Can African-Americans claim Kim Kardashian?
OPINION - Regardless of her obvious shortcomings, Kim Kardashian's stuck around our collective public perception like a bad STD...
I, like most women (and perhaps most people), didn’t care for Kim Kardashian when she first made her debut on the celebutant scene. If your biggest claim to fame is having a big ass and making a sex tape with Ray J, that much does not a celebrity make.
Regardless of her obvious shortcomings, Kim Kardashian’s stuck around our collective public perception like a bad STD. And though it’d be great to take a neat little pill and pretend it was a one-night-only ordeal, I’ve come to the slow sad recognition that little Kimmie may just be here to stay. So if she’s going to hang around black people, maybe we should at least start claiming her? Thus, in the grand tradition of Dave Chappelle’s “race draft”, here are a few reasons why we should consider drafting Kim Kardashian.
1. She likes black people — and who doesn’t?
Every white celeb wants to call on a black friend for street cred, and usually Will Smith or Diddy are more than willing to step up and be token. But Kim really and genuinely likes black people. She’s close friends with Serena Williams! She went to LaLa Vasquez’s wedding! Not to mention she loves black men. She counts Reggie Bush and Miles Austin as ex-boyfriends, and her first husband was black. Even her dad liked black people. Why else would he try to defend O.J. Simpson?
2. She can’t keep a man
You know the stereotype (and the statistics): black women don’t get married. We stay single because we’re too powerful, educated, bossy, b**chy, picky, easy, et cetera et cetera blah blah blah. While we can choose to be mad at Kim for dating some mighty fine black athletes, we have to bear this in mind – no one has liked it enough to put a ring on it. So in that way, she’s not very different from a lot of other thirty-something black women. She might be the arm candy, but when it comes to the “hallowed” second finger left hand, she struggles like everyone else.
Click here to view a slideshow of non-black stars with ‘ethnic’ assets
3. She’s built like a black girl
Yea I said it. Let’s face it — though we may not love the stereotype (and, as my booty can attest, it doesn’t happen for everyone), curvy figures were our thing. We had the market cornered on sizable rears for centuries, and then in the past few years big booties have been popping up everywhere, and earning white women acclaim on the red carpet. The only way we’re ever going to hold on to the stereotype of a coke bottle figure is if we recruit all the women who have homegrown black girl booties. Kim (like J-Lo) has hedged the majority of her celebrity on the junk in her trunk, and doggonit there’s no reason why we shouldn’t start claiming it too.
4. She supports black businesses
All joking aside (and please, eager commenters, bear in mind much of the above is in jest), you have to respect Kim’s industrious business acumen. Of all the aspiring “accidental”-sex-tape-come-fauxlebrities, Kardashian has by far spun her 45 minutes under the lens with Ray J into a full-blown and branded enterprise. Amongst her many business deals are a clothing line, perfume, jewelry line, workout DVD, sunless tanner, and not to mention tons of endorsement deals, netting her an estimated $6 million this year alone. Kim’s latest endeavor is her own line of watches, which she is making in collaboration with the LA-based Brissmor Watch Company.
And as it turns out, this company is black owned! Of all the many watch companies who would probably love to work with a Kardashian, Kim chose to work with a company owned and operated by her (soon to be) own people. Seeing as the black dollar only stays in the community for eight hours before leaving for whiter pastures, it’s good to know that Kim is helping to send a little more cash flow our way.
Of course, the choice is not my own. It takes a village to raise an honorary black person. So what say you — can we start claiming Kim Kardashian?
