“Cardi B is cool and I’m not hating on her success – but why do people keep clapping for this hoodrat? Why can’t a classy, sophisticated woman win instead? She’s making the rest of us look bad.”
“Tiffany Haddish is funny but they’re laughing at her, not with her. This is a distraction from intelligent Black women who know how to speak in public.”
If I had a dollar for every time someone – especially other Black women – shared these sentiments as if they were making some riveting social commentary… I’d be rich, but still annoyed.
What these people don’t realize is that their knee jerk response to chastise Cardi B, Tiffany Haddish and other women who represent the “hood” contingent speaks more to their own internal dialogue than the people they’re rolling their eyes at.
I say this with the utmost respect but – ya’ll really need to stop being a slave to respectability politics or you’re gonna get left behind.
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For those who don’t know, according to good old Dictionary.com:
“Respectability politics or the politics of respectability is the set of beliefs holding that conformity to socially acceptable or mainstream standards of appearance and behavior will protect a member of a marginalized or minority group from prejudices and systemic injustices.“
In plain English it amounts to, “Don’t embarrass us in front of white people by acting like something too Black, urban, or uncivilized in public. We still need their approval.”
It’s a mentality passed down from slavery that a LOT of you hold onto not realizing that your haughtiness and disdain for all things ghetto, lowkey has you sounding like a house negro.
For many of you hearing this, it will be a bitter pill to swallow because in your minds you worked hard, learned the King’s English, got a decent job and even figured out how to make yourself presentable for the white gaze.
It’s understandable that you experience a bit of cognitive dissonance when women like Cardi B and Tiffany Haddish get to completely ignore that song and dance, but still win.
And perhaps win even more than you have – to boot.
I get it, from that standpoint, I might be salty too and find myself subconsciously holding someone to an archaic caste system.
But if no one else has told you – let me be the first one to point it out – if you only think “certain” types of women and “certain” types of Black folks (or other minorities groups) deserve respect, free agency, or a right to express themselves as whole humans – your activism is hella flawed.
Sometimes when I hear some of ya’ll talk, I sincerely find myself wondering if you REALLY want us all to be free or if you want the rules to change *just enough*…
