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On Kim Kardashian’s Empire and Race

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On Clutch Danielle Belton has an excellent and problematic post titled, “Celebrating the Black Beauty on White Women”. She discusses in general the politics of race and women’s bodies as well as the politics of White artists performing what has historically been seen as Black music (see Eminem, Elvis and Adele).

I am really interested in the politics of race and Black women’s bodies AND I have been wanting to write about Kim Kardashian every since that I learned that there were some black communities (notice I used a plural because we are not all the same) who felt that she did not deserve to be in a Tyler Perry film.

The post is awesome because Belton interrogates the different ways in which some Black men may desire say a curvy Black woman with light skin who looks like Kim Kardashian versus how some Black men may desire a curvey White woman because she is just that; affluent, curvey and White. Belton writes,

If society tells you, from birth, that you should dream of marrying Blake Lively, but dream of screwing Nicki Minaj, a woman with Blake’s face and Nicki’s ass is going to trade high on the “male gaze” market.

Which brings us back to Kim Kardashian. (And by proxy, her sisters, Ice-T’s wife Coco, Angelina Jolie’s lips who are gorgeous on her, but “ordinary” on every other black girl in America, etc.) This goes beyond just physical beauty.

Belton then goes on to discuss how “everyone likes Black stuff when it isn’t on Black people”. Which brings me to another thing.

We need to talk about race.

Race is an unstable category and identity marker. So is gender. Race is unstable, dynamic and always changing. Read Omi and Winant for more about this.

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If race were a fixed category and identity marker we could never have a conversation about whether President Obama is  “really” Black. 

Race is a moving target. So is sexuality and gender and this makes people hella uncomfortable.

In fact, it is precisely because ideas of race, and markers of race are unstable and dynamic that we have these conversations in the first place.

So, the title of the post doesn’t reflect the actual content of Belton’s post but I want to address it because it is problematic. To say that Black beauty equals curves suggests that there is only one kind of beauty on Black women.

Ideas of beauty are subjective. Meaning that they are personal value judgements based on individual standards that vary from person to person.

And.

Black women’s bodies and beauty come in a variety of shape and sizes. We are not all the same.

We have to be very mindful of the kinds of beauty standards that we set up.

In fact, I think that with regard to Kim Kardashian the issue isn’t so much that she is an attractive White woman who is curvy, the issue appears to be that she is an attractive White woman who is curvy who enjoys dating Black men and who has leveraged her sexuality into a multi-media empire.

I mean, didn’t the folks complaining about her being in Tyler Perry’s new movie because she is “a bad influence” on Black children because of her sex tape etc. How many of these same folks bump R. Kelly hard (Trapped in the Closet series and all), despite his penchant for teenage Black girls. Remember ya’ll he married Aaliyah.

Why is Kim Kardashian a “bad influence” but R. Kelly gets a pass. No I am not saying that they are trafficking in the same material, nor am I saying that she is as talented in the same way that he is. I am, however, asking why some do Black people’s moral respectability police come out for Kim Kardashian and not for R. Kelly?

Young girls are taught from a young age that their most important value is how pretty they are. In some ways, in a society that devalues women over men, a society that teaches women that their primary value is their beauty, a society that emphasizes the visual, the rise of a woman who embodies Kim Kardashian’s beauty makes sense.

What Awkward Black Girl and Trans Women Have Taught Me About Black Gender Politics

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Where in the hell do I begin? I will just start with me and the two questions that have been on my mind since Moya (and I believe a loose collective of folks) wrote the criticism of Awkward Black Girl‘s usage of transphobic and homophobic language in a recent episode of the web series Awkward Black Girl. I am a huge cheerleader of Black women filmmakers, to that extent, I am a fan of the show. I haven’t seen as many episodes as my homies, however I have been thinking recently about coordinating screenings of episodes as a kind of Black girl film/video night.

Let me be clear. This post isn’t about their exchange per se, but it is about how Black women interact with each other online when it comes to Black gender politics. This post is also about the significance of words, questions of solidarity, and issues of critique within the Black girl blogosphere.

I stayed off the internet in Wednesday. Largely because I was busy but also because I sensed an intra-racial shit storm brewing and that I wanted to observe, collect my thoughts and then offer my perspective.

As I watched the blog posts fly hella questions came to my mind.

The first question is what responsibility does a Black woman who is a digital cultural producer have to her audience? This is related of course relates to Issa Rae, Moya’s letter and the subsequent feedback and comments on blog posts throughout the Black girl interwebs.

My second question is what responsibility does a Black woman who is an editor at a Black girl publication have in terms of setting the tone for a post about how Black LGBTQ politics are represented in a cultural production created by a Black women. This relates to a conversation that I had on twitter with Britni Danielle, an editor at Clutch Magazine and a post that she wrote about Awkward Black Girl. After a conversation and some prodding she ultimately concluded that editors do have power to shape conversations and that she would try to be mindful of the tone that is set in blog posts.

I also need to take a moment and state my stand point. I have been blogging for hella long. This puts me at a particular social location because I know where “the bodies are buried” if you will. Second Black girl creatives, especially those of us on the internet, all know each other. And if we don’t know each other it is one degree of separation. This means that I know Moya, I know Britni I am also a member of The Crunk Feminist Collective. Perhaps most importantly, I subscribe to the idea that the shit that I write, I am going to probably have to answer for, to someone’s face. This makes the prospect of  getting hot in the mouth with someone on the internet really real, in that I know that it is a human being behind that keyboard. Not a robot. We are human beings.

Shortly after Moya wrote her post, Issa Rae responded with a tweet saying, “Respectfully, “Awkward Black Girl” was never meant to be politically correct. We poke fun at ignorance. Response letter coming soon”.

I cringed, but I also thought, this could lead to an interesting conversation.

Then, Britni wrote her post at Clutch, Moya wrote another post on Crunk Feminist, Jamilah wrote her post at The Root and Issa Rae released her statement.

I frequently tweet that sex and sexuality are the third rail of conversations about race. Meaning that when some Black folks get together to talk about the intersection of sexuality and race, their heads like to explode. And I understand why. Because of how racism works, we don’t want to air our “dirty laundry” about sex and sexuality because we have historically been read as savages, as deviant, as loose.

Our silence will not protect us.

I personally was troubled by some of the comments on Britni’s Clutch Magazine post because of the ways in which some women, who I assume to be Black because it is a Black girl space, stated that “I am not trans or LGBTQ” so that issue does not apply to me.

I found this standpoint problematic for two reasons. Do we really need to be a “member of a community” in order to call spades? When my friends say things like that to me I respond saying “I am so glad that it ain’t 1850 and you aren’t on the US abolitionist committee, because left up to YOUR ass, I would still be picking cotton”. What I am saying here is that when people say “that shit don’t apply to me” the space is created for minority folks to suffer and or be dominated.

For me here, the issue is of social power, and who has the right to say things about members in racial, sexual minority groups. And when racial minorities say harmful things about racial and sexual minorities should they be held accountable? And if so, how?

Second, is the issue of being “politically correct”.  Four years ago, if Don Imus fixed his raggedy mouth to say “You all are being too sensitive when I called the Rutgers basketball team nappy headed ho’s” we would have been like you need to sit that ass down.

Saying derogatory shit about Black women hair and sexuality on a national radio show is wrong. Here is the blog post that I wrote about Don Imus and the Duke Rape case in 2007 titled “My Duke/Imus Moment“.

What I am trying to get at, is that we need to be mindful of what people, who are in positions of power and by this I mean those of us who have the capability to convey ideas through blogs, or digital cultural productions, have to be mindful of the language the we use, who we are willing to throw under the bus, and of the impact of language if it causes harm.

Four years ago, I was not down for throwing Black cis women under the bus when Don Imus called the Rutgers basketball team nappy headed ho’s.

Today I am not going to throw Black trans women under a bus.

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So let me take a step back and make the connection between connection between racial and or sexual slurs and physical violence.

The first step to treating a person like they are not human, like they are not shit is in calling them a slur. This goes for Black folks, Mexican Folks, Native American folks, Japanese folks, Muslim folks, low income White folks, Gay folks, Lesbian folks and so on.

People tend to get this with race, but it is harder for them to get it with gender.

#Hang in there with me.

Slurs are real because they are the first step in creating the conditions to treating a person like they are not a human being. See Jean Kilbourne’s video Killing Us Softly @2:09-2:20.

Heterosexual Black women are human beings.

Cis Black women are human beings.

Trans Black women are human beings.

Lesbian Black women are human beings.

Full stop.

The violence that trans Black women are subjected to has a particular resonance for me, because as a cis Black woman, I watch in particular how they deal with the violence of street harassment in DC.

Writing at The Advocate in August of 2010, Julie Bolcer states that,

According to a report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released in July, transgender women of color experienced hate violence far disproportionate to their actual numbers in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected community. People of color represented 70% of all LGBT-bias-related murder victims in 2010, and some 44% of LGBT murder victims were transgender women.

The violence is real.

One of the reason’s why the violence that trans women face is also important to me is because of the threat of violence I constantly deal with both because I am a woman, and because I am a Black woman who walks around cities like I have a right to be here. My most recent post on street harassment, “Kill Me or Leave Me Alone“, speaks to some of my experiences with the threat of violence that underpins street harassment.

Ultimately this conversation about Awkward Black Girl and trans women have taught me that there is space for Black girls on line to engage with each other. Mostly constructively, sometimes not so much.

It also has taught me that conversations like this create the space for us to talk about how there are multiple and various communities of Black women online. I personally am happy about this because I when I first started blogging, there was not.

I honestly enjoyed seeing some of the conversation online for two reasons. First, because of my understanding of the future of the mobile internet, the popularity of web series as a whole is bound to grow so it it is important for us to have a feed back loop with regard to representations of Black women on the internet in cultural productions. Let’s not recreate what happened with television.

Second, we seemed to be having a conversation between and amongst each other about how Black women are represented. I think this represents an important historical moment. This isn’t a presentation of Black women that we saw on BET, this is an independent production, created by a Black woman and supported by ostensibly a multiracial audience that includes a huge portion of Black girl supporters.

#Blackgirlsarefromthefuture AND we are not all the same.

Thoughts?

On the Brilliance of Martha Southgate’s “The Taste of Salt”.

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First of all. What is fabulous about the book is that it centers the life of a Black woman- scholarship kid-Stanford educated-Oceanographer from Cleveland. #blackgirlsarefromthefuture.

Then it moves on to her biological family which is her mom, her baby brother and her dad.

The themes that are present in the novel are forgiveness, Black women and marriage, alcoholism and letting go of family when you feel they will take you down with them.

In fact, given the extent of alcoholism within Black communities (notice the ies) it’s a wonder that MORE Black fiction doesn’t mention alcoholism. But perhaps that is akin to airing dirty laundry, and you and I both know that Black peoples respectability politics are as old as the US and as endurable as Capitalism.

Because I do research on Black women’s sexuality, lately I am drawn to the passages where Black women talk about being sexual. Where women talk about the politics of marriage because I am so tired of people speak for us or TO us about us.

There are two ways that this happens in The Taste of Salt (TTOS).
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First, Josie, named after Josephine Baker, marries a man, a White man who she gets along with. Then another man comes along a few years later and she rethinks her marriage.

Second, Josie’s mom puts Josie’s dad out because she can’t take his alcoholism anymore. She Loves him, but she can’t do it. She decides to do what many of us do, go back to school, get our shit together and find a way to make a life that we feel is satisfactory. She is never really the same after.

Josie’s dad enters recovery and but for one slip up he manages to remain clean and sober. However, Josie can’t bring herself to forgive him. Now, I know in my heart, that until she forgave him she was not going to be able to Love anyone else in a vulnerable way because Love and Anger can’t live in the same heart. It just can’t.

I identified with this relationship in many ways because my father struggled with addiction for nearly 15 years. Trust that shit is not for the faint of heart. He is doing fine now, but rehab and all that, it changes you, even when you are watching a family member go through it. In fact I have spent many a Thanksgiving in 12 step meetings with him. Holiday’s are hard for most people, and even more difficult for folks recovering from addictions because there is so much pain around this time of the year.

Oh, and another thing. I love the fact that Josie feels free in the water. The one thing I can’t stand about Black women and how we are judged and invested in our hair is that it prevents us from exercise and even experiencing pleasure for fear that it will ruin our hair. Don’t get me wrong, I understand WHY we invest in it, long flowing hair is considered to be supreme in mainstream media. But that shit has an impact on us. </rant>.

I have given away enough of the book, so I won’t give away it’s ending, which is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

Pick up The Taste of Salt. You will read it in a day, or two, MAX!

@ 12:34 am

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At 12:34 I called home. I went to set my alarm on my phone. I saw a missed call.

510.

Home. I called back.

Only to find out that the little bear I baby-sat passed away. I assumed, car accident, drive by……

Only to learn that he took his life.

I am so fucked off in the game Gina.

I knew this child when he was 6 and I baby sat him for dough to pay for BART to got to Lick-Wilmerding, a FANCY prep school in Frisco.

Working class Black girls always have to work.

I curled up in a ball on the floor crying.

I talked to him in August, right before comps, he was thinking about Medical school. We laughed. I told him about Goldy.

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Through God I guess?

If I could, I would cancel tomorrow’s class.

I will probaly just explain to them why my eyes are swollen.

I feel like a failure as a play big sister. Not to say that I could have saved him. Because I couldn’t. I just feel like I could have checked on him, more. You know?

Dadddy just said that when someone is ready to leave earth, they ready to go.

You can’t stop them.

I still feel like I am in a daze.

I hope little bear got some peace where he at now.

Loved ones aftermath of suicide is the devil.

Black Relationship Politics: “Do You Believe Beyonce?”

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Perhaps it is because I finally listened to Watch the Throne. Or perhaps it is because I have been writing about Beyonce on this blog for what, three years now. Perhaps it is because I am smack dab in the middle of researching Black women’s sexuality. Perhaps it is because I hear Janelle Harris in the back of my head saying that being married with a baby is the way to go because doing it alone alone is too much work.

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t believe Beyonce.

I think it is the gap between how patriarchal “If you like it you should have put a ring on it” is, and the lack of public intimacy that I have been thinking about this week.

Now here is the thing with writing about pop culture. I know that in taking on people’s beloved artists there is a possibility that they will shut down, cover their ears, and sing lalalalalalalalalalalalaal like a four year old. If you go that route, keep your comments to your self. This is grown shit we are speaking on.

Yes, Beyonce is attractive, talented, hard working, focused and driven. She can perform her ass off. I get that.

But what I also know is that the ways in which she normalizes patriarchy for Black girls need to be interrogated. When I say patriarchy I mean idea that men/masculine people have the right and the power do dominate women and children. For example, patriarchy normalizes lots of janky things like the right for men make more than women for the same work; the right for men take up more space on the train; the right for men to  stand on the sidewalk and not move when they see us coming; the right to not clean up shit in the house because it’s women’s work; the right to seek and desire pleasure without being called a failed man; the right for men to be active and women to be passive.

A Black woman who seeks and desires pleasure is called spoiled. Spoiled food is ruined, inedible. It will make you sick.

Being a Black woman with a healthy dating life, I realized that the reason why I don’t believe Beyonce, is that I have never seen her hug her #husbear in public. No hug, no kiss, no face grab.

No passion.

Now on That’s My Bitch, which is song on Jay-Z’s and Kanye’s  new album Watch the Throne Jay-Z raps about her, with out “really” rapping about her saying,

Go harder than a nigga for a nigga, gofigure
Told me keep my own money if we ever did split up
How could someone so gangsta be so pretty in pictures
Ripped jeans and a blazer and some Louboutin slippers
Picasso was alive he woulda made her
That’s right nigga, Mona Lisa can’t fade her
I mean Marilyn Monroe, she’s quite nice
But why all the pretty icons always all-white?
Put some colored girls in the MOMA
Half these broads ain’t got nothing on Wylona
Don’t make me bring Thelma in it
Bring Halle, Bring Penelope and Selma in it
Back to my Beyoncés, you deserve three stacks word to Andre
Call Larry Gagosian
You belong in museums, you belong in vintage clothes crushing the whole building
You belong with niggas who used to be known for dope dealin’
You too dope for any of those civilians
Now shoo children, stop lookin’ at her t*ts
Get your own dog, ya heard
That’s my b**ch

So, if I have this correct, she is his Bitch, well kinda. She belongs to niggas known for dope dealing?

According to her, if he liked it, then he would have put a ring on it.
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But I ain’t never seen you kiss this man. Evar. Grab his face. Smack his ass. Something Gina.

I don’t believe you.

Now, @cervantes left a comment questioning my evidence and he has a point. Both Beyonce and Jay have referred to each other publicly. He is correct in that Jay Z has mention her, and she him, publicly. And I will acknowledge this corrective in my post because this is in fact important and significant. However, isn’t there something to be said about the distinction between a public mention, and public affection when you make your bread saying that “You are a success if he gives you a ring”.  Why is success measured by having a marriage contract?

I think the post on Clutch by Janelle Harris has influenced me as well. Harris states that while folks living together may be great for some people, for her, she understands the importance of getting married before you have children having had a child 12 years ago and another nine months ago. Harris believes that,

So now, after besting 12 years of single motherhood and nine more months on top of that of being a baby mama, I see now that there is a reason why you should wait to be married before you have little ones. This ish ain’t easy solo. Not that having a husband makes life a cakewalk, but if you’ve picked the right dude, you’ve got a partner to help shoulder and share the responsibilities that come with being a parent, a homeowner—heck, an adult in general.

To them and others who just don’t think it’s that deep, first comes love, second comes marriage, then comes the lady with the baby carriage is a rhyme that didn’t mean much more beyond the playground in elementary school. But to me, it’s the natural order of things, the way the good Lord intended them to be, the modus operandi that makes the most logical sense.

The way God intended? Girrrl, God intended me to be free and to be of service.

Waaaay back in November 2010, my fellow Crunkfeminist @Moyazb stated in response to the No Wedding No Womb meme and the Eddie Long church and sexual violence allegations that,

Perhaps black folks’ ambivalence about marriage signals problems with the institution itself and not with black people.

We are not taught think about how there may be an issue with the institution of marriage rather than with Black people.We are not thinking about other ways to think about family BECAUSE raising children is hella work because doing it alone can lead to a nervous breakdown.

So, if Beyonce is going to be Black women’s ambassador for heterosexual marriage, then ya’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Can we believe a Love that can’t and won’t be claimed publicly? Especially when the “Love” is constantly referred to, implicitly, in songs.

For GLBTQ folks, claiming your Love publicly can get your assed fired, get you beat on the street, get you kicked out of your biological family. Talk about relationship politics.

Or perhaps their marriage is crude and public example of what marriage in the United States, an economic, legal and property arrangement.

This is why I also believe that folks had such a hard time with the Kim Kardashian’s divorce. Her marriage and divorce exemplified just how much market forces, how much money plays a role in marriage in 2011.

Many of us romantics have a hard time accepting this. But it’s real. As real as that $3.15 latte I just bought. As real as the 35 million people in this country who are on food stamps.

Money matters in our sexual relationships. If you don’t believe me, ask a sex worker or a stripper. Ask the wife of a man who is a millionaire.

I do agree with Janelle on one thing. She states that,

Celebrities wield such heavy influence over what so many folks do, say and believe—including adults, so let’s not front—that Mrs. Carter’s decision to do it the right way (yep, I intentionally left the quotation marks off) just might spark a positive trend.

It is for this reason that I write this piece.

Do you believe Beyonce?

If you refer to your relationship in songs, and if your songs are patriarchal, do you then need to visibly affectionate in order to be believable?

Perhaps patriarchy closes off the space to be affectionate?

Is it meaningful that he put a ring on it but I/we ain’t never seen him kiss her?

#I just wrote my ass off. #Drops mic.