Nora Lum, a Chinese-American entertainer who goes by the stage name Awkwafina, has been getting a lot of flack for using slang that originated in the African-American community. Some people call it "cultural appropriation". She's been pressured to apologize by "woke" cultural segregationists on Twitter who think she should only do things from her ancestral culture. She shouldn't apologize at all!
But she's just doing what the Wu Tang Clan has been doing for decades, incorporating Chinese influences in their music, even though none of them are of Chinese or any Asian ancestries. They are deemed creative geniuses by many in the hip-hop community.
If Wu Tang Clan member Ol Dirty Bastard (ODB) was still alive, I think he would be making songs and videos with Awkwafina. It would be classic.
I think it would be cool if Wu Tang Clan would invite her on stage and have her recite ODB's rhymes with them. That would also be classic!
It's time to praise cultural integration.
It's time to defend cultural integration.
People of different backgrounds should be able to come together to share common interests and share each other's slang. We will never have peace in this world until this happens on a widescale basis.
As the late great Rodney King once said in the midst of chaos, "Can't we all just get along?"
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PS: check out this classic blog post from last year, in response to "woke" pansies mad at Billie Eillish and Olivia Rodrigo for using slang they learned from hip-hop.
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2021/08/use-whatever-slang-you-want.html
