Many of us have grown to love the teachings of Brother Polight author of over 90+ books, dynamic lecturer, and savvy businessman. Many of us who consider ourselves a part of the “black conscious” community have gained a great deal of knowledge from celebrity mentor and public speaker Brother Polight.
But his latest Internet activity has left many thinking “what’s really going on with Brother Polight”?
Earlier this week, Brother Polight conducted two social experiments where he posted images of him with a photo of two different non-African-American women. Almost immediately he received backlash from mostly women of color for his controversial experiment.
The first post was a photo of him and playboy model @jillisaylnn with her wearing an African print mini dress. In the post Polight asked the public #CanBeckyWearAfricanAttire. He further asked “Is it wrong to get the white women in African Attire? Will the Black man get love for his influence or will you condemn him and call it treason to have “Becky” in African garb? Do we set the trends and limit other races or is it free for all on the African Market” He ended the post by saluting @Jillislynn for rocking the dress and helping push Afro-centric fashion.
The next day he posted another post of him with another Caucasian woman and the caption read, “Can I allow this woman to love me? She treats me so good and loves me because of my dark skin. She tells me how beautiful I am because of my African features. How Dare Her! Thanks #Christine.
He ends the post asking the public two questions:
Question 1: Should I curse out non-black women for treating me nice?
Question 2. If I show a non-black woman love, does it mean I hate the black woman?
Now we all know Brother Polight isn’t afraid to shake things up a bit when it comes to helping elevate the lives of others especially the lives of black people through his platform. And until Brother Polight can address fully his method behind this social experiment many are left to assume their own interpretation of the cryptic message he was sending out.
Many of his followers along with his faithful legion of social media trolls went in on him with thousands of comments displaying anger and disappointment in Polight’s message. Many people felt that Brother Polight was being hypocritical of his “The Black Woman is God” philosophy, by glorifying a white woman on his social media page, others viewed his activity as “selling out” to white people and a traitor to his community. This isn’t the first time Polight’s loyalty to the Black community has been in question. Polight rise to money, power, and popularity has helped him cross over into a mainstream audience that has left his beloved “black conscious” community feeling concerned.
3 days after posting the first #CanBeckyWearAfricanAttire post, Brother Polight posted a video sharing some history behind dashiki fashions. In this, he explains that the pattern is a Dutch inspired garment that was exposed to West African slaves. The style was brought back to West Africa where it has been mass produced all over the world as authentic African Attire.
This entire experiment resulted in a lot of unhappy responses, but it has also sparked some very serious dialogue among African Americans.
Is it wrong for Caucasians to wear African fashions especially when African Americans can profit from it? Or should Caucasians be condemned for wanting to wear African Fashions no matter who is profiting?
It should be no surprise to anyone that Caucasians throughout their existence have taken the customs of other cultures and have made them their own. And now with capitalism, it is easy to profit millions of dollars off of anything especially the African culture.
“It’s just good business” as they say, this is probably what Polight was trying to convey in his unorthodox approach, #CanBeckyWearAfricanAttire?
Do you believe this social experiment was more damaging to his platform than it was helpful?
