Frankly I think too much anti-white guy pressure is put on indie-rockers when they cover black music. Plenty of hip-hop producers use prominent samples of white musicians without drawing similar scrutiny. Not all indie kids are elitist pricks. Some artists have actually taken pop music and/or black music and made it their own without mockery. Here's three of my favourites;

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy does a funny, but sincere cover of R. Kelly's song from the Ali soundtrack; The World's Greatest. While gently ribbing Kelly's pronunciation, he also translates the beauty of the song into a form that hipsters will appreciate.

Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear does a great cover of JoJo's Too Little Too Late, and as an added bonus you can read his bandmate's ultrasnobby appraisal of the cover and the original pop hit on his blog. He seems like a bit of a douche, but the cover is very good.

I'll throw in one more interesting cover, though it's not exactly indie-rock: Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer did a version of Bob Marley's Redemption Song where they opted to leave in place the improper english of the original. It would make for an interesting debate to see what people think of that decision. Is it respectful? Or does it just sound strange coming from the mouths of two white guys?