Historically, some black celebrities, like Muhammad Ali, have managed to be both high-profile figures in their sport and entertainment fields and in the civil rights movement. Others, like OJ Simpson, chose to abandon or undermine black political causes: he even made “I’m not black, I’m OJ” his personal epigraph, preferring to cosy up with California’s white socialites while turning a blind eye to injustices against African-American communities. Bill Cosby’s 2004 “Pound Cake” speech also besmirched poor black people, blaming them for their own destitution for reasons as ludicrous as giving their children “names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap”, citing this as the driving force behind mass incarceration, just a decade after Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill.
Following his detention in Swedish custody after an assault on a man in Stockholm, many have been quick to drag up comments of this nature made by A$AP Rocky. During a 2016 Time Out interview, he was asked to clarify his position on the social and political crises affecting African-Americans:
“So every time something happens because I’m black I gotta stand up? What the fuck am I, Al Sharpton now? I’m A$AP Rocky.
“I don’t wanna talk about no fucking Ferguson and shit because I don’t live over there! I live in Soho and Beverly Hills. I can’t relate.”
While Simpson and Cosby clearly sold out to please white contemporaries and investors, it’s difficult to accuse Rocky of infatuation with whiteness to the same extent. Sure, he dated Kendall Jenner and his comments that dark-skinned black women shouldn’t wear red lipstick reek of the internalised hatred that is key to misogynoir. But Rocky isn’t the figure of respectability that Simpson or Cosby are – A$AP mob isn’t full of Toms, Dicks and Harrys – and he does nothing to further himself from purported stereotypes of black rappers: in fact, in the same Time Out interview, he said, “I wanna talk about my motherfuckin’ lean.”
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The self-interest and reckless abandonment of political causes, which is endemic to black capitalism, need not rely on the lens and affirmation of whiteness. Even though capitalist self-interest cannot truly be divorced from whiteness, wealthy black celebrities are not always necessarily seeking admission to some elite white inner circle. They are not necessarily motivated by imitating whiteness itself, as Rocky frequently affirms his own blackness (“I’m just gonna stay black and die”), but are simply, in fact, arrogant and shameless chasers of luxury.
There’s something in equal parts exquisite, embarrassing and frustrating, then, about the fact that Simpson, Cosby and Rocky have found themselves reliant on the activism of – and historical precedents of abuses against – black communities to squeeze them out of legal predicaments.
Simpson’s dream team successfully galvanised African-American momentum built by the LA Riots, which responded to the 1991 beating of Rodney King, and failure to win justice in the murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, to secure support from a community Simpson had abandoned during his 1994 trial for the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Supporters of Cosby have, to their disgrace, summoned the name of Emmett Till to present Cosby, the serial rapist, as a martyr figure being smeared as a sexual predator by the white establishment.
Those who have not stood with black activists will clamber for their support once they recognise that accumulation of wealth and celebrity is not an effective defence against the punitive “justice” machinery, which preys on black people. So, knowing this, the question lingers: are we supposed to care that A$AP is trapped in Sweden?
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Just as there’s no suggestion that his actions place him in anything like the dubious landscape occupied by Simpson and Cosby, there’s also no clear answer to this particularly vexing question. It’s a conundrum that is fraught with risks. As conversations on prison abolition and dismantling carceral society move toward the mainstream, there is the fear that wealthy, celebrity figures such as A$AP can easily be championed as victim faces of this renewed movement. This is clear by how many myths have been pushed about Rocky’s experience: viral claims he was held “under inhumane conditions” and refused food and water were dismissed by his lawyer, and allegations of a violation of the Vienna convention were also unfounded.
Even though more comfortable conditions do not undermine the plight of those incarcerated, or mean less reason to liberate them, pushing these myths threatens to erase the very real every day victims of the carceral state who face torture, physical violence and starvation amongst other human rights abuses. So too does spotlighting the intervention of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in Rocky’s case threaten to erase the grassroots activists and theorists who have championed prison reform and abolition for decades. Kardashian’s found passion for prison reform has been met with scepticism, criticised not unjustly as residing with the same behaviour of celebrity philanthropy.
Championing individual cases, and making fanfare out of them as in the case of A$AP, ultimately cannot complete the necessary work to encourage real structural reform. Ultimately, wherever your personal political compass directs you, it’s undeniable that Rocky’s case is not being used to bring about necessary conversations about the prison industrial complex. The pandemonium of celebrity intervention, fanfare, myth and narratives show that this is ultimately about helping a wealthy celebrity escape justice, as wealthy celebrities frequently attempt to do.
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Still, there are black male celebrities – such as Meek Mill and Jay-Z – who have become creditable advocates for criminal justice reform and their work continues to be invaluable. Nothing is to say, also, that we should ignore or dismiss cases black celebrities are involved in – there is, in fact, much to celebrate this month following the overturn of Meek Mill’s 2008 conviction in a drug and gun case that has kept him on probation for over a decade.
We should, however, always remain unapologetically alert, always remain sceptical of those who attempt to bandwagon off of movements they once themselves labelled as “bandwagons” and ensure that the momentum we are gaining on our conversations of justice are not disturbed. Do not get distracted by the self-interest of those who care more about saving their individual asses and less about the state oppressions that continue to impinge on the civil liberties of black folks.
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