We’re Taking It Back: An Open Letter To Stacey Dash Following Her Comments On Jesse Williams And The 2016 BET Awards

Dear Stacey Dash:

We want our Blackness back.

For what seems like the umpteenth time this year, you have disregarded your own kind. You have come out in full swing, full opposition, and full ridiculousness against us and Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, one of the few fighters we still have left; a fighter who, in spite of his light complexion and blue eyes, is unapologetically Black. He is ours, Stacey, and he proved it tenfold (and then some) during that night at the 2016 BET Awards — a night that you, once again, have somehow failed to understand the necessity of, in spite of your own stumble-filled journey up and down the streets of Hollywood.

We want our Blackness back.

For what seems like the umpteenth time this year, you have allowed your position at FOX News Channel to warp your mind into a Donald Trump defending, transgender bashing, misogynistic spewing, anti-queer, anti-intelligent, anti-Black, anti-human of a being. You have become the inverse of anything and everything you were ever meant to be in this world, Ms. Dash, and somehow you are still given a platform that other people with common sense, common decency, and common kinship are far more deserving of. You make us sick with your words of hate, your ideas of segregation, and your overall presence in the media.

We want our Blackness back.

For what seems like the umpteenth time this year, you have forgotten that the people who watch BET – the ones whom you continually show disdain for – are the ones that once helped you to pay bills — and according to certain reports, you once had quite a bit of them to pay, but we digress. And no, we’re not just talking about your role on The Game or that Kanye West video you did, or the Rick Ross video you did, or the Marques Houston video you did, or even that Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson video you did from that Damon Wayans movie you were in (yes, girl, we remember that, too). Nah, those would be too easy to bring up.

Actually, Stacey, we’re talking about the role of Dionne in Clueless, a role that you were hired for solely because of your Black face; a face that, in turn, was supposed to lead a charge of Black movie goers to movie theaters around the world in order to watch a mostly-white (shout out to Donald Faison!) film about a mostly white, teen lifestyle.

We want our Blackness back.

For what seems like the umpteenth time this year, this month, this day, and this second, you still don’t actually get it — the most ironic and hypocritical thing of all when it comes to you, Ms. Stacey Dash, formerly of entertainment relevance and current possessor of never-ending ignorance. You still don’t see that Jesse Williams, a man who you’ve singled out as a “Hollywood plantation slave,” was actually speaking to you as well during the 2016 BET Awards.

In case you need a little more help — and we’re sure you do, since there’s no way you would ever recognize realness — here’s what we’re talking about:

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.”

Do you see it now, Stacey Dash? Do you get it? You, former Black actress Stacey Dash, are one of the worst pieces — if not the overall worst piece — of the invention Jesse was talking about that night at the BET Awards. For years, you have made a name, a job, a salary and a life out of the benefits of our skin color, our collective voice, our creations, our frame of mind, our essence, our power — our beautiful, bold, and breathtaking power — and have done so not just as a woman of color, but a woman of Blackness. A woman of Blackness who has proven, for the umpteenth and final time, that she is wholly and unconditionally undeserving of that Blackness. And so, we’re taking every bit of it back.

Consider your Blackness repossessed, returned to sender and recycled for future use by someone who will know what to do with it. Do not pass the hood, do not collect your reparations. We are done with you, Stacey Dash. We are taking our Blackness back and everything that goes with it. Goodbye, good riddance, and good luck with your future endeavors — trust us when we say, you’re gonna need it.

Insincerely yours,
The Black Community

P.S. Please let Raven-Symoné know she’s next on the list to return her Blackness. No, in case you were wondering, we haven’t forgotten about her.

[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]