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Snoop, Oprah, and the Hypocrisy of Hip Hop
Rap’s ride-or-die ethic shouldn’t benefit only straight black men.
Oprah Winfrey’s Roaring Twenties are off to a pretty rough start.
Her revival of the Oprah Book Club is already mired in controversy due to a polarizing first choice: American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Critics have slammed Winfrey’s explicit endorsement of the novel, which chronicles the flight of a Mexican mother and her 8-year-old son to the U.S. after a drug cartel murders their entire family, accusing it of Latino stereotyping and lacking authenticity and depth.
Fueling the ire: Many in the Latino community consider Cummins to be an outsider, a woman born in Spain and raised in Maryland who identifies as both white and Latina. As far as her detractors are concerned, she’s swerved too far outside of her own lane, and by helping to turn her work into a bestseller, Winfrey is complicit in its alleged cultural appropriation.
Then there is the Russell Simmons problem. Winfrey pulled out of executive-producing On the Record, an Apple TV+ documentary about the sexual assault allegations against the hip hop mogul, citing a lack of balanced reporting. Some suspect she dropped out due to pressure from Simmons, but she’d already made enemies, including rapper 50 Cent, by being linked to the…
