Who is “we” in this case? If you’re talking about all black people, I highly doubt you can speak for all of them on who likes Elvis, The Rolling Stones and Eminem. You might read this and think that I’m taking your wording out of context. I just find it off-putting that you speak of black Americans like they’re this monolithic tribe. Your overall argument would be more persuasive if you qualified it to make it sound more plausible. Instead, it comes off like you’re just venting out a bunch of emotion-based resentments.

Honestly, I think the resentment among many blacks against borrowing from “Black culture” — I put that in quotes because I really don’t believe in a singular black American culture — is very misguided. The idea that non-black people, especially whites, are “colonizing” their culture is a poor reason for being bitter against those who borrow from it. For those who hold that idea, I think it’s largely driven by the sort of fuming anger that plagues this site. If you feel that someone has oppressed you, of course you’re going to have a problem with them borrowing from your culture, regardless of whether that individual actually did oppress you.

The fact is that none of us lives in a vacuum, so cultural borrowing — or what many people call “appropriation” — is bound to happen. However much a group has been marginalized, one should not be vilified and castigated for emulating its culture(s) in some way.

A lot of people will probably read this and tell me I’m ignorant, fragile or privileged simply for being white. Things have gotten to a point where I’ve realized that I shouldn’t let my experience — or lack thereof — stop me from saying what I know is right. A person who was born wealthy or middle-class might not know what it’s like for the poor person who goes and robs victims at gunpoint, but in all likelihood they still know that robbing victims at gunpoint is wrong. Let that not be construed as me trying to conflate race and class.