Do We Really Believe That Black Girls Rock?
The annual award show honoring the accomplishments of Black women was a highlight of 2017, but who in the hell invited Tyrese?
By McKensie Mack I’m a comedian. A lot of people think the job of a comedian is to make people laugh. But it isn’t, the job of the comedian is to build a mirror between people and society. All kinds of things happen when we look in mirrors, chile. Sometimes we look in the mirror and we laugh cause we see we look a mess. Other times we look in the mirror and we cry cause we remember we ain’t got no money in our pockets. That happened to me just yesterday. Last week, I went on Twitter to post a mirror in the form of a skit about the singer and actor Tyrese Gibson that I had made. I had no idea that Tyrese was performing that night on Black Girls Rock. But when I found out I thought: Tyrese? At Black Girls Rock? He betta be there to wash some Black Girls Rock dishes. But he wasn’t. He was there performing and stood on stage with the ambassador for Black self love and self-acceptance India Arie of all people. Now, why was I so surprised? It’s because Tyrese has made a habit of degrading Black women on TV and the internet. For example here’s an I’m ashy and hateful list of three things Tyrese den did:- He said that women are sexually assaulted because of the energy they put out into the world.
- He posted photo to Instagram inviting men only to give women advice on relationships.
- He shared a message nobody wanted for ‘promiscuous women’ on national television again, presumably telling Black women, since it was on motherf***** BET, that they needed to stop sleeping with so many men if they really want to find happiness in their lives.
Related: WHY FAT HUMANITY IS NOT GOVERNED BY FUCKABILITY
Feminism 101: A Cheat Sheet on Sexism, Misogyny, Misogynoir and More
When it is all said and done, both male and female identified people need feminism. From ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ by Sojourner Truth to “Who Run the World” by Beyonce, feminism is a word that sparks contrasting feelings globally. And depending
Intersectionality Ain’t For White Women
The claim that "intersectionality" should be used universally to speak for everyone's experiences is simply an extension of the anti-Black violence we already experience.
Remember that 2007 movie, Freedom Writers? In the film, Hilary Swank plays well-to-do naive teacher Erin Gruwell, who goes to teach 10th graders at Woodrow Wilson High School. In a scene where she (finally) begins to get checked for her white privilege, one of her students, Eva, spills into a stunning dialogue about her own life and survival that I still find myself thinking about to this day. Eva, staring right at Gruwell, says "[W]hite people always wanting their respect like they deserve it for free... see, I hate white people [because] I know what you can do... Except for 'cuz they can. And they can. Because they're white. So I hate white people on sight." Eva's dialogue reminds me so much of the pain that BIPOC have to carry to comfort and placate white women who believe that their well-intentions can make up for complacency in a white supremacist system. And of course, a lot of this well-intentioned "feminist allyship" comes in the co-option and theft of phrases specific to the Black experience, like intersectionality. Today, you would be hard-pressed to find a website or news outlet that boasts about its awareness of the current social justice landscape who hasn't used intersectionality to showcase just how "woke" they are. But the overuse of this term has created a warping of how we see and interact with each other, both in social justice spaces and beyond. In particular, the co-option of intersectionality has amplified something that BIW+oC have already known: when it comes to our interactions with white women, the anxiety around co-option and culture-vulturing is rooted in its inevitable reality because of the power dynamics that place white women as socially dominant. The relationship between Black folks and white women has been tumultuous, at best, because for too long this inequality has been unaddressed. In short, intersectionality — much like solidarity — isn't for white women.Related: REMEMBERING SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE MOTHER OF INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM
The Body Positive Movement Needs More Than Robbie Tripp’s Faux-Allyship
We really shouldn’t be applauding men for finding their wives attractive while we regularly deride fat women who love themselves without the male gaze.
BY TIFFANIE WOODS
It only took 5 minutes for me to hate the newest viral sensation that hit the interwebs last week in the form of Robbie Tripp. If you’ve been plugged into any social media outlet, I’m sure you’ve read an article or seen a picture of Robbie and his wife Sarah, and the nauseating faux body posi Instagram post he published yesterday. In the post, Robbie goes into detail to explain why he loves his wife. That’s nice right? That’s what I thought after reading the headline of Buzzfeed’s article about the couple. But a few lines into the article had my eyes rolling in the back of my head so hard I thought they would stick. A man letting the world know how beautiful he thinks his wife is cute, except that Tripp centers his own experiences with being attracted to thick girls – he centers the bullying he faced when he was a teenager instead of highlighting Sarah’s own experiences with her body. By constantly pointing out and objectifying his wife’s body and humanizing himself, Tripp shows just how little he actually gets feminism. But hey, lets give this man a standing ovation for loving the woman he married because she has some cellulite and isn’t a size two. In theory, this could’ve been a good post. Had Robbie gone in-depth on any of the topics he mentioned; why he was teased for liking plus-size women, why it’s okay to not be a size zero, why today’s beauty standards aren’t realistic and are dangerous. It could’ve been informative to address fatphobia and educate his hundreds of thousands of followers.Related: 5 WAYS THE BODY POSITIVE MOVEMENT IS FAILING PEOPLE WHO NEED IT MOST
