Black Women's Empowerment

“Clutch” Gets it Right…White Feminists Dropped the Ball On the Quvenzhané Wallis Debacle

We’ve been battling this issue for months. Many of us (including myself) believe that most white feminists don’t give a crap about black women and girls, but talk a good game because they know and understand the power of building alliances in order to further your agenda. Black women have lapped up this pablum for decades and in many ways, we are worse off. People thought I was being unreasonable about my stance on feminists, but here’s a real-life example, and I for one am glad Clutch was brave enough to run this story.

If there were ever any doubts that white feminists are disengaged from and apathetic to the concurrent racism that Black feminists must navigate in an increasingly hipster and kyriarchal society, look no further than their deafening silence when satirical website, The Onion, called 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis a “cunt” on Twitter.

The arc of white feminist dialogue on social media in the wake of the barbaric, misogynistic tweet emerged as tepid awareness – maybe, possibly, there’s racism – before curving towards the indefensible position of their white, male counterparts – it’s just brilliant satire – before ultimately coming to rest at dismissal. The lack of concern that white feminists displayed for this little, brown girl could not have been more obvious even if they donned a head scarf and said a raspy, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” before scurrying off to chide Oscar host Seth MacFarlane for his song about boobs or the Academy for only awarding 9 out of 30 awards to women.

Because that’s all that’s important, right?

We’re in post-racial America, so we shouldn’t be so touchy about MacFarlane and Lincoln star Daniel Day-Lewis sharing a guffaw about Don Cheadle being mistaken for a slave while he’s in character. We shouldn’t care about Iron Man star Robert Downey, Jr. defiantly clapping as MacFarlane joked about the brutalization of a then 21-year-old Rihanna, because she went back to her abuser, so to hell with objectifying her for shits and giggles.

And we most certainly shouldn’t care about a 9-year-old Black girl-child being called a “cunt” on the biggest night of her life because there are more important white feminist things to be concerned about.

The silence — or in the case of XOJane writer, Mandy Stadtmiller, the defense — in the face of The Onion hiding behind a foggy, humor lens to perpetuate misogyny and racism has been disappointing, but, unfortunately not surprising.

Why?

Click here for the full article, along with all the absurd comments from defensive white feminists who have their panties is a twist.

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