Category Archives: Uncategorized

When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland

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It’s important for people, specifically white people, to read this brilliantly written piece on Miley Cyrus, the VMAs, and the appropriation of black women’s bodies.

tressiemc

This may meander.

Miley Cyrus made news this week with a carnival-like stage performance at the MTV Video Music Awards that included life-size teddy bears, flesh-colored underwear, and plenty of quivering brown buttocks. Almost immediately after the performance many black women challenged Cyrus’ appropriation of black dance (“twerking”). Many white feminists defended Cyrus’ right to be a sexual woman without being slut-shamed. Yet many others wondered why Cyrus’ sad attempt at twerking was news when the U.S. is planning military action in Syria.

I immediately thought of a summer I spent at UNC Chapel Hill. My partner at the time fancied himself a revolutionary born too late for all the good protests. At a Franklin Street pub one night we were the only black couple at a happy hour. It is one of those college places where concoctions of the bar’s finest bottom shelf liquor is served in huge fishbowls…

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Martin Luther King Jr. on NBC’s Meet the Press in 1965

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Though not the 1963 Pre-March on Washington episode that was rebroadcast Sunday morning, it’s interesting to note how some of those attitudes still persist today.

Some on twitter likened it to watching Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or even Bill O’Reilly in 2013.

It’s true that we have accomplished much since the 1960s. There is more representation of people of color in positions of power. But there still remains a stubborn thread of ignorance that prevents America from fully being the “Land of the Free” that it purports to be.

Originally posted Sunday 25 August on ADignorantium.Tumblr