Black Women and Erasure
I was scrolling through some photographs that I saw via a Tumblr keyword search and I saw a collage of “Black” celebrity couples. Kanye West/Kim Kardashian were included.
She is not Black.
A few weeks ago, I watched an obscure political show where the Black male host admitted that he told his daughter that Alex Wagner (from MSNBC) is Black, since his child has a White mother. Alex Wagner has a White father and an Asian (Burmese) mother.
She is not Black.
I am not attempting to “police” Blackness by stating these facts. This is not a question of colourism or a case of when a person has only one Black parent, do they and society at large accept them in the Black diaspora. Certainly being Black is not solely biology. Race itself is a social construct (which doesn’t mean there aren’t sociopolitical ramifications—something doesn’t have to be 100% biologically “real” to affect us), but EVEN WITHIN said construct, the fluidity of what is Black, when it pertains to Black women, seem to have a chasm the size of Venus.
This is plain and simple erasure of Black women. People (including some Black men and Black women, actually) are so desperate for us not to exist that any woman (not speaking of light skinned Black women, biracial “identifying as Black” women, or racially ambigious women [i.e. Maya Rudolph, Rashida Jones] who are also biracial with one parent identifying as Black, who definitely benefit from a colourist cultural hierarchy) who clearly is not Black even within the current (I say current since concepts of ”White” and “Black” and other races have changed over time) social construct that is race, are now Black? Really? People are really desperate for Black women who maybe look like me or Michelle Obama or Viola Davis or Alek Wek to not to exist, huh?
A non-Black woman does not “become” Black because she prefers dating Black men and a Black man prefers to be with someone White or non-Black.
To be clear, I am not “against” interracial relationships, as I wrote about before, but I WILL critique how White supremacist capitalist patriarchal culture, colourism, misogynoir, Eurocentric beauty myths, and male privilege influence them, as I would for same race couples. Further, I will critique how even our “preferences” (beyond just dating, but even how we participate in capitalism and our world views) are shaped by internal and external prejudices. It’s…just how I do on Gradient Lair.
Related Posts: Bigotry Aside, Why Not Go For Aesthetic Truth? (In Reference To Zoe Saldana Portraying Nina Simone), How I See Michelle Obama, But…We Look…Alike, Politics and The Blackness Police, Bristol Palin, Kim Kardashian and White Privilege
