Last week I read this article, which was posted on the Guardian on-line. I was ready to take comedian Ben Voss apart. I cut my fingernails because I didn’t want anything to be in the way when my fingers raced across the keyboard of my MacBook Pro as I wrote a scathing reaction to this white comedian’s caricature of black women.
Because I believe in artistic license, I was going to start off by writing that I trust Voss’s sincerity in claiming the identity of a black South African woman to unite people. I wasn’t even going to allow any opening for a discussion of racism. I’m convinced that when this word is invoked, minds shut down. Furthermore, when this word is invoked, it evokes an image of powerlessness. Worse still, it makes victims out of black women, and I don’t consider myself a victim.
Brian Logan, the journalist who wrote “The Comedian Making South Africa’s World Cup a Laughing Matter”, described Voss’s act as a “caricature of the Rainbow Nation’s new elite: loud and proud, nouveau riche and corrupt” and images of American reality series, namely The Real Housewives of Atlanta flashed through my mind. Indeed, Nene Leakes and her crew are loud, proud and have come into wealth (usually on the coattails of their athlete husbands). I was ready to rant about the legitimization of this one tiny aspect of the identity of black women: we black women can be loud and sassy. Sometimes we need to be loud and sassy. But, if you’re not a black woman, you need to lay off appropriating this one facet of our identity for comic effect.
Yes, the sassiness that only black women can pull off is funny, especially when we employ it to recount to our girlfriends our reaction to a colleague’s off-color comments or when a boyfriend starts trippin’ or if our children think they’re grown enough to talk back to us. In my upcoming memoir, that loud and sassy black woman appears as the voice in my head that challenges, taunts and pushes me to stand up in the face of fear whenever I want to sit on the couch wrapped up in my own misery. That sassy miss is a part of my identity all right, but that’s just it: she’s a PART of my identity. I’m also loyal, nurturing, loving, lovable, intelligent, talented, creative, entrepreneurial and brave. I would have asked Mr. Voss why he couldn’t have chosen one of those qualities as his point of departure to speak out about corruption.
In fact, I would have asked why Eddie Murphy couldn’t show the creative aspect of black femininity in Norbit or any of his portrayals of black women in the popular Nutty Professor series? Is there a trace of these positive qualities in Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma? What’s the difference between a black man’s appropriation of a black woman’s identity and that of a white man’s? If I wanted to go there I could have asked what the difference is between racism and sexism? But I didn’t want to go there until I watched Voss’s act.
Enter YouTube. I watched a few of Voss’s one-minute sketches and was surprised at how tastefully he donned the garb of his character. Beauty Ramapelepele, whose “husband is a construction mogul responsible for the … football stadium” and who “landed the biggest fabric contract in the country’s history” (to manufacture the team’s soccer uniforms), is more clueless about business than a distorted caricature of black women. Admittedly, I don’t know any South African women, so I can’t say which feature is being exaggerated, the most obvious of which – blacking up – was absent.
While engaged in activities as banal as making a cup of coffee, Beauty takes a shot at the country’s “ruling class” by mocking its distaste for black- and brownness. After sending off her dog Cornbread to eat his bowl of caviar, she can’t help but to compare the ruling class to dogs licking their own balls. To be sure, Voss uses ridicule to censure that lot of oppressors.
After watching, my question was: did he have to use a black woman to make his point? I can concede that the unlikely combination of the powerful white man and the less powerful black woman would likely stun an audience. What I would find more stunning would be Voss’s using his venue to allow black women to speak for themselves. In one sketch, Beauty’s showing her ineptness when confronted with the basics of conducting business on a wide scale: a computer (a MacBook Pro, no less, and internet networking). Her black housekeeper is standing silently in the shadows pulling faces at Beauty’s awkwardness. Why not allow Beauty to engage that obvious representation of the black underclass in a constructive dialogue about how specifically the nation’s ruling class oppresses them?
I would not be opposed to a man, black or white, using black womanhood to protest social, political and economic injustices if and only if he understands the full, complex context of black women. Is he intimate enough with black women, and I don’t mean sexually, to understand her experiences, struggles and dreams? Has he invested time and energy in asking how she feels about her delegated place in society? Has he engaged her in constructive dialogue, ultimately discovering how she would voice her needs had she the appropriate venue? Is he willing to use her words instead of his own? Will he please consider other aspects of black female identity other than the loud, sassy one because, quite frankly, we’re tired of seeing it.
Last week I read this article, which was posted on the Guardian on-line. I was ready to take comedian Ben Voss apart. I cut my fingernails because I didn’t want anything to be in the way when my fingers raced across the keyboard of my MacBook Pro as I wrote a scathing reaction to this white comedian’s caricature of black women.
Because I believe in artistic license, I was going to start off by writing that I trust Voss’s sincerity in claiming the identity of a black South African woman to unite people. I wasn’t even going to allow any opening for a discussion of racism. I’m convinced that when this word is invoked, minds shut down. Furthermore, when this word is invoked, it evokes an image of powerlessness. Worse still, it makes victims out of black women, and I don’t consider myself a victim.
Brian Logan, the journalist who wrote “The Comedian Making South Africa’s World Cup a Laughing Matter”, described Voss’s act as a “caricature of the Rainbow Nation’s new elite: loud and proud, nouveau riche and corrupt” and images of American reality series, namely The Real Housewives of Atlanta flashed through my mind. Indeed, Nene Leakes and her crew are loud, proud and have come into wealth (usually on the coattails of their athlete husbands). I was ready to rant about the legitimization of this one tiny aspect of the identity of black women: we black women can be loud and sassy. Sometimes we need to be loud and sassy. But, if you’re not a black woman, you need to lay off appropriating this one facet of our identity for comic effect.
Yes, the sassiness that only black women can pull off is funny, especially when we employ it to recount to our girlfriends our reaction to a colleague’s off-color comments or when a boyfriend starts trippin’ or if our children think they’re grown enough to talk back to us. In my upcoming memoir, that loud and sassy black woman appears as the voice in my head that challenges, taunts and pushes me to stand up in the face of fear whenever I want to sit on the couch wrapped up in my own misery. That sassy miss is a part of my identity all right, but that’s just it: she’s a PART of my identity. I’m also loyal, nurturing, loving, lovable, intelligent, talented, creative, entrepreneurial and brave. I would have asked Mr. Voss why he couldn’t have chosen one of those qualities as his point of departure to speak out about corruption.
In fact, I would have asked why Eddie Murphy couldn’t show the creative aspect of black femininity in Norbit or any of his portrayals of black women in the popular Nutty Professor series? Is there a trace of these positive qualities in Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma? What’s the difference between a black man’s appropriation of a black woman’s identity and that of a white man’s? If I wanted to go there I could have asked what the difference is between racism and sexism? But I didn’t want to go there until I watched Voss’s act.
Enter YouTube. I watched a few of Voss’s one-minute sketches and was surprised at how tastefully he donned the garb of his character. Beauty Ramapelepele, whose “husband is a construction mogul responsible for the … football stadium” and who “landed the biggest fabric contract in the country’s history” (to manufacture the team’s soccer uniforms), is more clueless about business than a distorted caricature of black women. Admittedly, I don’t know any South African women, so I can’t say which feature is being exaggerated, the most obvious of which – blacking up – was absent.
While engaged in activities as banal as making a cup of coffee, Beauty takes a shot at the country’s “ruling class” by mocking its distaste for black- and brownness. After sending off her dog Cornbread to eat his bowl of caviar, she can’t help but to compare the ruling class to dogs licking their own balls. To be sure, Voss uses ridicule to censure that lot of oppressors.
After watching, my question was: did he have to use a black woman to make his point? I can concede that the unlikely combination of the powerful white man and the less powerful black woman would likely stun an audience. What I would find more stunning would be Voss’s using his venue to allow black women to speak for themselves. In one sketch, Beauty’s showing her ineptness when confronted with the basics of conducting business on a wide scale: a computer (a MacBook Pro, no less, and internet networking). Her black housekeeper is standing silently in the shadows pulling faces at Beauty’s awkwardness. Why not allow Beauty to engage that obvious representation of the black underclass in a constructive dialogue about how specifically the nation’s ruling class oppresses them?
I would not be opposed to a man, black or white, using black womanhood to protest social, political and economic injustices if and only if he understands the full, complex context of black women. Is he intimate enough with black women, and I don’t mean sexually, to understand her experiences, struggles and dreams? Has he invested time and energy in asking how she feels about her delegated place in society? Has he engaged her in constructive dialogue, ultimately discovering how she would voice her needs had she the appropriate venue? Is he willing to use her words instead of his own? Will he please consider other aspects of black female identity other than the loud, sassy one because, quite frankly, we’re tired of seeing it.
Last week I read this article, which was posted on the Guardian on-line. I was ready to take comedian Ben Voss apart. I cut my fingernails because I didn’t want anything to be in the way when my fingers raced across the keyboard of my MacBook Pro as I wrote a scathing reaction to this white comedian’s caricature of black women.
Because I believe in artistic license, I was going to start off by writing that I trust Voss’s sincerity in claiming the identity of a black South African woman to unite people. I wasn’t even going to allow any opening for a discussion of racism. I’m convinced that when this word is invoked, minds shut down. Furthermore, when this word is invoked, it evokes an image of powerlessness. Worse still, it makes victims out of black women, and I don’t consider myself a victim.
Brian Logan, the journalist who wrote “The Comedian Making South Africa’s World Cup a Laughing Matter”, described Voss’s act as a “caricature of the Rainbow Nation’s new elite: loud and proud, nouveau riche and corrupt” and images of American reality series, namely The Real Housewives of Atlanta flashed through my mind. Indeed, Nene Leakes and her crew are loud, proud and have come into wealth (usually on the coattails of their athlete husbands). I was ready to rant about the legitimization of this one tiny aspect of the identity of black women: we black women can be loud and sassy. Sometimes we need to be loud and sassy. But, if you’re not a black woman, you need to lay off appropriating this one facet of our identity for comic effect.
Yes, the sassiness that only black women can pull off is funny, especially when we employ it to recount to our girlfriends our reaction to a colleague’s off-color comments or when a boyfriend starts trippin’ or if our children think they’re grown enough to talk back to us. In my upcoming memoir, that loud and sassy black woman appears as the voice in my head that challenges, taunts and pushes me to stand up in the face of fear whenever I want to sit on the couch wrapped up in my own misery. That sassy miss is a part of my identity all right, but that’s just it: she’s a PART of my identity. I’m also loyal, nurturing, loving, lovable, intelligent, talented, creative, entrepreneurial and brave. I would have asked Mr. Voss why he couldn’t have chosen one of those qualities as his point of departure to speak out about corruption.
In fact, I would have asked why Eddie Murphy couldn’t show the creative aspect of black femininity in Norbit or any of his portrayals of black women in the popular Nutty Professor series? Is there a trace of these positive qualities in Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma? What’s the difference between a black man’s appropriation of a black woman’s identity and that of a white man’s? If I wanted to go there I could have asked what the difference is between racism and sexism? But I didn’t want to go there until I watched Voss’s act.
Enter YouTube. I watched a few of Voss’s one-minute sketches and was surprised at how tastefully he donned the garb of his character. Beauty Ramapelepele, whose “husband is a construction mogul responsible for the … football stadium” and who “landed the biggest fabric contract in the country’s history” (to manufacture the team’s soccer uniforms), is more clueless about business than a distorted caricature of black women. Admittedly, I don’t know any South African women, so I can’t say which feature is being exaggerated, the most obvious of which – blacking up – was absent.
While engaged in activities as banal as making a cup of coffee, Beauty takes a shot at the country’s “ruling class” by mocking its distaste for black- and brownness. After sending off her dog Cornbread to eat his bowl of caviar, she can’t help but to compare the ruling class to dogs licking their own balls. To be sure, Voss uses ridicule to censure that lot of oppressors.
After watching, my question was: did he have to use a black woman to make his point? I can concede that the unlikely combination of the powerful white man and the less powerful black woman would likely stun an audience. What I would find more stunning would be Voss’s using his venue to allow black women to speak for themselves. In one sketch, Beauty’s showing her ineptness when confronted with the basics of conducting business on a wide scale: a computer (a MacBook Pro, no less, and internet networking). Her black housekeeper is standing silently in the shadows pulling faces at Beauty’s awkwardness. Why not allow Beauty to engage that obvious representation of the black underclass in a constructive dialogue about how specifically the nation’s ruling class oppresses them?
I would not be opposed to a man, black or white, using black womanhood to protest social, political and economic injustices if and only if he understands the full, complex context of black women. Is he intimate enough with black women, and I don’t mean sexually, to understand her experiences, struggles and dreams? Has he invested time and energy in asking how she feels about her delegated place in society? Has he engaged her in constructive dialogue, ultimately discovering how she would voice her needs had she the appropriate venue? Is he willing to use her words instead of his own? Will he please consider other aspects of black female identity other than the loud, sassy one because, quite frankly, we’re tired of seeing it.
Tags: black woman, black women, identity
Posted in Geen categorie |
Author Terry H. Bhola didn’t have a cheap holiday in Florida in mind when he left New York a decade ago with his Italian wife. He was a man on a mission! In his honest and charming style, Bhola recounts in his memoir 
First stop: travel agent
Marbella: beautiful sea
The girls acquainted themselves with the town with the help of a couple of friends. We window shopped and even had time to go to the bullring (the kids still talk about bullfighting) where I was treated to my own, private bullfight. All in all these were fantastic days that allowed us to reunite as a family.
