Hallo Readers,
Two weeks after George Floyd died, demonstrations continue across the US and across the world. His killing has turned on a universal switch. People of colour are not prepared to see what happened to Floyd, and to many others before him, keep happening. They are tired of hearing about ‘bad apples’ and ‘things must change’. They are tired of seeing black men and women choked to death when arrested for not dimming their car lights, or for allegedly passing a dodgy $20 bill, or seeing them shot to death in their own apartments. They are tired of police officers getting away with murder. They are tired of being tired. And they are tired of us, the liberal white people, sympathising and asserting how we, the liberal white people, are not racist and how we feel their pain. Because talk is cheap, and they want more than words – they want change. And the liberal white people get it and they are also tired.
What came out of Floyd’s death was the glimmer of understanding for us liberal white people of what it is like to be black in America, and, in particular, what it is like to be a black male in America. And the word is frightening. Frightening to see a cop approaching you, even if you are doing nothing wrong. Frightening to walk through a nice neighbourhood, even if you live in it. Frightening to drive a nice car, even if you own it. Because there is a good chance that you will be stopped, and a chance that you may be shot or you may be arrested and choked to death, whether you are resisting arrest or not. And you know that the chances are that unless someone is filming the incident, or even if they are, your family will not get justice. The police will cover it up. The DA will be reluctant to prosecute because he or she knows that the might of the Police Union will sweep him or her out of elected office. The jury will be reluctant to prosecute because it wants to believe that the police really are there to support and serve. And so you become one more statistic on CNN and MSNBC, while Fox presenters and Twitter suggest that you are scum and that you had it coming.
But perhaps not this time. Perhaps the sight of Floyd fighting for his last breath and calling for his mother, played and replayed on your TV and iPhone, has genuinely triggered a movement for change. And not just in the US. And while you can argue that a pandemic is not the right time to cram together with or without masks, and whilst it is true that some people were just there to make trouble, the fact is that most people have been moved and angered and disgusted by Floyd’s plight. Perhaps Covid 19 has made us all realise how a chance encounter can take your life. But whatever it is, please God it prompts us all down a different and better path – and Donald Trump out of office.
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We need a laugh, and here it comes. This week, our fashion retrospective is rude rapper Nicki Minaj, the gift that keeps on giving. Feast your eyes on these sartorial shockers. WARNING – You are advised to have the number of a healthcare professional on speed dial.
We begin in April 2012 where Nicki roamed around London wearing this. Whatever this was.
Do not adjust your eyeballs. This really was an actual thing, as if Big Bird with tits and too short a skirt had got its head stuck inside a kaleidoscope.
A better title might have been Barbie Goes Bonkerz. Apparently, Nicki is obsessed by Barbie, calling her fans ‘Barbz’. And what are those boots? She seemed to have been cemented into a brick wall in a flamingo enclosure.
May 2014 saw Nicki at a Memorial Day Event at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, wearing a most remarkable ensemble.
Who knew renown Dutch graphic artist M C Escher designed rapper outfits? WTF certainly didn’t. It is unsurprising that Nicki chose to keep her large sunglasses on, in case she caught a glimpse of herself. One hopes there was a minion nearby with a jumbo pack of Tylenol.
In October 2015, Nicki was at a TIDAL event wearing a giant cobweb and tit tape.
One can only surmise that after reading Charlotte’s Web, Nicki decided to make an X-rated version and pitched up at TIDAL to seek out some backers. There is another explanation of course, namely that she was barking mad. WTF is voting for option 2.
In October 2016, Nicki attended an American football game dressed like this.
Most people attend sporting events in jeans, tee-shirt, sweater and maybe a team scarf. Not Nicki….I mean, dressing as a dominatrix madea whole load of sense, right? Right? No, it didnt. It was insane.
March 2017 saw Nicki in Paris Fashion Week wearing a Mugler jacket and shorts by Givenchy. Careful now…..
The shorts were scrummy. The jacket was scummy, even if it had not also featured her tit bared to the world with a nipple pasty like an ultra-shiny band-aid. Mind you, Mugler may not have designed the jacket with tittage in mind. She was also wearing ski-goggles, the purpose of which was not immediately apparent. Still, Sir Peter Lely would have approved. He was doing the one-tit look in 1618.
In August 2017, Nicky attended the VMAs wearing a latex onesie by Vex.
Like a shocking pink blow-up sex doll. Classy.
August 2018 saw Nicki at the VMAs, wearing Off White.
There is apparently a craze for turning up to fancy dress parties dressed as a condom. Yes really. Nicky was dressed as a swimsuit in a condom, complete with My Little Pony Hair.
September 2018 and Nicki was at Milan Fashion Week, wearing Fendi.
You can tell it was Fendi because it had Fendi printed all over it like a stick of seaside rock. As for the sweater, it sported that vile trend of under boob, although had she raised her arms even a teeny, tiny, bit, it would have been a case of boob boob.
This next one is very very bad. It is from 2019 with her then boyfriend, now husband, Kenneth Petty.
Oh Lord. I just can’t…Next!
Finally, we find ourselves in October 2019 at Milan Fashion Week, again wearing Fendi.
The good news is that she was wearing more than she usually does. The bad news is that she encased herself in some security grilles and had a kilo of carrots on her head.
We have Nicki Barbie, and now this week’s It’s Got To Go is Propaganda Barbie, aka White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Having promised not to lie, not even at all, the devoutly Christian Propaganda Barbie immediately slipped into lying mode and has stayed in that lane without deviation or hesitation. Fresh from her triumph last week, when she compared Trump’s bible-waving stunt outside St John’s Church in Washington to Churchill visiting bombed-out Londoners during the Blitz, this week she defended her boss’ claim that a 75-year-old cancer victim, who was knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo, NY, had set the whole thing up and given himself a subdural hematoma, and the next day described Trump as someone with ‘the African-American community very near and dear to his heart’. Like he has a heart. And even if he did, which he doesn’t, the only things near and dear to it are Ivanka and a Big Mac with fries. She’s Got To Go.
OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Do keep those comments coming in, which keep WTF cheery. And please do not forget both your excellent suggestions for It’s Got To Go and your nominations for the fashion retrospectives. Let us meet again next Friday. Be good, STAY INDOORS IF YOU CAN AND WASH YOUR HANDS x
God, yes. She’s got to go. Her boss has got to go. His other Barbies have got to go. His Gollum, who sometimes wears felt or something on his baldness, has got to go. All of them, every last one, all the way down to his pet Turtle, they have all Got To Go.
Maintenance? Clean up. On *all* the aisles.