Dear White Gays: Stop Stealing Black Female Culture

[Kishi]

It seems like EVERYONE uses the N-word here in South Florida, especially minority teens/young adults.

[Paul]

I get what the author was trying to say, but its really not just white gays. It really has to do with hip hop infiltrating American culture where its cool and acceptable to be loud, overbearing and ignorant. Ive seen plenty of white women giving me an exaggerated Keisha from the hood, she even has the ass injections to match. You even have a young girl by the name of Honey Boo Boo that is profiting more off her version of the exaggerated black woman, so why not write an article about her?! Why single out another disenfranchised group of people who are actually invoking the strength of black women because they are not really comfortable in their skin...I don't get that.

*in my Sinead O Connor voice* ^fight the real enemy

Excuse my ignorance as I'm not American but I thought honey boo boo was poor and southern that's why she speaks like that, and I know originally a lot of black people moved north years ago taking elements of that accent etc with them?

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

Excuse my ignorance as I'm not American but I thought honey boo boo was poor and southern that's why she speaks like that, and I know originally a lot of black people moved north years ago taking elements of that accent etc with them?

Yes.. For some reason, some black people have southern accents but live in Cleveland their entire lives.. I think it's because of their parents my parents are southern but I don't have an accent

[ThatOtherFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhW2LMcgw5M

 

The authors of both articles.

 

I can say most definitely say he doesn't get it. 

 

It's what happens when the topic of "white privilege" in general is discussed. Many don't like to be confronted with the "advantages"/"privileges" they have simply because of skin color, so instead of discussing it rationally, the defense mechanism kicks in. 

[Aquaria]

The more she has to defend this the more she says how specific her intended audience was... To the point where it's not even a significant group of a gay white men. What I got from that video is she is literally speaking to men that wanna call her "gurllllll" and neck roll and say shanaynay and shit. Who the fuck does that? That isn't a gay and white thing because that doesn't make up that identity at all and anybody who does do that is an outlier honestly. Like Austin has said in this thread and like the author in the video touched upon, the gay mannerisms and lingo comes from GAY culture. So if she's speaking to such a small margin of these people, she cannot be surprised at the deserved backlash for the sensationalist title and demoralizing tone of her article.

Like I've said, I have sympathy for everything she and other black women go through, but this is such a fucking dumb thing to focus on and honestly does more harm to the group of women she is trying to stick up for.

[Aquaria]

And that's the thing... All the negative stereotypes she's saying are being "stolen"... Do you want those? As a young black woman do you want your identity to be reduced to acting like a coon? Shit she should be saying gay white men can have that.

[ThatOtherFan]

The more she has to defend this the more she says how specific her intended audience was... To the point where it's not even a significant group of a gay white men. What I got from that video is she is literally speaking to men that act wanna call her "gurllllll" and neck roll and say shanaynay and shit. Who the fuck does that? That isn't a gay and white thing because that doesn't make up that identity at all and anybody who does do that is an outlier honestly. Like Austin has said in this thread and like the author in the video touched upon, the gay mannerisms and lingo comes from GAY culture. So if she's speaking to such a small margin of these people, she cannot be surprised at a dwarves backlash for the sensationalist title and demoralizing tone of her article.

Like I've said, I have sympathy for everything she and other black women go through, but this is such a fucking dumb thing to focus on and honestly does more harm to the group of women she is trying to stick up for.

 

 

It is still directed toward gay white males and those that she feels takes from the culture and/or use it in a very stereotypical way. I think that's very clear.  

 

She's simply saying she doesn't think all gay white males act this way. 

 

 

And that's the thing... All the negative stereotypes she's saying are being "stolen"... Do you want those? As a young black woman do you want your identity to be reduced to acting like a coon? Shit she should be saying gay white men can have that. 

 

 

 

You've missed the point. I think the point is the "ghetto girl from around the way" is not all black women and she's offended when gay white males approach her thinking this is "cool" way to interact with her or black women in general. 

 

Also, there is the "Miley Cyrus" effect. Something (good or bad) is popularized within the black culture, a white person uses it (for the sake of argument a gay white male), and suddenly it's in and cool. A gay white male can adopt it and drop it whenever he sees fit, and is not be looked down upon. She can't shake the stereotypes that the white gay male is appropriating when being a "strong black woman".

[Aquaria]

White people acting black isn't the point, she said that in the cnn video. She is talking about an extremely specific group of white gays in Mississippi she's encountered.

To single out gay white men is the issue when that doesn't comprise in any way our identity. What she's talking about is not specific to gay white men. And like I said... The tone of the article was hostile, degrading and the title was sensationalist. I'm not here for that.

[trackboy]

White people acting black isn't the point, she said that in the cnn video. She is talking about an extremely specific group of white gays in Mississippi she's encountered.

To single out gay white men is the issue when that doesn't comprise in any way our identity. What she's talking about is not specific to gay white men. And like I said... The tone of the article was hostile, degrading and the title was sensationalist. I'm not here for that.

 

She never stated that she was speaking of ALL gay white men much like she was not referring to ALL black women. She was addressing those gay white men who think it's cool, cute, or funny, to adopt caricatures of African-American women stereotypes.  She probably was hostile to them but degrading to them? I didn't see the article as degrading.  

[trackboy]

Excuse my ignorance as I'm not American but I thought honey boo boo was poor and southern that's why she speaks like that, and I know originally a lot of black people moved north years ago taking elements of that accent etc with them?

 

I've never seen honey boo boo; but essentially I do believe she does speak how she speaks because she is poor and uneducated; not necessarily because she's southern.  I am southern and I do not speak that way.

 

However, in America, any time someone doesn't speak intellectually, it's associated with African-Americans or ebonics although I am an African-American and I do not speak using such language. I particularly take exception when African-Americans embrace such stereotypes for our culture.  If it's broken english then its stereotyped with a foreign ethnicity.  

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

Meanwhile, women are paid less in the country

Talk about priorities

Btw.. The article, which I haven't read fully, doesn't mention a thing about just pertaining to the men she ran into in Mississippi

[Aquaria]

Meanwhile, women are paid less in the country

Talk about priorities

Btw.. The article, which I haven't read fully, doesn't mention a thing about just pertaining to the men she ran into in Mississippi

In the cnn video she said it's based on her personal experience of gay men that have approached her in that way. So unless she's marched in the gay pride parade in every state, her experience is local

[Rock & Roll Hall of Game]

In the cnn video she said it's based on her personal experience of gay men that have approached her in that way. So unless she's marched in the gay pride parade in every state, her experience is local

The article is a Hasty generalization fallacy...

[Aquaria]

Alright everybody go home... Antwaun Sargent just shut it down

 

 

 

A History of Throwing Shade for Black Women and Gay White Men

 

Sierra Mannie's TIME Magazine piece, "Dear White Gays: Stop Stealing Black Female Culture," is a challenge to white gay men to "check their privilege" because their identity is more fluid than other minorities in this country and their usage of language and behavior that is associated often with the cultural expression of black women is offensive.

 

Mannie wrote:

 

But here's the shade -- the non-black people who get to enjoy all of the fun things about blackness will never have to experience the ugliness of the black experience, systemic racism and the dangers of simply living while black.

 

In a rebuttal to Mannie's critique Slate's J. Bryan Lowder argued:

 

In any case, my feeling is that this specific subgenre of gays is rather rare and skews pretty young (i.e., immature); far more common are gay white men who, like myself, occasionally make use of certain signifiers that could be said to "belong" to both gay culture and black (female) culture. I'm thinking of concepts like reading and shade and phrases like "spill the tea..."

 

Both of their arguments make claims on language (shade, reading, tea, slay, etc.) that developed from the gay black ballroom scene in the 1960s.

 

Shade, if we are returning words and behaviors back to the originators, isn't Mannie or Lowder's to use. Mannie called out white gay men for appropriating black women's language by appropriating language developed by black gay men. And Lowder defends white gay men by wrongly ascribing to gay culture broadly and black female culture singularly words that are rooted in black gay men's resistance to both gay and black culture. These words allowed black gay men to form community when they were trying to escape from the scorn of gay white men, challenge the larger black community's resistance to black gay men's freedom of sexual expression, and survive. These words allowed black gay men to aptly describe their feelings, and themselves, when the language didn't exist because gay, black and mainstream culture was keen on not accepting them. What is often missed is black gay men throw shade because shade was all they had to challenge the stereotypes that were promoted by both gay white men and the straight black community.

 

I have seen too many times in the LGBTQ friendly Boystown neighborhood of Chicago black gay boys and men who had to leave the black neighborhoods they live in because they weren't allowed to express themselves in them only to show up in Boystown to be harassed by white gay men for expressing their sexuality. I have also seen far too many black gay and transgender youth living on the streets of major American cities. Because they have been rejected by their families and the gay agenda is too concerned with marriage equality to mobilize around issues that disproportionately affect black gay men and boys.

 

Contrary to popularly held notions of oppression black gay men, white gay men, and black women do not suffer a similar oppression. The histories of oppression for each of these groups are varied and complex. And often black gay men can't see themselves or their contributions when black women and white gay men appropriate their ways of being. No shade, but who do you think taught Beyonce those dance moves?

 

I assume that Meanie and Lowder both felt that they could use shade and other words developed by black gay men because they had some cultural connection to the words. But they have no more of a connection to the words than does white gay men to language deployed by black women. There is no one to one scale of oppression that allows any group to place a claim on another's culture even if they share aspects of the same identity. I think that's the point that Saturday Night Live missed when they allowed black male comedians to continuously play black females for the better part of the shows 37-year history as if black men and women blackness means the same thing.

 

I have witnessed white gay men align themselves with black culture in ways that are senselessly offensive. But I have also witnessed black women like Oprah, when she nationalized the "Down Low" without proper context on her daytime talk show; misrepresent black gay men in the name of understanding. And I have also witnessed black gay men portray whiteness in ways that are offensive, despite the fact that white people enjoy unprecedented privilege in this country. And that there is a causal erasure of black contributions to American culture and often white people invent histories to take credit for things they did not discover or produce. And white gay men continue to set the gay rights agenda, and determine what gay equality looks like with little input from the rest of the community. All shade.

 

The point is, we all can do better at deploying language, style and dance moves that has cultural attachments that are not our own in such a way that it feels inclusive. One way we can as Meanie said, "check our privilege," is by making sure that when we are the appropriators of culture the producers are able to see themselves and that their contributions are valid in our expression of what is not rightfully ours.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/antwaun-sargent/a-history-of-throwing-cultural-appropriation_b_5586481.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

[ThatOtherFan]

She never stated that she was speaking of ALL gay white men much like she was not referring to ALL black women. She was addressing those gay white men who think it's cool, cute, or funny, to adopt caricatures of African-American women stereotypes.  She probably was hostile to them but degrading to them? I didn't see the article as degrading.  

 

This.

 

 

 

And that there is a causal erasure of black contributions to American culture and often white people invent histories to take credit for things they did not discover or produce. 

While this article clocked both of the previous articles in this thread (and is actually very true lol), I think what I quoted is at least one of the argued points in the original article.

 

At least that's what I took from it... *shrugs*