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[Slow, seductive slurps of very expensive wine]
[Very expensive wine glass hitting table]
[Heavy negro spiritual sigh]
So let's talk about Jeffree star.
Now, this is not the first time I've actually talked about Jeffree star.
I made a video a couple of years ago when a lot of people were pulling up his old racist
videos. In that video, basically, I made the argument that we really can't judge people's
current feelings about racism based on these ten-year-old videos.
I also made the argument that, you know, Myspace was a different time, cause it truly
was.
I mean, it was definitely a time where lots of choices were made, but at the same time,
I said that we should actually interrogate him about how he currently feels.
Basically I made the argument that if the only black people in Jeffree Star's life are
there to make him money, that's not necessarily evidence that he's not a racist, right?
Now, hearing that y'all should be able to see that I gave him a lot of leeway.
I cut him a lot of slack.
Now what some of you guys might not know from just watching that video is that after I posted
that video Jeffree star filed a copyright claim against me.
It was one of the few times where I've had a video, literally just yanked off of YouTube.
It was one of the most upsetting experiences I've ever had on YouTube, right?
And of course I disputed it.
The video got reinstated, everything was copacetic and cool, but Jeffree star, even with me giving
him a very light criticism where I defended him low key, still, still tried to get my YouTube
channel deleted.
So I'll be honest, all the leeway that I gave him, I almost immediately regretted it because
he did not deserve it.
So in this video, I'm definitely going to be speaking really bluntly.
Now we know that we're not a drama channel over here.
This is not a drama channel.
We're not here to spill tea or dah, dah, dah.
If I have conversations like this on my channel, it's because I do believe there is a larger
message here, but I want to make it really clear that I'm not here to mince words.
So I want to start out by saying that I've known a lot of people like Jeffree Star.
People who believe that everyone they interact with is jealous or bitter or doesn't like them.
You know, people who have enemies everywhere, people who have this like revolving door of
friends that never stick around or leave as quickly as they came.
Like I've known so many people like this.
And when you get closer to people like that, you kind of start to understand that it's
not that everyone hates them and everyone's bitter and no one can stand them.
It's more that they're just toxic people.
People like Jeffree really require praise.
Right?
And whenever somebody goes just a little bit off script, a little bit off script, they've
gotta...
Either bump them off or butter them up to the point where they're back on the script.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think we saw that with a couple of people.
I mean, we saw that with Rich Lux who used to openly Jeffree star, but it's now seemingly
on his payroll, right?
And again, we're not a drama channel.
We're not here to talk about all the tea, but you guys can tell, I do watch...
some of the tea channels.
Now, listen, I want to give people credit where credit is due. Jeffree star, even though
he's been accused of being a terrible racist has been posting a lot about black lives matter.
He's been posting about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor.
And I think that that is actually a really great thing, but like a lot of these companies
who have come out and started to say these really positive things about black lives matter,
there have been some people who have decided to take this opportunity to call them out
for their own anti-blackness.
So in my first video, I basically say that we can't really judge Jeffree based on what
he did 10 years ago.
We have to judge him based on what he does today.
Well, recently, a person named tab who is a former friend of Jeffree star released this
video, where he goes into detail about some of the racist things that Jeffree star said
in his earshot.
So the story begins me coming up to the hotel room.
We were supposed to go see Gwen Stefani actually live in concert.
And basically she canceled the show.
So we were all figuring out what we're going to do for the night.
And I had stepped outside on the patio and Jeffree told me, you know, like, wow, I can't
believe she canceled the show and continued to say a very derogatory word towards Jewish
people.
It starts with a K. I'm not gonna repeat the word, but that's what he said.
And when we went to the store, we were looking at all this different stuff, all these different
bags or whatever, different wallets or whatever inside of the store.
And Jeffree had made a specific comment about illegal leathers and exotic animal skins that
are available at Hermes, but aren't legal in the state of Los Angeles.
And he had made a comment saying that the same mayor that's making exotics illegal
in Los Angeles is the same mayor that is giving illegals green cards.
And I had told Jeffree, you know, Hey, I'm just going to go home.
Cause I had already been feeling uncomfortable, but he begged me to come to the club and was
like, Hey, uh, you can wear a pair of my security guards pants, or I could buy you a new outfit,
whichever you'd like.
So when we were walking to his hotel room, which was a couple of rooms down from Jeffree's
at the time, and they're not going to mention his name, but he had told me a story about
how he was an ex police officer.
And he had got fired in Miami for saying the N word on the job.
And Jeffree flew him from Miami to be his personal bodyguard or security guard or whatever, knowing that.
This guy named Rick's.... Rich Lux or whatever his name is, he had come up to
the hotel room with two security guards or whatever that was about.
And he had bought Jeffree a gift from Hermes the same store we were at earlier.
The second he left the room, Jeffree tells me and everyone else in the room like,
"yeah ,he got me the cheapest thing in the store.
And it's just funny.
I already have that."
The reason why I mentioned that is because he has a tendency to just talk bad about everybody.
And it, it really just sucks.
So Jeffree likes to point out that a lot of people who call him out are just these fame,
hungry people, looking for likes, shares, and views.
And I'll be completely honest and say that I think that's very, very true to some degree.
There are a lot of people who make Jeffree Star content where they're just sort of, you
know, posturing and being so offended and Oh, you know, doing all of this stuff, that's
just so over the top to talk about Jeffree Star, honestly, in a lot of cases, doing things
that are kind of innocuous, right?
But that all being said, Tab is not a person who is looking for social media followers.
And I watched the entire video.
And I definitely got the impression that Tab was just the sort of person who wanted to
come on here.
Say those things and leave.
He's not looking for subscribers.
He's not looking for clout.
He's not looking for any of that.
So I tend to find what he said is to be very credible.
I don't want to believe that, you know, Jeffree Star is a terrible racist, but how many times
do we have to hear this story over and over and over again until it becomes true.
So Tab came out and had those conversations, but also as a reaction to Jeffree star posting
more black lives matter content, a micro-influencer named Kameron Lester decided to share his
experience working with Jeffree star.
Now Kameron has been in several promotional photo shoots for Jeffree Stars Cosmetics,
and he's partied with Jeffree.
He considers himself to have been a friend to Jeffree Star and he made a video recently
detailing why he no longer supports him.
This is my story.
And I just want to be upfront.
I was like, Hey, like, you know, are going to say anything like, you know, I feel like
it would really say a lot, if you could apologize to Jackie and the community and all that kind
of stuff.
And he kind of shut it down and he's like, she doesn't deserve a fucking spot on my platform.
And so I was just like, whatever, it wasn't personally towards me.
So I was uncomfortable, but I just was like, whatever, it got to a point where I just felt
like I was being used as a black boy.
I felt like I was always defending Jeffree on Twitter.
I was always going in going in, but I've never got the same return energy from him.
He's done so much for me.
And I used to always like, you know, he put me in my first campaign, he's done all these
things and I'm like, let me not say anything.
So I was going hard on for him on Twitter because I'm getting backlash, but he would
never defend up for me.
So I was really hurt
now full disclosure, I've met Kameron.
And I think that he is an absolutely lovely young man, but I gotta be honest.
I really don't know what he was expecting.
I don't really take any pleasure in essentially saying, I told you so, but I don't know what
Kameron was expecting.
And to some degree, I know he was expecting more views.
I know he was expecting more subscribers, but I gotta be real with you guys.
Kameron Lester worked with Jeffree star because Jeffree has a massive platform.
And if Kameron worked with Jeffree, that obviously would mean a lot to his career.
Jeffree star has 18 million subscribers on YouTube and it seems like no conversations
about his former or current racism are ever going to significantly hurt his platform.
And I'll be honest with you guys.
It has been really interesting for me to observe the way that Jeffree star has been handled
and seen and still celebrated.
Now, in this video, he talks a lot about feeling tokenized, feeling like he is going out and
defending Jeffree star and then being called a Coon and being called all of these terrible
things, because he's defending somebody who a lot of people said was a racist, right.
And how he didn't feel like that was reciprocated, how he didn't feel like his labor in defense
of his white friend who was accused of racism was not reciprocated.
Right.
I think that isolation has opened a lot of people's eyes to the energy that they spend
and whether or not it was productive and good and useful for them.
And when I look at the situation, I look at somebody who spent a really huge amount of
emotional energy, defending somebody who, frankly, we warned you about.
When I called Jeffree Star out,
a lot of people's reaction to that was to tell me to be patient and to be educational
and to help them out and understand.
And you know, honestly, when he claimed my video, I kinda knew that he wasn't the kind
of person who would listened to that. When it comes to racism, there are definitely people
who are ignorant.
There are definitely people who don't know no better, right?
But one of those sort of sad realizations I've had is that there are people who know
better and know that they're being racist and know that they're saying really bad things
and they just don't care.
Furthermore, there are people who know that they can't say certain things publicly, so
they will only say them privately amongst friends and amongst people who they know they
won't get called out for saying those things.
Personally, I've learned a lot in isolation.
And one of the things that I'm constantly thinking about now is who I give my energy to.
I recently finished this really amazing book called Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People (you can't really see it) About Race.
it's by Reni Eddo-Lodge
And it's a really amazing book.
It's really vital
I think for anyone, who's trying to understand why so many of these conversations are frustrating
and I want it to read a passage from it because it really made me think a bit about this whole
Kameron Lester situation.
This is part of the chapter about race and class.
She writes.
So although class and race are inextricably connected for people of color moving or changing
class could be a tantalizing prospect.
Children of immigrants are often assured by well-meaning parents.
That educational access to the middle class can absolve them from racism.
We are told to work hard, go to a good university and get a good job.
We can't berate our parents for wanting us to have a better life and better chances than
they did.
But after I graduated, I quickly realized that social mobility was not going to save
me.
And I felt that that was a little bit relevant here because it's almost like Kameron saw
the racism and was like, okay, but not me though, you know?
Okay.
Maybe he did say this about this person, but like not me though.
It's really seductive to a lot of black people to believe that you're going to be able to
put yourself in a position.
If you just walk and act and talk the right way, racism is something that you're not going
to experience.
But you know, for me, again, I don't take pleasure in saying, I told you so, but I don't
know how Kam looked at Jeffree star and all of the myriads of accusations of racism and didn't
think it would happen to him.
I don't understand that.
I don't, I do not get that right for me.
The lesson in all of this is again to really think about where you're spending your energy
after all of that, Kameron still has under a hundred thousand subscribers.
I think his most recent video has under 2000 views.
He put himself all the way out there, exhausted himself, got attacked on Twitter, put himself
into a position where he's potentially going to be seen less favorably, but other black
influencers, all for nothing, all for nothing.
And I'm not saying it would have been worth it if he got something out of it.
But I just want to point out the, the little that was gained from it all because at the
end of the day, I do think that that stands as evidence that this is not productive for
you.
This is not helpful for you.
So at the end of the day, I again think that this was a big lesson for Kameron.
I think that he is going to really come out of this with more awareness.
And I think that's a great thing.
I think that in this time in quarantine, I think this is a really important time to hunker
down and to gain more awareness.
I think that Kameron fell down the trap that a lot of us fall through.
A lot of black people fall through.
We believe that it's just not going to happen to us if we act the right way.
And I'm glad that he was able to see through it and to call it out.
And I hope he moves forward.
Not backwards.
There have been a couple of people who have called out Jeffree star only to get some PR
randomly.
And I just, I that's, we, we really hate to see it.
We really, really, we really do hate to see it.
So anyway, I think I've said all I want to say about this.
If you have anything to add, I would love to hear it in the comment box below.
I'm curious where the black folk watching this right now.
Would you ever work for Jeffree star?
Would you ever collaborate with Jeffree star?
Would it be worth selling your soul?
Let me know.
I'll talk to you guys next time.
Bye.