By now, it should be evident that we all say it’s not “okay” to be a shitty human being… until money enters the picture. At that point, what a person does is an entirely different story, with all former “logic” (read: sense of decency) flying out the window. Like little pieces of paper (that means money) that can now afford to be blown through willy-nilly. Saucy Santana a.k.a. Rashad Michael Harris has provided no better example of that after some of his Twitter comments from 2014 about beloved “national hero” Beyoncé resurfaced over the summer. It happened when he released “Booty” featuring Latto, which included a heavy sample of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” (because, more and more, everything is a copy of a copy of a copy).
The Beyhive, an entity that never forgets a slight against their Supreme, dredged up multiple declarations from Santana citing Blue Ivy Carter as “nappy-headed” and that North West “CLEARS” her. He also went on to note that he thinks he’s prettier than Beyoncé, which obviously still holds true in his mind based on him wearing her exact look from “Crazy in Love” for the “Booty” video. Sauntering down the sidewalk and demanding, “Who else got a ass like this?” Well, clearly, “Queen” Bey. Who Santana was content to rail against when he was “home miserable and broke.” In other words, the state in which it’s easiest to be a “troll.”
And yet, what some people call trolling, others deem Susan Sontag-level criticism filled with insights and deconstructions about how pop culture seeps into every facet of our existence and that we shouldn’t take it all so lightly. For it’s anything but “froth” in the long run, influencing the minutiae of what people do, wear and how they act. So yes, it’s no surprise that Santana should want to remain part of the lexicon of the “cultural conversation.” One that he’s picked up (read: ripped off) from those women who have come before him. This includes Madonna, who was, in all her good business sense, only too down to solidify her OG association with “Material Girl” by recording another version of it with Santana that more closely mirrors the remake he did that went viral on TikTok. Now called “Material Gworrllllllll!,” Madonna has validated Santana’s belief in his own “brilliance,” as well as assisting him in becoming justified in branding himself as a “material girl.” Even if that 80s-era message is not the most relevant thing to be repackaging as we watch the climate collapse unfold each day as a direct result of material greed.
But, as Madonna defends, “I am not fancy, I just love fancy shit/Make a budget disappear like a magic trick.” Back in 2014, Saucy Santana wasn’t doing much of that, which is why he claims he felt the need to lash out at someone “truly successful” (because fame and money are, as we’ve been hit over the head with in this society, the only measures of success in this life)… such as Beyoncé. Thus, for the Beyhive to “come for him” and try to chip away at some of his mounting “respect” in the industry via the tried-and-true method of cancel culture is not something he was willing to “accept.” Or, as Lucille Bluth would say, “If that’s a veiled criticism about me, I won’t hear it and I won’t respond to it.” Except that he did hear and respond to it by taking to Twitter to announce, “Fake woke ass bitches!!!! People don’t care about old tweets. The internet have this weird thing with power! Thinking they have the power to cancel someone… NEWS FLASH! You don’t! Y’all think y’all have someone by the balls about situations you don’t give a damn about.”
Oh, if only Saucy were right about the internet masses not having the power to cancel. Then maybe someone like Constance Wu wouldn’t try to commit suicide as a result. Because no, not everyone is as fortunate as Santana in sidestepping ceaseless torment regarding things said or done—or, in Wu’s case, what she didn’t do (which was express “gratitude” instead of regret over Fresh Off the Boat being renewed for another season). But, for whatever reason, Santana evaded too much backlash from the revived tweets. Maybe because Santana is actually accurate in remarking that not that many people “give a damn about” him or his situation. Or maybe because he did, in his own way, take a page from his collaborator Madonna, who once shrugged off the pre-fame nude photos of her being published in Playboy by responding, “So what?” The old trick being not to flinch in the face of a public flogging that only grows stronger when the person in the eye of the storm reacts to it.
Except that Madonna was right not to apologize for doing what she had to do in order to survive and live out what Jay-Z would call the embodiment of the American dream a.k.a. capitalist success for someone who wasn’t born rich. Moreover, the backlash she endured had nothing to do with invoking retroactive consequences by being a troll before getting famous and everything to do with sexism through shaming. A phenomenon that no male, gay or straight, can ever truly understand, for it is solely the female gender whose body is somehow deemed fodder for the public forum.
Nonetheless, Santana felt “similarly attacked” to the point where he spat back, “Stop all that cap! Tryna ruin ppl careers cuz you at home miserable and broke. I was miserable and broke, too, making childish, hateful tweets in 2014. I’m 28 years old. A grown-ass adult. A completely different mindset on life from when I was 20. But, yall knew dat.” Sure… what we all knew was that, as Madonna’s erstwhile 80s “rival,” Cyndi Lauper, once said, “Money changes everything.” And now, as Santana has effectively admitted, “It’s much easier to hate rich people when you aren’t one, so sorry/not sorry to the rest of you ‘bum bitches’ who couldn’t catch a break like I did, but I’m no longer one of you. Bye.”
