The College Fix

‘Large booties were not mainstream until they were accepted by white media’ 

There’s a popular expression nowadays among women: Strong is the new skinny. With the CrossFit craze and just an all-around celebration of athletic, healthy bodies, gone are the days when a rail-thin look was considered attractive. The trend toward muscles is firmly established.

But the fact that many white women are doing so many squats that their booties are bouncing is an offense to a student at CU Boulder who claims the widespread celebration of voluptuous booties is apparently proof of “white privilege.”

A student opinion column in CU Boulder’s CU Independent by a self-described “product of a white and Japanese mother marrying my black father” made such an argument:

White people use black/Latino slang, they listen to our music, they draw on our lips, buy our asses, spray on our skin, wear Timberlands, wear fake nails — but they do so from the throne of white privilege. They consume our cultures without the consequences of stereotyping we face. When a person of color does any of these things, they’re seen as “ghetto” or “ratchet,” words we know are coded for too-black or too-brown.

Women with large breasts and butts have been sexualized since white people saw black women in Africa; Sara Baartman was famously taken from Africa and displayed as a freak show around Europe for her “exotic” body type. Large booties were not mainstream until they were accepted by white media — white girls now aim for the fake Kylie Jenner body that Jennifer Lopez and Serena Williams have always had. Men have made the “white girls are evolving” meme popular because they want the ass but not the black or Latina girl that comes with it. …

When white people consume other cultures at the same time they devalue people of color, use white models, say appropriation does not exist and are ignorant of the history of the hairstyle, music or word, it is not appreciation — it is appropriation.

So just add big booties to the very long list of things while people have been accused of culturally appropriating, along with braids and hoop earrings.

MORE: Black student who attacked white student for his dreadlocks is under investigation

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