There is an interesting conversation happening at Racialicious, which was inspired by this post about racist criticisms of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Four out of the five “Real Housewives” in that cast are black, and, as Tami says:
A foray into online coverage, blogs and TV forums like the ones on Television Without Pity will uncover frequent use of the word “ghetto” and “hood,” references to this or that housewife looking “like a man,” hints that the housewives are high-classed “hos”–promiscuous, scheming she-devils hot on the trail of big money, snark about big booties, talk of how the women are embarrassing black folks.
So, Tami explores the Atlanta Housewives’ behavior within the context of the entire “Real Housewives” franchise. The white women from the O.C., New York and New Jersey are just as “bullying, narcissistic, back-stabbing, money-grubbing, cliquey, disloyal, arrogant, self-involved, willfully ignorant, poorly spoken, wasteful and tackily nouveau riche” as the black women of Atlanta. But they are not judged as white women. They exemplify some of the worst nasty stereotypes about women, but they are not held up as representative of white women. When people see the Atlanta Housewives acting poorly, they see race in addition to sex, and they incorporate that into their critiques.
Tami’s expands upon that in her more recent post, describing how she feels about the burden of representing her race and acting as an ambassador for the black community to the mainstream (i.e. white) world. Both of Tami’s posts, and the comments, are worth reading. She concludes that policing the behavior of other black people is a losing game. But I understand the impulse. I cringe when other women confirm negative stereotypes about my sex. And I hesitate, sometimes, to say or do things that are allegedly “typical” of women – such as asking a “stupid” question in math class. But I am generally free to be myself without worrying that my behavior will reflect poorly on all white people. My race privilege protects me from that.
The whole “credit to your race” conversation reminded me of BFP’s post at flip flopping joy, in which she writes about the politics of taking up space. BFP describes the anxiety she feels, as WOC, when she sees her young daughter unselfconsciously taking up public space. The little girl hasn’t yet learned she’s not entitled to it, has to earn it, has to work really hard to deserve it, as a child and later as a woman of color. It’s a powerful piece of writing and I’ve thought about it numerous times since I first read it months ago.
Marginalized bodies are navigating a world that would just as soon erase them (us) completely. A lot of us waffle between asserting our right to take up space and erasing ourselves for the benefit of the mainstream.
Am I reinforcing people’s opinions about fat people, about female people, about people with disabilities, about black male people…?
“The nation/state has us trained, and it doesn’t need to act as a regulator any more,” as BFP put it. I’m going to end there before I just quote the entire post. Something to think about, and talk about.
I’ll have to check that out. I can say from personal experience I had to stop reading the TWOP boards as they are so relentlessly anti-woman in the most gross way.
“The nation/state has us trained, and it doesn’t need to act as a regulator any more”
Love that quote.
However:
“I asked in my post about RHOA whether white people were spending time agonizing over the shameful antics of the Bravo brand’s white housewives and their families. I doubt it. I don’t think white people feel the burden of the Orange County wives’ rude, dull and ambition-less adult children. I don’t think they read the shallowness of New York City wives as reflective of white culture. I don’t think all white people flinched when one New Jersey protagonist expressed the desire to open a chain of car wash/strip clubs.” (racialicious)
I do flinch and take issue when these women do stupid shit. Because they are the type of women that aren’t representative of me or the whole of the people I know. It reinforces ideas and stereotypes about money-grubbers, women in constant competition with each other, shallowness, etc. I wanted to punch the son’s face in the NJ RH when he wanted to open the strip club. How darling!
I do realize, however, that for me it’s not a race issue, like what Tami was saying. In no way are the white women of the RH franchise being called out for sullying white people’s place in society. No one ever brings that up. For me it’s a woman issue-these women are giving *women* a bad name, black or white.
Awesome post.
@JessMess: I agree its not that I flinch watching Real Housewives as a white person, but I do flinch as a woman. But, full disclosure, I still watch.
Same here. I don’t watch the Real Housewives but I do watch the VH1 sideshows–my only truly guilty pleasure, in that I actually feel guilty while I watch. Once my partner watched Rock of Love with me, and he said, “The more I watch this the more I think women are stupid.” The shows are edited to confirm all your sexist and racist stereotypes. I wonder how much the women un/consciously play to them as well.
I do think Charm School (and the Brit show it ripped off, Ladette to Lady) is totally fascinating.
I’ve been thinking about reality tv and class. I had a brief flirtation with “Bridezillas” and my daughter and I watched last season’s “Tool Academy” and have started this one’s. I am pretty solidly upper middle class, white, educated, and I have definite feelings of guilt when I sneer at the antics of the people on those shows. They tend to be noticeably less educated, more poorly dressed, less articulate, than my social cohort. (And I’m not even mentioning the bad haircuts, crude language, and on and on…)
I mean, it’s hardly the case that tools and bridezillas are confined to blue-collar types. But the people who go on those shows are almost always middle class or lower. So that gives those of us who have more advantages the chance to compare ourselves favorably to our “social inferiors”. It’s really pretty mean, even if it doesn’t have any ramifications in real life. (And I’m not sure it doesn’t.)
So part of the sensitivity that POC may feel towards the women on the Real Housewives show is that the show is there precisely to allow others to judge the participants. And the judging won’t be kind, because that’s the point of reality shows like this. Even if you agree that their behavior leaves something to be desired and doesn’t show the home team in the best light (we Jews call it “a shanda fer de goyim”-shame in front of the gentiles, and a big no-no), you don’t want your people to be judged by outsiders.
And we pretend that we have no class divisions in this country. Sigh.
“Ghetto” is just a more acceptable form of the n-word, IMHO.
@ceejee: I suspect you are right. And the black women on RHOA tend to throw it around in reference to each other “Oh, you know how ghetto NeNe is.”
I think the NJ Housewives definitely got a ton of flack for being stereotypical Italian NJ loudmouth Mafia princesses, etc. etc. But while they may have played into a single ethnic stereotype, they weren’t seen as representative of all white people.