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Miley Cyrus' Twerking: The Joke Is on Black Women
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Dennis Ball
Sep 15, 2013, 1:46:59 AM9/15/13
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Poor picked on me black woman writes sexual fantasy about white
momen coming on to her.
Citing the backup dancers on display during Miley Cyrus' Video
Music Awards twerking debacle as examples, Tressie McMillan
Cottom argues at her blog, tressiemc.com, that whites have long
viewed black women as freak show attractions. She frames the
spectacle against the backdrop of anti-black-female themes in
American culture.
Cyrus’ dancers look more like me than they do Rihanna or Beyonce
or Halle Berry. The difference is instructive ...
Black feminists have critiqued the material advantage that
accrues to white women as a function of their elevated status as
the normative cultural beauty ideal. As far as privileges go it
is certainly a complicated one but that does not negate its
utility. Being suitably marriageable privileges white women’s
relation to white male wealth and power.
The cultural dominance of a few acceptable brown female beauty
ideals is a threat to that privilege. Cyrus acts out her faux
bisexual performance for the white male gaze against a backdrop
of dark, fat black female bodies and not slightly more normative
cafe au lait slim bodies because the juxtaposition of her
sexuality with theirs is meant to highlight Cyrus, not challenge
her supremacy. Consider it the racialized pop culture version of
a bride insisting that all of her bridesmaids be hideously
clothed as to enhance the bride’s supremacy on her wedding day...
I am no real threat to white women’s desirability. Thus, white
women have no problem cheering their husbands and boyfriends as
they touch me on the dance floor. I am never seriously a
contender for acceptable partner and mate for the white men who
ask if their buddy can put his face in my cleavage. I am the
thrill of a roller coaster with safety bars: all adrenaline but
never any risk of falling to the ground.
Read Tressie McMillan Cottom's entire piece at tressiemc.com.
http://tressiemc.com/2013/08/27/when-your-brown-body-is-a-white-
wonderland/
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues
relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of
opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions
are shared by our editorial staff.
http://socialreader.com/me/content/L7eky
momen coming on to her.
Citing the backup dancers on display during Miley Cyrus' Video
Music Awards twerking debacle as examples, Tressie McMillan
Cottom argues at her blog, tressiemc.com, that whites have long
viewed black women as freak show attractions. She frames the
spectacle against the backdrop of anti-black-female themes in
American culture.
Cyrus’ dancers look more like me than they do Rihanna or Beyonce
or Halle Berry. The difference is instructive ...
Black feminists have critiqued the material advantage that
accrues to white women as a function of their elevated status as
the normative cultural beauty ideal. As far as privileges go it
is certainly a complicated one but that does not negate its
utility. Being suitably marriageable privileges white women’s
relation to white male wealth and power.
The cultural dominance of a few acceptable brown female beauty
ideals is a threat to that privilege. Cyrus acts out her faux
bisexual performance for the white male gaze against a backdrop
of dark, fat black female bodies and not slightly more normative
cafe au lait slim bodies because the juxtaposition of her
sexuality with theirs is meant to highlight Cyrus, not challenge
her supremacy. Consider it the racialized pop culture version of
a bride insisting that all of her bridesmaids be hideously
clothed as to enhance the bride’s supremacy on her wedding day...
I am no real threat to white women’s desirability. Thus, white
women have no problem cheering their husbands and boyfriends as
they touch me on the dance floor. I am never seriously a
contender for acceptable partner and mate for the white men who
ask if their buddy can put his face in my cleavage. I am the
thrill of a roller coaster with safety bars: all adrenaline but
never any risk of falling to the ground.
Read Tressie McMillan Cottom's entire piece at tressiemc.com.
http://tressiemc.com/2013/08/27/when-your-brown-body-is-a-white-
wonderland/
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues
relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of
opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions
are shared by our editorial staff.
http://socialreader.com/me/content/L7eky
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