The avid readers of my page (both of you) know, I love everything 90s. So by extension, I love *NSYNC. I own all their albums. And yes, I still (slightly non-embarrassingly) play them constantly. And yes, (slightly more embarrassingly) I’ve attempted to do the “Bye, Bye, Bye” dance routine in front of my mirror more than once.

So when Justin Timberlake decided to spread his creative wings and go solo, I jumped on the bandwagon. As of last Christmas, I own all of his albums too.

There was something I noticed very early on as I spun "Justified" on my Sony CD player: this sounded nothing like *NSYNC. The heavy bass lines, drums, and electronic feel to “Like I Love You” and “Cry Me a River” marked a significant about-face from his previous clean-cut pop.

In short: this was blacker than *NSYNC. My 13-year-old self, void of any wokeness or even a vague understanding of the phrase “cultural appropriation,” had no other way to put it. Sure enough, The Neptunes produced a few tracks on "Justified" and Timbaland has production credits on all three of JT’s albums.

This matters. It matters because of the history of black Americans in this country. It matters because of what Timberlake got himself into last week. #BlackLivesMatter, but apparently against his better judgement (or lack of wokeness), Timberlake didn't quite get that.

JT landed in some hot water on June 25 after some tweets he sent during the BET Awards, a night celebrating the many achievements of black entertainers this year, including music. Music like his, despite him having blue eyes and “good hair.”

The callousness and tone-deafness of Timberlake’s responses took me aback a bit. But what shook me even more was the fact that this conversation was valid to begin with. Justin Timberlake is appropriating? Had I really been this deaf for the past 13 years?

Sure enough, the signs prove telling: sporting cornrows while still in *NSYNC; escaping Nipplegate relatively unscathed thanks to the media’s portrayal of him as a clean-cut, boyish, charming singer--while Janet got dragged through the mud; and relying heavily on black artists and producers to manufacture his music. Basically the exact same thing Williams spoke out against in that speech. JT basically put his hand over Jesse Williams’s mouth and said “#BlackLivesMatter? No, no. #AllLivesMatter.”

And after being called out on it: Oops! He did it again.

Timberlake isn’t the first white artist to appropriate music from black culture, and he certainly won’t be the last. I’m not saying it’s not his right to use Timbaland to produce his tracks. In fact, I hope and pray he continues to do so because his albums are absolutely ethereal. What I'm saying is this: If you're going to try to be a part of black culture, stand up for it too. Stand up for it when things get rough. When modern Jim Crow rears its ugly head, don't go off to your agent to attach yourself another subpar movie (sorry, no offense). In regards to your tweet, JT (which apparently you've now deleted), we’re not all the same. Yes, we may be the same genetically, but we’re not all treated the same. Society bestowed unto you a carte blanche into black culture without ever having to worry about the baggage it carries-- demise at the hands of a police officer, the disproportionate rate of incarceration with respect to everyone else, the history of oppressive legislation, the systematic ostracizing from the upper class. You probably suffered none of it. Or if you did, it wasn't solely because you were black. Because you're not. You’ve stuck around black culture and made millions off of it, but stayed silent during dark moments like Ferguson, Flint, Baltimore, you name it. To put it quite simply: you appropriated.

Knowing you for the past decade and a half through your many interviews, I truly believe you were inspired by Williams’s speech. But your response was uninformed. No need to worry though, this is part of the learning process. If we have these difficult dialogues, then we can help understand each other: The more we realize we are different, the more we can have a conversation.

on your end (because none of us have any control of the circumstances of our upbringings). But staying unwoke after you’ve realized the fact is. Unlike 90s boy bands, I hope issues like this become a thing of the past.