Thread by @Iron_Spike

Yesterday on Discord: A nonblack friend asked what a "Hotep" was. The black women in chat were only too happy to explain.

But it just now occurred to me: Maybe you don't know what a Hotep is, either. So I'm gonna do a quick rundown, because it's pretty LOL.

A glossary:

Hotep - Ancient Egyptian for "peace," or "peace upon you," or "be at peace." (can also mean "offering," but not here.) Hoteps are called Hoteps cuz certain Hoteps say "hotep" instead of "hello."

Kyriarchy - A set of connected social systems built around oppression.

So, for example? Patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, and white supremacy all combine, and work in tandem, to make up a kyriarchy.

Got it? Cool. Onward.

Hoteps don't call themselves Hoteps. It's an insult, not a self-ID.

The best way I've come up with to describe a Hotep is to compare them to that clueless brand of white feminism that genuinely believes everything would be instantly better if women were in charge.

Hoteps have similar trains of thought, but strictly about black men.

Kyriarchy is great; the only thing that needs to change is who's calling the shots. Which would be them.

In my experience (and the experience of many, many others) Hoteps are intensely homophobic, slut-shaming, and male supremacist. They're also exceptionally condescending, with outsized and undeserved confidence in their own intelligence.

If you're as old as I am, maybe you remember Oswald the Inmate, from "In Living Color" sketches, a prisoner with a large and disastrously misapplied vocabulary. This is explicitly mocking Hoteps.

And if you saw "Don't be A Menace in South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood," maybe you remember this guy. Straight Hotep.

By now, you have probably noticed the hat.

I'm sure this kind of thing has been confusing the hell out of you, if you lurk "Black Twitter."

Yeah, they're just kufis. But in this context, they're pretty much the doofy uniform of the fakewoke Hotep who's about to begin some shitty tirade nobody asked for that inevitably begins with the words "What if I told you..."

But yeah, anyway.

Hoteps are the dude who calls you a Nubian Queen until you won't give him your number, then you're a bitch.

They embrace a cartoony, vague Afrocentrism, with mudcloth/kente cloth dashikis and cowrie shell necklaces, but only because "In Africa, We Were Kings."

And, speaking from personal experience, Hoteps laugh about how they'll *fuck* girls who attend Morris Brown and Clark Atlanta University, but their WIVES will be from Spelman.

Cuz nothing's complete without a little misogynist classism, amirite?

Which isn't to say Hoteps only date black women, far from it. As the "Don't be a Menace" clip satirizes, they often practice colorism, favoring lighter-skinned black women, and even prioritizing white women as partners, due to their supposed meekness and obedience.

Yes, really.

But LOL, god help you if you're a black woman dating a nonblack man. ESPECIALLY a white man. Then, you're a "negro bedwench/bedslave," recreating sick master/slave dynamics, and you need a Good Black Man to set you straight.

(Source: Me. Dated a white guy. Hotep found out.)

On one hand, I can... ALMOST understand a lot of what makes a dude go full Hotep. Black men in America are constantly under siege, under suspicion, disadvantaged, and guilty until proven innocent. It's a hostile environment, and defying it through pride can be powerful.

But it does so at the expense of actual progressive thought and action. "*I* will be King of the Hill, one day," instead of "Fuck that hill, let's bulldoze it." Hotep values *buy in* to kyriarchy, they don't dismantle it.