This is brilliant! You really hit the nail on the head. Bait felt incredibly disingenuous and unfortunately speaks to a wider pattern of South Asians on TV that attempt to buy into the White establishment whilst exploiting Blackness, Black cultural movements and revolutionary politics as their "in." Ahmed is notorious for not saying the quiet part out loud and a lot of his original work and music is predicated on appropriating stereotypes used against Black people to fuel his own racial existentialism.
You know I was reluctant to zero in on Ahmed’s particular history of political blackness and racial politics largely because I thought it’d be impossible to do without it appearing like a hit-piece, which I’m not super interested in doing, but after reading your comment, I think it would’ve been helpful to contextualise Bait by exploring his activism and social justice more deeply. I honestly might edit my essay to do this tbh.
This is brilliant! You really hit the nail on the head. Bait felt incredibly disingenuous and unfortunately speaks to a wider pattern of South Asians on TV that attempt to buy into the White establishment whilst exploiting Blackness, Black cultural movements and revolutionary politics as their "in." Ahmed is notorious for not saying the quiet part out loud and a lot of his original work and music is predicated on appropriating stereotypes used against Black people to fuel his own racial existentialism.
You know I was reluctant to zero in on Ahmed’s particular history of political blackness and racial politics largely because I thought it’d be impossible to do without it appearing like a hit-piece, which I’m not super interested in doing, but after reading your comment, I think it would’ve been helpful to contextualise Bait by exploring his activism and social justice more deeply. I honestly might edit my essay to do this tbh.
Bond is a relic of pulp novels and short stories, all of which were based on the imperial fantasies of racists like Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft.
Contemporarily, pulp fiction was considered borderline pornography and dishonorable to be involved in.
Phenomenal