In a year marked by the ongoing violence toward black bodies, the cultural appropriation of “black cool” seems more blatant and egregious than ever. From declaring that the big booty is in, that white girls too can have Afros – the style is in fact a twist-out – baby hair and Timberlands on Paris runways, and morning show hosts giggling while discussing “on fleek”, the cycle seemingly never stops.

The true coup de grâce, however, came with the attempt to explain #SquadGoals (an aspirational term used on social media to highlight something you and your friends want to accomplish) – and as usual, nobody consulted their black friends about it as they plundered from black youth culture. Worse still, as when the establishment backflips on to the bandwagon, they not only ignore the trend’s roots, but actively whitewash the history. It’s a method so effective it could be an algorithm. The process is simple: first the trend is appropriated and misused, before quickly becoming the butt of jokes for old white folks who just “don’t get it”. The final step comes when the youth subculture is discredited, while simultaneously used to gain credibility (and sell products) to the very group being mocked.

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Last week on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast, three white people attempted to dissect the roots of #SquadGoals. The hashtag trend has received a lot of traction due to Taylor Swift and her PR machine regurgitating it over and over on her recent world tour, while trotting out all her pretty friends. From the very beginning it was clear that the Slate teamwas going to botch the entire segment with ignorance as they attempted to explain it to the show’s “old white guy”.

Slate’s Katy Waldman mentions Waka Flocka Flame at the start of the whole thing but couldn’t be bothered to do enough researchto learn how to say Gucci Mane properly – she pronounces it “Gucci Manet”, only to then pause and wonder if it makes more sense as “Mayne”. (To make things worse, this is a rapper who drops his own name on every single one of his records.)

The conversation makes a footnote of the 1017 Brick Squad, who have been yelling “SQUUUAD!” since at least 2009, and quickly jumps to Swift “bringing it to the mainstream”. (Waka Flocka Flame is a huge live draw and is one of hip-hop’s biggest contemporary names.) By the end of their chuckle-filled explanation of the trend, the old white guy declares that he finds the trend sad and that he would probably not want to have his young and impressionable daughter involved.

The show’s two main problems are its brazen lack of knowledge on the subject and zero inclusion. The speakers mention an article written by Rembert Browne, a black writer at Grantland, but what would have made the gabfest better would have been to maybe ask Rembert to explain what the hell they were talking about. The larger point at hand is that anyone who listens to the podcast leaves with no greater understanding of what #SquadGoals is besides Taylor Swift’s new thing at her concert.

The bigger message seemed to be: “It’s cool that we’re clueless about this silly thing even though we definitely just used it as the title topic for our podcast this week!” But such is the way of whitesplaining things. The underlying tone is always: “It doesn’t matter when the black kids do it; let’s just focus on how we found out about it.” It’s this privileged and assuming behaviour that very often leads to white media falling on their faces and getting these trends all wrong. (Your pancakes are not on fleek, and it’s not even funny.)

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As we continue through the second half of 2015, every week seems a wash-rinse-repeat cycle of hashtags and think-pieces, explaining ourselves with the same simple logic. Being black is the coolest thing because it is currently (and has always been) the most dangerous thing to be in this country. What is not new, however, is that white people of the middle and upper class have always wanted in on our slang and dance moves. But just the same as they would never set foot into our neighborhoods, they don’t want to be reminded that their darling little Taylor Swift is basically quoting the language of the oppressed.

The daughter of Stephen Metcalf, the old white guy, would probably benefit from learning that black women and men are empowered by their squads and #squadgoals as they refer to the allies they’ve found in this life that is inundated by racism, sexism and elitism affecting those who look like them. A true and nuanced conversation about the topic featuring someone who uses the term daily might have revealed a history of empowerment through the community and the protection of a self-made family. Squad goals are filled with the tales of little black children who want to make it somewhere better and hope to find that somewhere filled with those they love who want the same success, not just white faces that don’t recognize or respect them.

There’s a defining moment in the conversation when Swift is described as an overdog adapting an underdog stance. In this moment I cringed, and then laughed: it was so ignorantly correct that it became the highlight of the whole thing. The truth is that yes, the overdog is always stealing from the underdog and hiding his hands behind his back. But the trend of taking what’s not yours and lying about it is the one I would never want my impressionable child to learn.