The conservative pundits are up in arms about how it’s shameful and slutty and shouldn’t be done.īut, it’s as if now that they know about it, now it’s legitimate thing. The YouTubes are full of White girls twerking, as if it’s the new hot thing. It’s as if White America suddenly discovered a thing that has been part of Black culture forever. But I am at least aware that twerking, or grinding, or booty clapping, or whatever you want to call it has existed for a long time. Look, I’m not claiming I’m a part of hip hop culture, or that I have any particularly expertise in it. As long as we were listening to music that originated out of hip hop culture. Yesterday, I asked on Facebook - isn’t twerking something we’ve been doing for decades now? Sure, “twerking” is a relatively obscure name (James tells me it originates out of reggae) but the actual dance move is familiar to those of us who have ever hit the dance floor in the last three decades. It’s kind of like when David Carradine is America’s kung fu master.Īs I posted on Facebook yesterday, I really don’t understand the recent fascination with twerking over the last few months, popularized in large part by Miley Cyrus. I find the issues of Cyrus’ cultural appropriation particularly galling given that she is routinely crowned as the “Queen of Twerk”. I couldn’t agree more with Theriault on the subject. I saw a whole lot of people giving Miley a pass for her behaviour because she’s young and naive and sheltered. I saw barely anyone discussing the fact that Miley’s sexual empowerment, or whatever you want to call it, should not come at the cost of degrading black women. I saw very few people displaying any outrage over the fact that Miley was, at one point, slapping a faceless black woman on the ass as if she was nothing more than a thing for Miley to dominate and humiliate. She is appropriating cultural elements without taking any time to reflect on her position of privilege and how her use of the term “ratchet” or her twerking are contributing to the oppression of black people.Įven worse, in her performance last night Miley used black women as props - like, literal props - and barely anyone said anything. She is playing at being black without even trying to understand what the lived experience of being black really is. She is taking elements of black culture and using them to give her the patina of street cred that she wants so badly. Miley is doing her best to promote herself as a part of rachet culture, which Jody Rosen describes as “the potent sexual symbolism of black female bodies,” while simultaneously treating the black women in her videos and performances as props. In short, she can imagine that she is being “ghetto” without having any concept of what living in a ghetto would really mean. ![]() Her status as a member of a traditionally oppressive race and class means that she is able to pick and choose what parts of black culture she wants to embrace without having to deal with the racism and racialization that black women live with every day. She, a wealthy white woman, is taking elements from black culture in order to achieve a specific image. What Miley is doing is cultural appropriation. I read a great post this morning by Anne Theriault on Huffington Post Canada (there’s a Huffington Post Canada?) detailing the racial appropriation of Cyrus and calling White feminists out on their familiar to address this aspect of the performance in their fervor to defend her. There has been the predictable admonishments of Cyrus’ risque, sexualized behaviour and the predictable response from White feminists defending her right to be as slutty as she wants to be.īut, very few commented on the racial overtones of Cyrus’ performance. ![]() Yesterday, we’ve seen several memes and quite a bit of conservative finger-wagging (which, in feminist circles, is known as slut-shaming). ![]() On Sunday, at the MTV VMA Awards, she did this. Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, a Disney Channel princess. ![]() In case you have been living under a rock for the last week: there is this girl named Miley Cyrus.
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