Ma’Khia was a beloved Black girl who would still be here if we didn’t perseverate on the myth that cops – and policing – keep us safe. If we focused on how Black girls are perceived and policed from the youngest age in every institution. If we understood that for Black women, girls, trans and gender-nonconforming people, a call for help can be – and is all too often – fatal. If we understood the violence Black girls routinely experience in the foster system as part of the violence we are fighting to end. If we understood that our failure to protect Black girls, women and trans people from violence and provide for a world where they have everything they need to be safe often leaves them with no choice but to defend themselves – and then be criminalized, punished, or worse yet, killed as a result. (via newsone.com)
CC: Folks [ostensibly] want to have justice in society, but without deconstructing ideological & structural whiteness. Not possible.
Yes, it’s highly inconvenient that all our major institutions are organized around white supremacy & it’s therefore impossible to address “domestic terrorism” & “extremism” without addressing mainstream white supremacy…but so it is. So now what? (via Bree Newsome)
Saw someone on twitter say they didn’t like Annabeth being racebent but was fine with Grover because it made sense for his character…the only lead you’re fine with not being white is the one that’s half animal…
I fully expect this to be the one and only post I ever do about Amber Rose.
Occasionally, Amber Rose surfaces in pop-culture as a trending topic. I don’t look into her often, but when I do usually I understand where she’s coming from, if not agree with the point she’s trying to make.
Recently, Kanye West called her into a twitter-fight between himself and Wiz Khalifa–and she shut it down entirely. And as amusing as that is and no matter how much I identify with the things she said and does – there’s one thing about her that bothers me.
Yet she clearly appears to have features heavily associated with blackness: full lips, an olive complexion (relatively common in black people), a thick, very curvy body, and a large round butt. The icing on the cake: she has an African mom. She still says, “I’m not black.”
Many of the descriptors she uses for herself are nationalities that do not define her race. It’s as if stating countries which a possess white populations and/or have substantial European influence is a free pass on blackness – As if black people didn’t live in Portugal, Scotland, Ireland or Cape Verde. As if her mom didn’t wasn’t African.
But rest assured: her mother is African and she is brown-skinned.
Cape Verde, where Amber Rose’s mother is from, is an island off the coast of Western Africa. It’s an African Country. Africans have been there since the Portuguese trafficked African (black) slaves from the African continent in 1456.
And because of the heavy European influence and racial mixing in Cape Verde, they’re considered a mixed people – And According to Amber Rose, she views herself as Creole:
“With my family, they feel like they’re more superior or better than an African American because we’re Creole and we have culture and that’s something I battle with most of my life.” (source)
Amber Rose was born and raised in America. Her mother is a brown-skinned (black) African woman, she has a white father (Irish and Italian descent), and because she has light skin, she has people defending her as non-black.
In the United States (and many other places), any black ancestry easily qualifies a person as black – especially if that person is not white passing and especially if that person has an African mother. Amber Rose is not white passing. Her mother is African. She openly participates in black culture. And still, she hesitates to even use the descriptor “black” in reference to herself. In every interview I’ve found and every quote, she is quick to claim her white ancestry but does not even utter “black” or “African.”
She denies it.
I think it’s wild because one of my best friends @shakotancisco is Cape Verdean. My mans is PROUD of his heritage. How can Amber Rose be of such beautiful heritage and hate herself so much to deny her own blackness?
This is one of the reasons why I can’t ride with Amber Rose. I know a lot of my followers may take issue with this, but aside from her apparent love for her child, nearly everything else she does seems to be nothing more than her making herself feel comfortable about her own delusions and justifying her behavior in the process. To me, it seems like her anti slut-shaming and sexual liberation crusade is less about standing up for (primarily) women (but men too), is a matter of cleaning up her own public perception.
Amber Rose makes herself the “other,” or, “the exception.” It’s as if she’s saying, “I’m not really black, I’m just a perfect mixture of races,” and this further supports the fetishization of mixed women. You mentioned that her reality was that she may not see love first and that using men for her own personal gain was just what she had to do. I can see that and it makes sense. However, in her case, it seems like she revels in it, almost maliciously, until someone calls her on it and she reverts back to the anti slut-shaming argument.
Though problematic, I enjoy her clapbacks and I think she’s hilarious in her pettiness. I liked (past tense) that she was providing a voice to those who own their sexuality. I liked (also past tense) that she was making a point to create her own lane and challenge the notion that she was a ‘creation’ of Kanye West. And I really liked (yup, past tense again) that she handled herself through the nonsense and media slander with grace and dignity.
But then, she goes on to deny her blackness and it immediately makes me distrustful of her. Without her clapbacks, is she much different than Raven or Stacey Dash? Is she even worth taking seriously if she denies who she really is? Is her carefully crafted persona nothing more than armor that she wears to protect her own insecurities about her identity? I just don’t buy it.
As a non-sex worker–I do not critique sex work which includes dancing, stripping, partial and full services.
She has sold/possibly still sells sexual fantasy/services/sexual appeal as a living – and she’s gotten a lot of money for it. If she revels in it, she has a right to. If someone is rewarded with money or items for sex acts/sexual performance/sex appeal, then that becomes a justified connection. In this entire side of the house, it’s incredibly important to note that if she does have a particularly toxic view of using men for money, it did not happen in a vacuum.
“black” is literally a descriptor used to oppress people so it makes sense that some people would distance themselves from it–not to mention that this would have the additional trial of facing anti-blackness in everywhere they went.
You seem to be particularly upset by Amber Roses’s statement about using seductive skills on her significant others for cash, and that’s understandable.
Is it upsetting? Yes. Is it manipulative to seduce a man into financial gain? Also yes. Is it morally unsettling? Sure. Is that the nature of her work as a dancer? As it turns out, yes. Have her former lovers complained about using them? None that I can find.
(I am on a train in the afternoon, not quite rush hour, but busy enough for no seats to be open in my car. I stand holding onto the pole in the center of the doorway. To the right side of the door, a black male is reading a book. To the left railing, a white female is standing. At one stop, an Asian female, grabs the railing to the left, behind the white female. At which the following occurs…)
White Female: *condescendingly and rudely* “Can you not stand so close to me?! You’re invading my bubble!”
(I raise an eyebrow at the situation, but move to the right of the central pole to make room for the Asian female. At this point, the black male speaks up.)
Black Male: “You didn’t need to be so rude to the young lady.”
White Female: *absolutely livid at this point* “How dare you threaten ME, a female! You are oppressing me because I am a female, and you are a man!” *continues ranting along those lines, repeating about being oppressed and threatened by a man*
(At this point, everyone is just in shock and the car is very still. The crazy lady then uses the intercom which happens to be on her side to call the conductor.)
White Female: “Help! This black man is oppressing me!”
(At this point, a few people including myself had gotten over our shock and were protesting into the intercom. One male freed his seat to give it to the hysterical lady, and he explained to the concerned conductor the situation over the intercom. I had to get off a couple stops later, but throughout the trip, the lady was still protesting about being a female threatened by a black man. I still don’t know if she was just extremely racist or there was something psychologically wrong with her…)
Have you seen that Scrubs episode where Elliott and Turk are arguing whether it’s harder to be a woman or Black in the medical field, and at that moment, a Black woman colleague (Dr. Rhodes) walks by, and they awkwardly greet her because it struck them that she has to deal with twice as much shit?
Because Scrubs is made by white people, this argument results in Turk realizing he’s sexist, but there is, of course, no such realization for Elliot about her own prejudices.
In real life, the Elliots of the world would likely argue that the Dr. Rhodes are being divisive for acknowledging anti Blackness and white supremacy in any way. But this isn’t real life. This story, like Scrubs, is entirely made up by white people and is false even though it’s loosely based on something that’s real.
This is all to say that OP REALLY tried and they get a whole 3/10 for effort (normally there’s so little effort put into these they receive grades in the negatives), but ultimately no one’s buying it, no matter how sly they thought they were by including White Feminism’s persistent racism problem.
Here’s a tip, OP: Instead of writing stories in failed attempts to delegitimize mainstream feminism by invoking very real issues within it, you could try something completely different and new, like actually caring about those issues, for real, all the time, instead of just when you wanna use them to complain about The Feminists.
(My aunt works at a popular doughnut shop chain near my grandmother’s house. One evening, my older sister and her boyfriend, my little brother, and I decide to head there after an afternoon at a fair, while waiting for my mom to pick us up. A short while afterward, a couple of tough-guy type young men walk in, making rude comments, being loud, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. The leader of the group approaches the counter where my aunt is working.)
Customer #1: “Yo, b****, gimme your number.”
Aunt: “I don’t think so. Is there anything you’d like to order?”
Customer #1: “How ’bout a piece of that a**?”
Aunt: “Sorry, not on the menu. Now order something or please leave. You’re holding up the line.”
Customer #2: “B****, we’ll leave when we wanna leave.”
Customer #3: “Yeah, who’s gonna stop us, little old you?”
Aunt: “No, little old [Manager]. Now, please, place your order or get out.”
(The customer orders two cases of donuts, and throws his money to the ground.)
Customer #1: “See what you did? Pick it up and hand it back to me!”
Aunt: “Um, it’s on your side of the counter.”
(The customer picks up his money and walks over behind the counter and throws it down again.)
Customer #1: “Now pick it up, b****!”
Aunt: “No. As a matter of fact, leave. I’m refusing service.”
Customer #1: “Why, because I’m black?!”
Aunt: “No, because you’re acting like an imperious a**hole, and you have been since you walked in. Now leave, or I’m calling the police.”
(As luck would have it, a police officer stops inside the shop.)
Me: “Wow, that was fast.”
Customer #1: “Officer, this racist b**** was trying to kick me and my homies out. We ain’t even done nothin’!”
Officer: “Really? Because what I saw was you throwing your money at this woman twice, in addition to walking behind the counter, which isn’t allowed for non-employees.”
(The customer and his buddies start throwing a fit, yelling expletives, flipping everybody off, and generally acting unruly. Then they head outside and start throwing boxes around; the leader even takes off his shirt and tries goading everyone into a fight.)
Customer #1: “COME ON, I’LL SHOW Y’ALL! I’LL BEAT Y’ALLS A**ES SO HARD! COME ON!”
(He has another argument with the officer, but thankfully leaves with his buddies. However, he comes back a few minutes later accompanied not by his friends, but his grandmother.)
Customer’s Grandmother: “So I understand y’all have a problem servin’ my grandbaby?”
Customer: “Yeah, yeah, they were callin’ me all kinds of s***, and the girl over there was saying we were on food stamps!”
Customer’s Grandmother: “…[Customer’s Name], stand outside and wait while I talk to the officer here.”
(The customer steps outside and my aunt explains everything that happened. After hearing it, the grandmother is incensed and walks outside.)
Customer’s Grandmother: “YOU LITTLE PUNK-A**! GET YO’ A** IN THE CAR NOW! You dragged me outta my home for THIS?!”
(As they drive off, my mom finally pulls in.)
Mom: “So, what’d I miss?”
Uh huh. So I’m supposed to believe:
- That the aunt had snappy comebacks to everything?
- That a Black person, particularly a “tough guy type” Black man, would seriously think the cops are ever going to be on his side, particularly with something like this?
- That a police officer who brought up “going behind the counter” as proof of wrongdoing would then just shrug and look the other way as the customer yelled, swore, threw things about, and challenged everyone - including the cop - to a fight? Officer I Magically Saw The Whole Thing In Detail From Outside just let them make a fuss and then walk out the store at their leisure, and then just argued with them in the parking lot after some time? Sure.
- That in all this the customer never asked for his money back for the donuts he didn’t get?
- That he’d then bring his GRANDMOTHER in, because apparently she can somehow override a cop, and as everyone knows, “tough guy types” who challenge cops to fights would totally bring their grandmothers (who refer to them as “baby”) in to defend them?
- Those horrific attempts at AAVE?
Of course he “ain’t even done nothin’.” He doesn’t actually exist anywhere outside of the imaginations of anti Black losers who really want to believe that anti Blackness is a myth conjured up by Black people who are unmistakeably in the wrong and are “playing the race card” to try and get their way.
That they’ve never actually seen it happen is completely irrelevant. It’s not lying if you really, really, really want to believe it happens, right? /sarcasm
When it comes to Black women’s hairstyles/protective styles, I do not want to see non-Black women wearing them. Here’s why:
Our hair is such a huge part of our history, our identity,our Black excellence, and our regality. Read that again. This is constantly trying to be taken away from us.
It’s really frustrating that this is another thing that we can’t have to ourselves. It’s not fair for that to be taken by others. Non-Black women do not have to worry about being discriminated againstorpoliced for wearing our protective styles and could really care less while they’re walking around carefree in costume. All they think is, well it looks good on Black women so I want to try it. Those who use “cultural appreciation” as an excuse think they’re doing us a favor when they really could have just appreciated from a distance instead of crossing the line.
To me, it sends the messages of “this isn’t yours, this is ours now”, “you can’t have something without us having a part in it as well”, or “joke’s on you for thinking you can have a part of your culture without us getting a piece too”. It’s no different from how every other aspect of our lives and bodies have been policed and controlled throughout history.
My hair is another aspect that I love about being a Black woman but as Black women know, we can’t love being Black women, we’re not allowed to be comfortable, we’re not allowed to feel beautiful, we’re not allowed to own our beauty without someone taking offense. I wish that non-Black women, non-black people, and even Black people would try to understand this.
ETA: Non-black women includes non-Black women of color. Not exempt.
