What if America Loved Black People the way they Love Appropriating Black Culture?

I'm gonna let this largely speak for itself as a statement about modern culture and modern race relations.  I will note first that this young lady is only 16 years old and then I'll add my own commentary over the flip.

Via Rawstory.

The line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurred,” 16-year-old Amandla Stenberg says in the video. “But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool or funny when the privileged take it for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.” he video, titled “Don’t Cash Crop My Corn Rows,” began as a school project but got wider attention after being posted online. Stenberg shows clips of singers Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry engaging in the behavior in both their attire and, in Cyrus’ case, her emphasis on “twerking” while using black women as “props.”
“What would America be like if we loved black people as much as black culture?” Stenberg asks.

Now Amandia Stenberg isn't just a regular person.  Well, not exactly. She's considerably media savvy since she starred as the character Rue in the first installment of the Hunger Games trilogy.

She was also the target of a vicious racial backlash because many fans of the book apparently didn't know or realize that the character she played, one that was beloved by many, was always supposed to be black. Via the Washington Post.

Stenberg knows a thing or two about the world’s complicated relationship with race. She was cast in the prominent role of Rue, a young heroine in the first “Hunger Games” movie. As she was in the books, Rue is the soul of the Panem’s rebellion. Rue is also black.
Yet, when Stenberg was cast as the dark-skinned, brown-eyed character in the film, the Internet showed its ugly face. It also showed that it has an oft-times racist face — and a reading-comprehension problem: “Hunger Games” author Suzanne Collins has said specifically that Rue and another character in the book and movie, Thresh, “are African American.”

In the books it's the death of Rue that sparks much of what follows all the way through to the story's conclusion.

On Twitter, some questioned why Thresh was cast as a black man. Others said their sorrow at Rue’s death was lessened because the character was played by a black girl. Some tweets included the “n-word.” The outpouring of hatred has spawned an impassioned, and sometimes witty, response. Never mind that these fans of the “Hunger Games” story misread basic descriptive sentences in the narrative. Why do some readers automatically assume characters are white?

So some perceive it as "wrong" for black characters to be played by black people.  That they have less sorrow at their deaths, and less empathy for their life - if they have to imagine that person is black. All of that is because they perceived that character as white in their own minds.

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