realms of basically being a reference to a Caucasian female with the basic characteristics you may find in one based on your ethnic experience. Those characteristics could be her fetishing you or microaggressive jabs taken at your racial heritage.This is all to say, “Becky” isn’t a racial slur. The word was never invented to dehumanize or imbrute white women like other words against African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Irish, Jewish, Asian, etc were used to do.
The title of this article refers to women like Kimberly Noel Kardashian, also known as Kim Kardashian West. A few months back Kardashian released her makeup line and took to Instagram to show her fans some swatches of her new powder contour and highlight kits. Her fans and beauty bloggers weren’t impressed and of course made memes of how terrible it looked texture wise and how badly Kardashian didn’t know how to swatch. Known makeup artist Jeffree Star was one of these people who commented on how badly it looked and Kardashian fans turned on him to defend her and attack him instead. Kardashian went to her social media to defend Star from her fans in the following video, .
Jeffree Star is an entirely different article on how problematic he is but in short there is a video of Star, age 19-20 years old at the time, chasing a black woman around calling her a “nigger bitch”. The video resurfaced and got him in a lot of trouble with many people of the beauty world and those that called themselves fans. Kardashian refers to fans bringing up his past as being “petty” and his past itself as “negative”. She goes on to imply that her past is equal to Star’s (the sextape with RnB singer Ray J) and that if she can forgive him and see the change in people why can’t an entire group of people dealing with those like Star and even worse overall society for hundreds of years not get over it and forgive. The overall problem with what Kardashian said is not only her trying to tell an entire group of people to “get over it” but that her husband and most importantly her children are African-American.
Kardashian tried to apologize “on [the] situation [she] really didn’t know enough about” in the following video from her SnapChat.
But hold up Becky, you don’t get to get off that easy with the same type of bullshit apology Star gave to the world after his racist video surfaced. Not only does Kardashian have a black husband and black children, she faced these racist moments personally once publically being with rapper Kanye West. She was called allegedly called a “nigger lover” by an 18 year old when leaving a Los Angeles chiropractor's office and at the Vienna ball, an event in Europe, a stand-up comedian by the name of Chris Stephan dressed up in blackface to mimic her husband.
Kardashian’s handling of the situation with Star, even addressing him at all, speaks volumes on the grip she and women like her have with race relations in this country, absolutely none. You can not have a black husband, black children or associate with blackness in any realm without having to deal with racism across the globe. No amount of money or privilege protects you from the ugly serpent of racism once associated with blackness. She has a black daughter and son, especially for her son, how will she address the police pulling him over in the year 2030 once he’s 16 years old? How will she explain them treating him like shit because they don’t care about daddy and mommy’s money all they see is the color of his skin? How will she console her daughter when someone like Star decides to chase her around and call her a “nigger bitch”? Oh yeah, don’t be “petty” or “negative” people can change and if she can forgive, get over it.
