Who remembers when rapper Young Jeezy first came out on the national scene around the year 2005? Who remembers Young Jeezy’s infamous “Snowman” t-shirt? Who remembers countless black parents buying their kids that t-shirt when the parents more than likely knew exactly what that snowman stood for? Who remembers countless black children wearing that snowman t-shirt that more than likely their parents bought them? Who remembers schools banning kids from wearing that t-shirt because of what that snowman actually meant?
Who remembers black people being up in arms over black children wearing these snowman t-shirts? I don’t and neither do you.
So why am I bringing this up? Simple.
All over the internet black people are up in arms over Swedish clothing company H&M dressing a young black boy up in a hoodie that had the words “Coolest Monkey In The Jungle” screen printed on the front of the hoodie. Knee grows are so outraged that singer The Weeknd decided to cancel his merchandising & modeling contract with H&M. Sean “Diddy” Combs allegedly offered the kid some type of modeling contract (at least that’s what I heard…I can’t confirm that). And like usual, knee grows all over social media are in a frenzy over the latest white company to demonstrate that they know absolutely shit about black peoples’ feels. So now it’s time to bring on the boycotts, as if niggas actually shopped at H&M any damn ways.
Anyways, where was all of this anger over these snowman t-shirts? For the non-urban crowd (mainly white people), that snowman t-shirt meant that you were about that crack/cocaine drug dealing lifestyle. Snowman: snow is a slang term for the word cocaine in case you didn’t now. So back in 2005ish, there were herds of young black kids all over the damn country wearing Young Jeezy’s snowman t-shirt to the point where schools began banning that t-shirt from their campuses once the schools learned the meaning of the snowman. But the problem is, it was these black children’s own damn parents who were the ones buying this damn shirt who more than likely knew exactly what that snowman stood for. And if anybody tries to come on here and say some dumb shit like, “Well, maybe the parents didn’t know”…you’s a fucking liar. Young Jeezy was the biggest rapper out at the time all over the damn tv, radio, magazines…everywhere. Everybody knew what that snowman stood for and if you didn’t, all you had to do was listen to just one of his songs and you would immediately discover the meaning.
But here’s the problem…what’s worse: a European company dressing a black child up in a hoodie calling him a monkey or a rapper who celebrates the crack/cocaine drug dealing lifestyle who convinced countless black parents to buy his snowman t-shirt to adorn their children in so these kids could represent that crack/cocaine drug dealing lifestyle as well?