According
to a buddy of mine, there has recently been a HUGE blow up on twitter
between black and white feminists. There have always been issues
there--white women can't understand that black women's lived
experiences are different/how intersectional identities impact, oh, I
don't know, everything.
So
I did a little research to see if some sort of recent event had
brought this out, and it seems like the Oscars/Onion dust up
with Quvenzhané Willis in which the
satirical site called her a cunt on Twitter brought this up. She is a
nine-year-old black girl which makes it appalling, but also appalling
because the only thing she did that was even moderately less than
precious was correct reporters when they misprounced her name/refused
to even try (one reporter called her Annie!) and to be proud and
excited about her accomplishments. Some of the commentary I read
online about this adorable little girl was just this close to calling
her uppity for
daring to be proud of herself, and the Onion, however satirically,
crossed a line when they called her a cunt. (Sidebar: I actually
was going to write a post about this, but a) I was too lazy/tired and
b) I didn't actually watch the Oscars so writing commentary on it too
much felt weird).
But
the criticism here seems to be that black feminists feel white
feminists were silent on this issue (which makes me sad I was!), and
Tressie MC actually does an empirical breakdown of
it on her blog (a well-written and damning read).
So
why were white feminists silent on this? I like what she wrote here
on that: "There remains a cultural norm that children are
off-limits. When that norm is violated and it does not elicit a
social response equal to the severity of the violation, it
communicates that there are invisible limits to who is included in
the greater social contract. In this instance, being
black and being
a girl put Quvenzhané just beyond the limits of inclusion."
We've sort of somehow decided that being a minority and a female
means that it's okay to brush over this hideous word applied to a
kid, or to give it a very dismissive level of engagement at best.
And
that makes me feel ashamed and sad. It's 20 fucking 13, why aren't we
doing better than this? Why aren't we working together and engaging
in real dialogue so that white feminists can get a glimpse of black
feminist issues and try to understand and maybe even help? I don't
have any answers here, but a simple recommendation: talk to people
and listen to people who are different from you.
Did
you see that disgusting tweet? Did you think it was out of line too?
Much
love,
The
Sheriff
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