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Miley Cyrus and the trouble with whitesplaining race
- 70 reading now
Miley Cyrus arrives to the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards
Photo: Getty Images
Nicki Minaj's
blistering smackdown
of Miley Cyrus on Monday night's VMAs is already becoming the stuff of legend. The rapper was clearly and justifiably angered by the younger singer's comments in a
New York Times interview
where she criticised Minaj for coming across as "angry," and making the issue of the continued exclusion of black women from awards show recognition, "all about her."
"If you want to make it about race, there's a way to do that," Cyrus offered in the time-honoured tradition of people from privileged groups telling those from oppressed groups how to best handle their own oppression.
It was cringe inducing stuff and Minaj had every right in the world to call it out- on her own terms and without having to play "nice" to a society that still expects marginalised people to behave politely and respectfully in the face of breathtaking racism.
Nicki Minaj calls out Miley Cyrus at the VMAs.
It's been two years since Miley Cyrus shocked middle America's sensibilities at the MTV VMAs when she twerked her way into Robin Thicke's crotch- and into the cross-hairs of moral police everywhere. The consensus was that she'd gone completely off the rails. Since then, however, she's shown herself not to be quite the trainwreck many dismissed her as.
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Earlier this year, she founded the
Happy Hippie foundation, advocating for LGBTI homeless youth and has declared herself unbeholden to traditional notions of femininity, saying she
doesn't feel tied to a particular gender.
And, perhaps most admirably given her public position, she has an enviable ability to laugh at herself, as demonstrated in her recent Jimmy Kimmel skit
where she went undercover as "Janet,"
an Australian reporter dispatched to the streets of LA to discover what American really think about Miley Cyrus. Not only did she remain deadpan when blamed for America's supposed moral decline, she chimed in without missing a beat. "She's missing something somewhere," one guy gravely intoned, to which she quickly added, "In her heart probably…her deep soul."
All of which make her stubborn cluelessness when it comes to race so frustrating.
When black women criticised her
blatant cultural appropriation
in the We Can't Stop video, Cyrus simply shrugged it off. "A lot of people who have made those comments are older- they were living in a world more defined by color," she told Tavi Gevinson for Elle magazine. "Now that isn't black culture- it's culture in general…it's the way we dance." Here Cyrus essentially says the appropriation of black culture is complete, praising its absorption into the mainstream.
Since then, she has only dug her heels in. That infamous VMA performance was heavy on the cultural appropriation and hyper-objectification of the bodies of black women. Again her response was merely that she wanted "to make history."
What Cyrus has actually shown is that matter how progressive they are, how tolerant, and how many people of colour they count among their close friends (as Cyrus does), white people still fall back on stereotypes and retreat behind white privilege when challenged on race.
Take Kelly Osbourne's woeful comments on The View recently. Addressing presidential hopeful Donald Trump's anti-immigrant stance, Osbourne began promisingly enough, "If you kick all the Latinos out of the country," she says before failing spectacularly, "Then who's going to clean your toilets, Donald Trump?"
Ouch.
Osbourne thought she was defending Latinas, her intentions were good, but that doesn't mean her comments weren't racist. The angry black woman. The Latina maid. These and other enduring stereotypes show just how ingrained racism is.
When The View co-host Rosie Perez suggested that cleaning toilets isn't "all Latinas are good for," a defensive Osbourne claimed she "would never mean it like that." Incredibly, Perez then repeatedly apologised for being "overly sensitive." Likewise, rather than listen, Cyrus's response to Minaj's callout was to
stammer incoherently about being "edited."
These examples tell us two things: white people have trouble admitting to making mistakes when it comes to race, and the feelings of white people are still privileged over the actual wellbeing of people of colour.
Cyrus can claim her comments were twisted by the media but what excuse does she have for her fake Rachel Dolezal-like
dreads?
What can she say to justify her decision to call Snoop Dog her "real mammy," invoking one of the most enduring and offensive caricatures about black women- that they adored their white masters and were perfectly content being slaves?
What we saw played out before our very eyes last night was the way people of colour are routinely stereotyped and their protestations dismissed, even as white people appropriate their culture while simultaneously ridiculing them.
Minaj, like other black woman celebrities such as Azaelia Banks has been trying to make some much needed points about racism- only to be repeatedly shut down by white pop stars, including those who profited from cultural appropriation the most, such as Cyrus, Taylor Swift, and Iggy Azaelia.
Cyrus ignores the criticism and keeps repeating her problematic behaviour.
Swift retreats behind a feminist defence, for instance, accusing Minaj of "pitting women against each other" before magnanimously inviting Minaj on stage with her if she wins an award. As if the role of black women is always to play the sidekick, the support to the main act, and to play "nice" by taking one for the team even as white women use feminism to get ahead while women of colour get left behind.
What Minaj understands perfectly well is that being "nice" is not going to dismantle white privilege and it is not going to result in the inclusion of black women. She is no longer interested in playing by white society's rules.
Challenging white privilege means
disrupting it, whenever and wherever possible. And for however long it takes for white people to stop talking and start listening. As for Miley Cyrus, she would do well to take her own advice and realise it's actually not about her.
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