For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Homicide When the Patriarchy is Enough
by Guest Contributor M. Dot, originally published at Model Minority
These days and times are trife for Black women. You will rarely hear me speak from the stance of victim-hood, as I try my hardest to keep agency on mines.
My rationale is that as long as you are reactionary, someone else will always be setting your agenda and you will not gain any sustainable traction.
However the skin issues, sexual access issues have been on my bird lately.
The sexual access issues arose at the DJ Spinna Party on Saturday. I was standing with Filthy near the bar debating how long it is going to take Spinna to play Shook Ones or Who Got the Props. There were two clusters of white women there. In each group there was one women wearing a veil. They were toasted. Light-weight Girls Gone Wild toasted.
For the past six or seven years, New York City clubs have been making extra cake by throwing bachelor/ette parties earlier in the evening from 8-11pm with the regular party running from 11-3am. However there tends to be carry over, which is what I think happened Saturday. My homie K-boogie confirmed this later that night as she went to a bachelor party at the same spot last week.
So, I am standing there, minding my own business and a woman walks by me to order a drink. She apparently was a bachelor/ette party attendee, stripper or both. Either way she was lit, blond, and hootered out.
The first time she passed me she complemented my earrings.
(My earing game is mean.)
Second time she rubbed past me.
The third time, I was leaning over talking to Filth, so his ear was toward me, and she kissed me near my other ear.
I was frozen like a Robot.
Then she turned to me and said something inaudible.
Filthy caught on and was like awwwww sh*t. Here we go.
What went through my mind both how patriarchal that shit is and how the club is a space for people to try and do what they think about doing in the streets. I was reminded of a post that I came across when I wrote the Mobb Deep and Patriarchy piece I wrote a month ago.
The piece is titled Dancefloor Studies, Feminism, and Booty Bass.
The comment by Benjamin Mako Hill caught my attention because he articulated the notion of sexual access and the role that the club plays. He writes,
Booty bass is not just playing around with the idea of the dance floor being highly sexualized. In practice, it’s about serving the sex market and all about glamorizing and making palatable, laughable, and perhaps even justifiable everything that happens in that market.
Sometimes it’s not just about making fun of, toying with, or hinting at sexual domination in a safe context like the dancefloor but about creating, quite literally, a soundtrack for the real thing.
Back to what was running in my head.
That good old fight or flight.
I didn’t want no war with her. The Oakland in me says put my elbow in her throat. The Martin in me know that this will solve nothing. That I will be charged with assault and battery. It just gets real tiring to be constantly defending your body and your space against strangers, against both men and women, who presume that they have access to your body. I don’t know where she as been and I am paranoid. Herpes is the package that keeps on giving, don’t touch me. One in four people in New York City has it.
Don’t touch me.
I asked him why did she do that?
He responded simply, “Patriarchy”.
She probably thinks that its cute and she enjoys being the aggressor.
I responded saying, “If that was a dude, I wouldn’t have though twice about turning his skin purple or shoving him off of me, and letting it do what it do”. The woman played off her femininity and the likelihood that she would get away with it, because she was a woman and not a man. Alcohol played a role as well.
Then I thought, why should I give her a pass? Its the behavior, not the gender that matters.
She is just as bad as the Black men on the street that treat me like property.
Bringing bell hooks to the Spinna party is not what the streets wanted.
Which brings me to the skin issues.
Last night I listened to Phonte’s podcast and he has a segment called the Light Bright list. What he meant was “Light Bright and Damn Near White” as my momma would say. The Light Bright list is a list of light skinned Black women that he finds attractive. In the podcast he went down the line naming the greatest light skinned Black women ever, Lena Horn, Jennifer Beals, etc.
I am yellowish-red, and more copper in the summer time. As you will see in the video below that skin color shit is no joke for Black people.
Especially the children.
The whole time I am listening to Phonte, I am thinking about the little black girl, at 4:30 sec, who said that the black doll is the ugly doll, then when asked which doll does she look like, she hesitates, and reluctantly choose the black one.
That shit was heart breaking.
While I haven’t recovered from the “black doll is ugly” and the “light bright list” the Michelle Obama ain’t feminine shit came to my attention. Recently, feminist were in arms over Hillary being portrayed as a “ball buster”, “masculine” and un-lady like.
It wasn’t clear to me how this related to Michelle, so I asked Filthy why. He responded saying that, Hillary was being called masculine, and the feminists came to her defense.
So the question is where is the defense of Michelle Obama when the same criticism are being lodged at her?
I immediately thought of Phonte’s list and the video with the inference being drawn from that dark equals ugly, and presumably unfeminine.
Can you imagine the kind of Black Girl Fatigue this shit produces?
The skin issues, the sexual access issues are enough to make a Black Girl Consider Homicide when Patriarchy is Enough.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Sumayyah wrote:
Excellent post! Bad behavior is bad behavior. Period. No one should get a pass for it because we all “know better.”
And it’s a shame that in 2008, we are still haunted by those color divisions, especially among POC. I’m one of the “light” ones, and in my tortured past, I’ve had the ex-boyfriends who declared that they only dated me because I was light. We have to stop this madness.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 7:58 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
“If that was a dude, I wouldn’t have though twice about turning his skin purple or shoving him off of me, and letting it do what it do”. The woman played off her femininity and the likelihood that she would get away with it, because she was a woman and not a man. Alcohol played a role as well.
That happened to me and my sister by the SAME white girl at a club.
She proceeded to rub my ass..it wasn’t bass…it was Robert Randolph & the Family Band!!
If a guy had tried that shit, they would have called security ON ME!
***
I was on a black blog the other day where the men were trashing the Williams sisters’ looks (as usual), while simultaneously excoriating them for including white men in their dating choices.
On this same blog (diff post), a guy stated that Black Brazilian women have Black American women beat hands down as far as looks.
***
click on the Renee’s longform post below…even a black female murder victim can’t get any shine…in a black woman’s post specifically dedicated to Sparkle
Yeah…homicide.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 8:12 am ¶
Ron wrote:
All I can say is that I am a black man who loves women with dark skin. I love all women but especially women with the dark skin.
My wife has dark skin. Black American women will run circles around Black Brazilian women.
So there are brothers out there who represent a silent majority.
Long straight hair is not appealling to me. I think long hair masks the true beauty of a woman.
You have to sense us black men who love our women.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 8:52 am ¶
Tasha wrote:
When I was young I was a silent observer to the social dynamics at ny clubs. Growing up in NY my defenses were well honed and on automatic by the time club going became my thing. As I left my 20’s I realized I was tired of maintaining my defenses and having to develop new ones against of all things… women, Filth was right it’s patriarchy being played out though is a very odd new dance with women taking the lead at times.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 9:37 am ¶
WestEndGirl wrote:
I’m really sorry if this is a dumb question or I’m missing something really obvious. I’m from London so the racial politics here are different. Strange and challenging, mind, but different.
I am just failing from my experience to understand as to why this rude woman behaving towards you in a sexually(?) aggressive manner is related to race..?
I have read quite a lot around how sexism impacts WOC in the US on here, ABB, BFP etc, so I do understand a little about the stereotypes around WOC and sexuality etc. But in this case, I’m just not getting it!
It’s just that this kind of behaviour isn’t hugely common in the UK, but when it is, it can come from any quarter. All my friends black, brown, white, mixed etc have been on the receiving end of sleaziness but the perpetrators have been similarly diverse - thus my lack of understanding!
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 9:46 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@ West End Girl -
Two reasons:
1. M. Dot was talking about how most of the blame for this falls on internalized patriarchy. However;
2. It also plays into the stereotype that black women are always sexually available and that our bodies are for someone else’s pleasure. A lot of M. Dot’s surprise came from the agent - that men (as we have discussed in various posts on catcalling) feel like they can take more liberties with the bodies of black women and it is interesting to see white women starting to internalize this dynamic.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 9:51 am ¶
Mickey wrote:
Just ….WOW!
Maybe it’s because I’m from the South, but that rub might have had me hurting her feelings. Kissing on me would have had me goin’ upside her head.
Because of that stereotype about Black women’s bodies, I’m hypersensitive to unwanted touching, especially in bars & clubs. People get brave when they got rum & coke in their engine.
I’ve gone off on more than one guy in a club about grabbing me when I walk by. My friends tell me not to say anything, but I feel I have a right not be pawed on.
There will be no love in this club.
And what guys don’t realize if you ASK a girl to dance, she’ll more than likely say yes.
Regardless of race and/or gender, grown people need to keep their hands to themselves.
/rant over
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:20 am ¶
WestEndGirl wrote:
Thanks for the explanation re: point 2 Latoya.
I hear and understand you. I’m not sure I ‘get’ it, but that’s because as I say, things are very different here in London! I wouldn’t say that there is that same blanket stereotype here as our black community grew very differently and from different drivers than that of the US.
Would you consider finding a guest blogger from the UK to talk about similar? I’ll have a pootle around the UK blogosphere myself as well. I’m always intrigued when I read US bloggers with my background (mixed, Jewish) write things that would just not be true here in the UK or vice versa and it always expands my mind and challenges me!
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@WEG -
Yes. It’s on my to-do list. Not just London, but different areas of the world. I need to lock in my regular contributors here (and get a system for them) before I start extending more invitations though. But yes, we will start looking at global race culture.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:49 am ¶
Tara wrote:
Actually, I’ve seen a lot of feminist response to what’s going on w/Michelle Obama, and pretty immediately. While we all know Fox News jumped on her immediatley, and did it in the ugliest ways possible, I didn’t see any time lapse before feminists came to her defense, posting threads on Feministing.com and creating the site michelleobamawatch.com. Does it compare to the Hillary response? Probably not, but it’s also important to point out that there wasn’t a single Hillary thread on any feminist site that was in full support of her — it seemed a larger number of feminists were concerned with explaining why they weren’t invested in (or voting for) her, but they still wanted to defend her as a woman who was receiving some sexist bullshit.
In general, though, I thinking talking about “feminists” as one large canvassed group is pointless, for the obvious reasons. They’re not drones who nod to mass-marketed feminist chants. I mean, I’ve never seen a feminist forum that doesn’t have heated debate.
BUT anyway — to the topic at hand — I wonder if your reaction to the woman, or your delayed reaction or your hesitation to react, was in part b/c it’s not a situation we’ve played out as much. I mean, we just can’t react as quickly, as familiarly, as we would to man doing that. And maybe we don’t read it as sexually as we would a man, whether we should or not. I agree with your assessment, but it seems like I, too, would feel more inclined to give her a pass, though I can’t justify it.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 12:17 pm ¶
DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:
Ugh.
I’ve been hit on by drunken white blonde sorority chicks, too, but I never really thought about whether or not race played a factor in it. I assumed it was because I’m a punk rocker with a shaved mohawk and they probably thought I was lesbian or bisexual (I’m not either).
But now that you mentioned it, I’m wondering if race has anything to do with it, too.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 12:29 pm ¶
Alexandra wrote:
Wonderful post, I definitely agree about feeling hypersensitive in clubs, my radar is always on for that sort of thing and their have been times when I have had to push guys away or smack hands. I don’t know if would have pushed the woman away but I’m pretty sure I would have said something to her. In regards to colorism, I remember when I was 12 or 13 talking with a black woman and she said asked I was mixed or not I said no. She responded with oh well your so smart and noticed that sometimes when there’s a white parent and a black parent the children are smarter. I was pretty much dumfounded.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 1:05 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
My wife has dark skin. Black American women will run circles around Black Brazilian women.
I appreciate the sentiment Ron
However, there is stunning (and fug) everywhere!
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 1:22 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:
thank you gatamala. i hate it when people even make the comparison between black brazilian women vs. black american women b/c a) both groups are equally diverse, and b) i think the extra hot or exotic is only added by the fact they live in brazil. when i go to brazil, i feel like i can spot a family member in all the crowds, and i am a black american. it’s really just all in our heads. they are no hotter than we are, and vice versa.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 1:35 pm ¶
dave wrote:
thanks for the post, a valuable voice.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 2:17 pm ¶
tybris wrote:
you were right, that video was heartbreaking. As an asian-american male that was born in america and grew up here i see these thing happen here all the time. We are constantly told attractiveness includes traits that you simply dont have genetically. Often times we are told this by Asian-american women.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 4:27 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
Some people shouldn’t drink. They lose all manners and good sense. I suspect that it was a race-related power thing, as that’s not the way to pick up a woman in LesbianLand.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 5:03 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
M.O. critics need eyeglasses, not to mention a heart and some manners.
Not having cable, I have been out of touch with any of the “Michelle Obama not feminine” stuff, although it doesn’t surprise me with FOX, and it is a pretty predictable development given the treatment of Hillary in 1992. The stereotype game was going to get M.O. one way or another: she presents as an accomplished executive working mother - she’s unfeminine because she supervises men in the work world and because she isn’t home 24/7. If she did stay home 24/7 taking care of hubby and kids, she would have been tagged as “lazy”, not ladylike, due to her race.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 5:12 pm ¶
georica wrote:
great post!
sexism is so ingrained into American society that we all have difficulty discerning when it arises.
the woman in the club did what she did cause she thought she could get away with it. and it looks (from the story), she did. i’m not saying the author should’ve confronted or should have let it go. i’m not exactly sure what i would’ve done, besides feel cheap and disappointed.
the lack of outrage at the treatment of Michelle Obama is interesting to me also.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 6:52 pm ¶
Phil Deeze wrote:
I live in the DC Metro area, and I am an African-American male that used to frequent the club scene here back in the 1990’s and it was crazy. Bar Nun, Republic Gardens, Blossoms, DC Live, etc. and the whole nine. Lots of fun.
One thing I noticed was that there were two types of women out there:
A) Women that would throw a drink on you/slap you/call security if you grabbed/touched their arm to get their attention (no worries, I’m not an arm-grgrabber and I don’t like wearing gin and tonic.)
and
B) Women that would stop and pitch woo to a guy that grabbed/touched their arm to get their attention. If he was the “right” guy.
Problem is that it’s hard to tell which gal is solidly from Column A and which gal is solidly in Column B. That’s the single guy’s gambit and the women’s decline of control.
Now that’s a small amount of control to either give up or be taken from you in a public place like a bar/club, but I can understand why some ladies don’t like it, but some women respect that approach. I found it much easier to be yourself. If you’re a macho arm-grabber type, then take the good (the digits) with the bad (a vodka cranberry splash to the grill.) If you’re smooth wit’ it, like myself, you live by one credo: “The absence of game is the ultimate game.”
I don’t think women from Column A realize that if guys never got anywhere with ladies in Column B, they’d never bother trying to grab ANY woman by the arm in true “Hey, shawty, lemme talk to you for a minute” fashion. Part of the reason guys grab arms is because they’ve had some success with the approach, and it continues because of that success. Just one guy’s observation of a small sliver of what women go through at a club.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 7:28 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
Oh white girls gone wild, won’t you ever step back and ask if maybe other people don’t want to go wild with you?
The white girl decided that she was entitled to hit a woman of color and probably thought she’d be thanked for it because it would provide a spectacle for men in the club, thereby getting M. Dot a kind of attention she never indicated she was looking for. Judging by the super-hetero nature of the bachelorette party she no doubt was also influenced by the idea that her heterosexuality would make her lecherous behavior acceptable and simply titillating, after all, who wouldn’t desire her gender-normative white lady self?
If this lady is a repeat offender I hope she gets chased away one day by a gang of butches. If I lived there I’d volunteer.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 7:54 pm ¶
Alexandra wrote:
@Phil Deeze
While I do agree that these guys do it because sometimes they get numbers or a date that doesn’t excuse the behavior. It also gotten worse instead just arm grabbing, I had my hips grabbed followed by grinding. And yes I do realize some guys have success with method but it makes me feel gross when they do that. I don’t see what’s wrong with tapping a person on the shoulder and just being polite about things.
About Michelle Obama
I forgot to add this in my earlier comment but I have been annoyed with feminism’s response to Michelle Obama’s treatment in the media. I do applaud the blogs that have covered this but as others have said I would like to some big names come out in her defense. Another thing that has annoyed me is I’ve heard people complain about Michelle taking a back seat to Obama because of her appearance on the view and Family Circle bakeoff. This gets on my nerves because if she speaks out she’s an angry black woman and if she “tones” it down she’s sell out and not longer a strong black woman. I think people fail to realize African-American women can be perceived as threating if we are too outspoken as result we end up self-censoring in order to just get along. I have done this on occasion so I can understand why Michelle Obama might do this as well.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 10:24 pm ¶
kanani wrote:
I have to say, it’s times like this I thank the stars I’m almost fifty.
Okay, so now that I’ve revealed myself to be on the border of decreptitude, let me say that I find the woman’s behavior both sleazy and rude.
You would have been within your rights to shove her away physically.
As far as patriarchy goes –I’d never considered it before, but I can really understand what you mean.
So… yes, please do practice your backhand.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 11:05 pm ¶
IKnowSomething wrote:
Thank you for this post. As a very mixed up girl, I grew up with light brown skin, so everybody assumed I was half white. Later on, when I started claiming both the Cuban and the Black, Blacks would get upset and call me “liar” or “poser” or whatever because I didn’t fit the stereotype of being a fair-skinned, baby fine black hair “Latino”, despite the fact that most Caribbean Latinos have the same ancestry, history, as well as appearance as Blacks here in the state.
As a race, we are our own enemy. We fear change because we fear that the change would be met with resistance that we don’t think we can fight. Its the general mentality of Blacks, and its a sad mentality. We will be the first ones to point out how much prettier a light skinned girl is, yet turn around and say that she’s piss yellow and half of the devil’s spawn.
I was in Orlando with my aunt at the grocery store a few years back. Her and I look alike, and we’re both light skinned. This beautiful woman with dark brown skin (I mean she had gorgeous features and a milky smooth skin complexion), approached us and told us how she wished that she was as beautiful as we were. I was so hurt to see that, because personally I thought she was so much more gorgeous than I.
…doesn’t help that we allow our women to be degraded by our men in these stupid crap rap videos.
Posted 01 Jul 2008 at 11:32 pm ¶
Adrianna wrote:
you guys should read Female chauvinistic Pigs by Arian levy. It’ doesn’t speak too much about the above subject, but it still a fascinating book. I know Kiri Davis and handed her a Prize at the Hampton International Film festival. I was working with a non for profit The Children’s Media Project in Upstate New York. Kiri said it was less common for black children from the Caribbean to choose the white doll.She also said that some of the teachers sobbed when they when she was filming the children. I’m from the Caribbean. Colorism is as prevalent as it is in the US and elsewhere.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 2:57 am ¶
Renee wrote:
@ reply at Tara
I didn’t see any time lapse before feminists came to her defense, posting threads on Feministing.com
Actually when the image of Micheele Obama being lynched in the daily KOS appeared it was immediately all over the “black” blogosphere. From the date I post it, it actually took yet another week for feministing to come out and say that it was wrong. Feminist jump on the band wagon of WOC issues when they are called out more often that when they do so of their own sense of injustice. I am sick and tired of white feminists who cannot seem to drum up the appropriate sense of rage when a WOC is violated. It always seems to be some callous after thought. Now of course they are talking about Michelle…we have told them that it is racist not to do so and they don’t want to appear racist even when they won’t own their own damn privilege.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 7:44 am ¶
Phil Deeze wrote:
@Alexandra:
Like I said, grabbing a lady by the arm is just a tiny fraction of some of the stuff that can be done to a lady at a club. I’m not Alan Alda or anything, but I don’t think I’d ever be bold enough to grab a perfect stranger and start grinding on her without so much as a “By your leave” from her first.
Trust me, I’ve seen guys politely tap a lady on her shoulder, hat in hand, to ask for a dance, but guys have to recognize: some women are at a club with their guard WAY up, so even the polite cats get treated pretty rudely even when they were just going to ask for a cocktail napkin.
It can be a pressure situation for some women, and I can understand that. (I have four neices that are either at nightclub age or are rapidly approaching it.)
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 8:04 am ¶
brad wrote:
Jeez, comparing black Brazillian and black American women is insulting and ludicrous. Making any kind of positive or negative comments about groups of millions of people is bigoted.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 9:15 am ¶
m.dot wrote:
@ kanani I come from a long line of “Cut & shoots, Cut you if you still, shoot you if you run”. I need no encouragement to be violent. Lol.
@ Dave, thank you for your kind words.
@jvansteppes If this lady is a repeat offender I hope she gets chased away one day by a gang of butches. If I lived there I’d volunteer.
=====
You are nuts! “The Butch Brigade”
@IKnowSomthing,
As a race, we are our own enemy.
=====
I disagree. Creating relationships based on
oppression, dominance and violence is the enemy.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 12:10 pm ¶
Nick wrote:
That video really ripped into me.
I’m an average white guy and watching it made me feel sick inside.
Little kids choosing the white doll because it was the “nice” one and hesitating to identify with the black doll.
How do we turn this around?
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 2:43 pm ¶
Clueless WW wrote:
damn, that video was an eye-opener… I’m almost afraid to try something like that with my four-year-old daughter and see what she says.
Posted 02 Jul 2008 at 6:51 pm ¶
Dumbwhitegirl wrote:
I read these blogs because I really honestly want to try and understand inter-racial relations better but my reaction was the same as WestEndGirl. I could not, until some answered her question, find the racism in this story. If I was drunk and found a WOC at a club attractive I would hit on her the same way I would a white woman. Now I have to worry that my advances could be racist? One more thing to worry about that I never worried about before, and one more thing that I will have to sit and think, Did I ever do that to anyone? It’s things like this that make one a) feel the whole trying to get along with all races/creeds/genders is pointless and could never be achieved or b) that I wish there was a Handbook for Racial Harmony. But, with that, no one voice can speak of everyone in a race so the book was be just as pointless. ‘
I guess the next time a black woman hits on me, I will accuse her or reverse racism, just for a laff.
Mod Note - Once again, M. Dot attributed that part of her story to ingrained patriarchy.
Posted 04 Jul 2008 at 1:55 pm ¶
Donna wrote:
I appreciate the clarification but is the author saying that any time a person of any race gets drunk and makes advances, that there has to be some sort of cultural/sociological subtext? Even if they’re not aware of it?
Posted 05 Jul 2008 at 10:12 am ¶
Delux wrote:
There’s a reason why so many straight black womenin NYC in the 80s went dancing at POC gay male clubs. You could just go dance and people wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of those inane shenanigans.
I’m also rather amused at how your talking about people who feel entitled to your body is somehow you being a big meanie re: innocent efforts at fun and racial harmony, but I’m cynical like that.
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 9:26 pm ¶
nick wrote:
As a straight guy, I like gay clubs because I don’t have to be worried about being attacked by some drunken dick-head.
Rather a pinch on the bum than a punch to the face.
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 11:12 pm ¶