I was eating breakfast by myself the other day when two black girls sat down at the opposite end of the long cafeteria table. I picked at my hash browns and scrambled eggs and skimmed over my school's excuse for a newspaper while they talked. I wasn't listening to their conversation until I heard one of them mention the word "FUBU." Slowly, conspicuously, my eyes veered off to the side just in time to catch a white guy walking by in a FUBU sweatshirt. When he passed, the girls exploded into a fit of laughter.
FUBU, in case you grew up in the suburbs like I did and are completely uncultured, is an acronym meaning "for us by us." The "us" naturally refers to African Americans. Well, perhaps not so naturally. The first time I heard the expression, I had to ask my brother who exactly "us" was; I originally thought it meant people who fork over way too much money for brand name clothing. But that's beside the point, which apparently is that FUBU is apparel made by blacks and is meant to be worn by blacks.
I honestly have no problem with this. I, personally, would not wear the FUBU brand. To be frank with you, I don't like the style and it would look absolutely ridiculous on me. When I see white kids strutting around wearing FUBU, I, too, get the uncontrollable urge to laugh. But what if I lost my mind and decided that I was going to invade on a clothing brand made expressly for blacks? Would that be so wrong?
According to the girls at my table it would be. "I don't understand why they have to intrude," one of them remarked, spitting out the word "they" as one might do with a bone in his tuna sandwich. "Can't they just let us have one thing to ourselves?"
"Yeah," the other girl replied, "FUBU is our cultural heritage, not theirs. You'd never see a non-Japanese person walking around in a Kimono or a Christian person wearing a yamaka."
While her friend agreed, I wanted to militantly disagree. I would say that I wanted to regurgitate scrambled eggs on this girl's tray, but that would probably be considered racist, what with me being white and all...so I'll just say I wanted to disagree. First of all, FUBU is not part of the African American culture. It's not "cultural heritage." FUBU was created in the 1992 by a black businessman who wanted to be rich. He knew that impressionable young teens would accept the FUBU concept as hip and stylish and spend lots of money for it. It's endorsed by singers, rappers and athletes.
Kimonos and yamakas aren't available in your nearest department store and advertised on TV. Does every FUBU commercial carry a disclaimer saying, "only available to black consumers?" Do you think Daymond John, CEO of the FUBU coorporation, wants to keep his apparel out of the hands of whites? Hell no, he doesn't. He'll sell it to anyone who has cash, check or credit card in hand. Who are these girls to decide that whites can't wear FUBU? Do they own the company? Do they make the clothes?
The official FUBU company website states, "It's about Pride and Respect in what you wear and who you are!" This is not an argument that only blacks should wear FUBU; it's an argument that no one should wear FUBU at all. Since when is clothing a symbol of pride and respect? If a black person couldn't afford FUBU clothes, or chose not to wear them, would he or she be disrespecting his race? One of my good friends, who happens to be black, shops at J. Crew and American Eagle...does this mean that she isn't proud of who she is? Of course not. It means that she doesn't feel the need to advertise a blatantly racist company across her chest by wearing FUBU clothing. Yes, that's another thing. FUBU is racist, because it promotes segregation and seperation. A "For Whites by Whites" company would be considered racist. "For Jews by Jews" would be considered religious discrimination. FUBU, by marketing itself to only blacks, is further seperating the African American race from our society.
This is the saddest fact of all--sadder, even, than the white boy strutting across the cafeteria with a FUBU sweatshirt and the waist of his jeans around his knees. Some of us, believe it or not, aren't racist. Some of us would like to interact with other races and make new and different friends. But this could only happen in a perfect society, and in a perfect society, there would be no FUBU.