An open letter to black people from a white woman is bound to ruffle a few feathers.
YouTuber Nicole Arbour dipped into some not-so-PC waters with her latest video, “Dear White People.” Taking on the white people perspective on topics such as cultural appropriation, the n-word and stereotypes, Arbour straddled the line of comical and offensive, holding no punches as she attempted to “make light” of very heavy racial tensions. As for whether or not white women are “stealing” their style from black women, Arbour admitted black “s**t is just cooler.”
“Can we just get on this whole ‘appropriation of black culture’ thing, right now? Your s**t is just cooler. Black girls can we talk about your nails for a second? I’m not trying to ‘appropriate’ and ‘steal,’ I just f***ing like it. They’re long, and they’re gorgeous, and you f***ing stick anything that you find on your nails.”
Arbour offered playful banter about white people’s lack of tolerance for spices, black people’s “appropriation of all things white” with Starbucks, and even the stereotype of the well-endowed black man. In discussing Drake’s use of the n-word, she requested that it be removed from “the best hip-hop songs,” as a favor to white people.
“I know the n-word is a really bad word – like, don’t ever say it – but can you please do white people a favor and stop putting the n-word in the best hip-hop songs? I feel like black people are watching me in the club, waiting to see what I’ll do when that word comes.”
There was a point when Arbour went a little far, however. And that was when she brought up the Ku Klux Klan.
“What the KKK do and have done in the history of the world, is completely f***ed up and not okay. However, they are proof that the white people invented the hoodie.”
Yeah, stop right there, Nicole Arbour. Watch her full “Dear White People” video below: