The Kingdom of Benin is now a part of Nigeria, it’s not the same as the Republic of Benin which is its own country.

Thank you! I’ve corrected this in the story. 

I had this happen at work once, when I was a flight attendant. There was a white crew member who started telling the rest of us a joke, which involved him calling someone a coon. When the rest of us objected as soon as the word came out of his mouth, he tried to argue that it was a commonly used word where he comes…

I didn’t get beatings for it but was def encouraged to only speak ‘proper’ English and not patois in the home as a child.

Rastafarianism and Blackness are essentially intertwined—the tenets of the religion are close to Black supremacism—which is why I always find it funny to see white people declaring themselves adherents of the religion cuz they grew dreads and like smoking weed .

You’re right, thanks. There’s some obvious lies in that comment that I wanted to call out, given that I did my best to give the context of centuries of Jamaican history within my established word limit—as well as included additional resources for people to find more information from the country it is about.

The first source cited in this article is an ‘actual Jamaican’ one, feel free to click it to find out more. The written decision has not yet been released by the court, and so as an actual Jamaican I can only speak to what I believe its implications are from my own lived experience—that it reflects both anti-Blackness…

Yes. Hence, the closing line.

Also some people (mostly men) seem to be finding shaudenfruede in this because she is a confident, sex-positive women. I’ve seen comments tying her getting shot to her love for twerking (???).

There’s a screenshot in the article of the actual thing the woman posted. 

The edits are actually hilarious— Mr. No-Kumbya put on an “empathy seminar” for polar bears, also it newly mentions something about representing a victim of police violence.

Haha, he’s also corrected the spelling of “Kumbaya.” That was quick!

And that this state of affairs is something that Black people should celebrate! The elevation of a few of us to the middle class on the brutalized bodies of the rest of us.

Brava to the romance story at the end of this. I’d watch the shit out of that.

Thank you for the clarification! I’ve corrected this in the story.

My biggest thing is why this song at this time? This is the critical issue that J. Cole felt needed to be discussed while black women, children, and men are being killed, brutalized, hung across the country? I will never forgive him for it. And like you, I also never thought he was as transformative an artists as his…

Thank you for telling Macie’s story to as many people as you could reach. Her life mattered and we will never forget it.

Thanks for this. I had seen reports of that on social media but hadn’t been able to find confirmation. 

He’s dropped it since 2012: https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/jamaica-beenie-man-apologizes-gay-community

Thank you.