the one woman apollo!

i tend not to write much about ‘internet culture’ as a whole, as i don’t follow the ins and outs of it; therefore it would make little sense for me to speak in depth on it. However, there is a particular series of sentences i heard within the past day or two that disturbed my spirit and shook me to my core.

"For me, I look at it like this.  Y'all are acting like y'all not men.  If this was a woman, I would've just either typed up an apology or sat here and read out a script.  If it was a woman...  And I know y'all would be like, 'Who cares if it's a woman or a man??!!...  It's just how it happens when it comes to men....  That's the only thing I could kinda be like, 'Bro, y'all are treating this kid like this is a female that _______ have cornered and victimized...  When I was in high school, yeah, my friends who might have been older was like, 'Damn dog, you ain't do blah blah blah yet?'  That was a kind of conversation...  I didn't look at that as predatory.  I didn't look at it as 'Oh this guy is weird 'cause he's asking me 'Oh, oh you like this girl and you ain't fucked her yet?  I didn't look at it as that, but I get it; we're in this era where everything' is...'s a little bit weird to people.  If the majority of the people in the world wanna say, 'Oh yeah, no no, that's weird, you can't ask young men about if they've lost their virginity' or if they would do blah blah blah...  Especially if you have like a, you know, if you have like a big bro, little bro situation- Okay, I get it.  I'm not tripping.  But historically with me, I've seen that where that's not that big of a deal.  And I guess maybe that's why I didn't respond or even think about the situation in that type of way, because I'm like, it's not like we're saying this to a female; we're saying this to a dude.  He also doesn't live in this country.  We're jonesing on him: 'Bro, you not fucking bitches? Yo, you not doing this?'  Now i've realized that we're in such a woke era, that these guys are saying that jonesing on a male about sex; granted yes, underage, is grooming.  I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm gonna cool off being in any type of space with these guys."    

Please take this in, then read it again and comprehend why it is crucial to not ignore this.

For those who are not aware, Livingston Allen- better known as DJ Akademiks, has faced massive amounts of backlash after he (and others) attempted to force a 15 year old (whose pseudonym is NourGxd) into discussing topics of a sexual nature, which obviously made NourGxd uncomfortable. Despite his protests (and multiple acknowledgements of his age), Akademiks and others on the call continued to push. At one point he asks, “You’re telling me there’s not another 15-year-old you could buss down?” One person stated they would send strippers to his house. Plaqueboymax is the person who’s page Nour moderates, and in the midst of this conversation there was the suggestion that Nour could gain experience with Max’ sister, who is an adult.

i want to commend Nour for practicing situational awareness, and holding his ground against people who appear to find sexual harassment of not only unwilling participants virtuous, but a minor.

While the bulk of the backlash is due to Nour’s age; while i do hope this isn’t the case, i cannot say if the critique generally has moved beyond that.

After he was banned from Twitch and (allegedly) lost a sponsorship, Livingston stated that his actions “Definitely” created “a regrettable moment, and we’re going to use it as a teachable moment. Because I don’t think I’ve came this far, built this platform, to be that irresponsible, right?” Despite whatever regrets he may carry (sincere or not), is it plausible to believe that this person (who has a biomathematics degree from Rutgers University) has learned anything from this, given his experiential take of it being “not that big of a deal.”?

Historically, African people were sold and forced to breed by people who stole and enslaved them. Historically, people faced state violence for just existing. Historically, there were Japanese internment camps. There were forced relocations. There were death camps. There were many things historically that had mass sociopolitical support. Simultaneously, there were always those who actively resisted.

i can guarantee that a person like Livingston Allen doesn’t advocate for chattel slavery; that said, i cannot be sure if he’s necessarily in opposition to state violence, as past YouTube channels he created in 2014- Crime Fails and The War in Chiraq– served as an exploitative mediator between popular culture and the carceral state. Perhaps this is the historical materialist in me, but if you are going to appeal to history as your rationale for an unwillingness to change, then remorse is primarily a means of reacting to the backlash you’ve received.

Livingston’s trajectory is unsettling, because there are multiple levels of biological determinism he utilizes in both his appeal to history, as well as how he’s presented himself on the internet. It can be difficult to grasp because he’s done it in a way that people, by proxy, associate with ‘hip hop culture’. But frankly, on some level there isn’t much of a distinction between what he does, and what hardcore right wing and fascist formations do, save his complexion.

What makes what he does even more dangerous is that, as descendants of both colonizers and the colonized, the majority of us are conditioned to perform similar levels of biological and cultural determinism, some of us even acting it out. i have seen quite a few people attributing his behavior to the fact that he is Jamaican, and due to this, he should be deported. It goes without saying that thinking the behaviors of a few are indicative of the area of the world they are from is illogical because again, there are always going to be people who resist cultural and sociopolitical norms. Also, if one’s behavior is due to being Jamaican, you would then have to reckon with Jamaica being the recipient of British colonization.

It also goes without saying that the second portion of these sentiments is troubling, in that they echo a certain ‘American exceptionalism’, whether conscious or not. In advocating for deportation of someone who performs the same levels of toxic behavior as many who were born and raised here not only neglects to examine the origin of this behavior; but it is confirmation of the lack of our collective organization and political education. i hold no doubts that a percentage of people among this group advocate for the current wave of mass deportations that are occurring as well.

Nour, the young person who was sexually harassed and bullied by Livingston Allen and his associates on a Discord call, is Palestinian (a place that, in case one has forgotten, is currently experiencing a genocide, where ceasefires are unsurprisingly being violated), currently residing in Malaysia. In the course of his life he’s also experienced the loss of his mother. While i don’t think the geographical location is integral to discussing why Livingston’s behavior was atrocious; there was seemingly an insinuation that any pushback from Nour- a person who appears to spend significant time on the internet, as he moderates a Discord page- was due to his inability to fathom ‘American male humor’.

The primary qualification of ‘American male humor’ is its promotion of hierarchical structures of power. Jocular on its surface; from Asian men being de-sexualized to the ‘don’t drop the soap’ winks and nods, it relies on the more insidious tropes of misogyny (and all which fall under it), racism and xenophobia to fuel its punchlines. The level of peacocking displayed by Livingston and his associates as a means to get a rise out of Nour is the type of thing that got many a laugh out of people in various comedic films in the 80s and 90s. When Livingston taunted Nour with the question, “(I)f (Plaqueboymax) said he wanted to try fucking a dude, will you let him fuck you?,” Nour responded that he is not gay. In turn, Livingston retorts (in the form of a question), “Why not? Yo, suppose he’s like your bro, ‘Listen, you always wanted me to be next to you, now I can be inside of you.’ “

We must move beyond the simplistic reasoning that asking such questions means the person who asked the question is gay. Making assumptions about one’s orientation (with situations like this in particular) ultimately trivializes the clarity of these questions being asked, in which the objective is to establish a hierarchy. These questions (and the exchange in general) were to be seen as a rite of passage for Nour. If he passes the test, then he can become a man in the eyes of the group.

The response to Livingston at this time appears similar to the responses given for both Sean Combs and R(obert) Kelly. Their behaviors have been known to be abusive; in fact, Livingston recently faced accusations of his own. In this society, allegations (or even evidence) of assault of women don’t always warrant cessation of sponsorships or removal of platforms; however, when the accused’s behavior is to have been found unbecoming in relation to young boys, it becomes a sort of angered comedic fodder- hence, the spate of passing ‘No Diddy’ comments, as a modern replacement for the unfortunate ‘No homo.’ The ultimate message is that abusive behavior towards young boys (when you are a man) is an affront to the hierarchy of cis-hetero masculinity, rarely addressing the abuse in and of itself.

If the abuse in and of itself were actually confronted, we would not, for instance lionize the film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song for being a positively transgressive work of art, when the opening scene is literally Melvin Van Peebles sexually exploiting his son on camera. (Ultimately, like with That’s The Way Of The World, the quality of Earth Wind & Fire (before the fame)’s soundtrack heavily surpasses that of Van Peebles’ film).

If the abuse in and of itself were actually being confronted, the video of R(obert) Kelly urinating on a teenage girl would not have been passed around en masse as entertainment. i am also going to posit that if Michael Jackson publicly presented himself as traditionally masculine and spent similar time with young girls as he did with boys, he would obviously be met with some resistance (though not with as much frequency), but he would not be the punching bag to a comedic lightning round. While this did not make him immune from toxic behaviors; from reading his book (as well as interviews), it appears that Michael’s constructed persona was in opposition to the hypermasculine, stoic patriarch of Joseph Jackson, who discouraged his children from calling him ‘Dad’. Michael even talked about how Joseph and his older brothers would (allegedly) have sex with ‘groupies’ while he and brother Marlon would pretend to be asleep. Because of his constructed persona, as far back as the late 1970s (and long before the abuse accusations), Michael Jackson was assumed to be gay- one publicized (unfounded) rumor being that he was in a partnership with actor Clifton Davis, who wrote the Jackson 5 song ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’.

There is a quote famously attributed to Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

When Livingston Allen claims to show remorse for his recent actions, this doesn’t align with his overall response, which is that showing concern for a young person who is clearly the recipient of harassment is ‘woke’, and equitable to concern for a ‘female’. Because of course, concern for the well-being of a child is an inherent feminine trait which ‘real men’ should not be participating in. ‘Real men’ engage in subjugation/domination, and should never devalue their worth by displaying vulnerability.

The fact he admits that his form of an apology to a woman or young girl would be the composition of a script is to me, an ample demonstration of his lack of sincerity in apologetics. It’s clear that, without pressure, he never felt the need to apologize, so having one which is prepared is used as a means to stave off further accountability.

What he did was indeed a form of grooming; but similar to the assumptions made around orientation based on these actions, it is imperative we look beyond conventional conversations around grooming in this day and age. The fact that Livingston and his associates idealized the concept of ‘boys being boys’- that is, putting people in situations they did not consent to- perpetuates the notion that children can never be children, in its truest sense. The fact that it is deemed unfavorable for a boy to not have had intercourse by the age of 15 (or at least thinking about planning to do it) says a lot. The fact that girls are demonized and shamed if they have had sex at that age means that the expectation is for boys (who cannot be with girls their age because said girls are supposed to be virgins), if they are going to be men, to have sex with women.

Women. Adult women.

Nour was not being groomed simply for the pleasure of the men who engaged with him on the call; the grooming was for them, a preparation; a ‘masterclass’ of sorts, for ensuring he learns to uphold the hierarchies expected upon him. As a matter of fact, the response to the criticism was essentially, ‘The kid started it.’ Allen and his associates maintained that they, men in their 30s, needed to match Nour, a 15 year old kid’s energy. While some may refuse to interpret it in this way, their rationalizations fall adjacent to rape culture. Despite a clearly uncomfortable Nour telling the adults in the room to chill, the adults continued; not unlike a person who was previously okay with sex, now wanting to stop- and the other person is not listening to that request.

According to his bullies, this child started it (aka wearing an armor of weakness/feminine traits), so he was deserving of how he was treated.

The harassment of this child occurred because a few things he said were assumed to be ‘gay,’ and of course, the adults in the room are not gay. They had to prove a point to show who was the ‘real man’ in the room. The role of peacocking in cases like this, as is every level of assault, is to enact domination onto those you deem weaker. It is purely about asserting power.

And as we admonish Livingston Allen and his associates for their behaviors; we need to engage in self-reflection/self-criticism for our own participation in or acquiescence to the environments and systems which enabled a DJ Akademiks.