Hello.
I cannot rightly speak to the depths of my anger concerning your now-removed tweet concerning Quvenzhané Wallis. However, let me say that calling a 9 year old girl a "c*nt" is beyond disgusting. This will go down in history as a bad choice of words, perhaps, but I want to point out the long and tortured history of women, particularly women of color, and more specifically African-American women with the subset of children. And, this time-- a baby.
Quvenzhané Wallis is her beautiful name. Say it, and don't stutter. She is nobody's c*nt, and if folk were thinking it, they wisely swallowed it name-calling for righteousness sake.
I recently talked with a woman whose grandmother shared with her a story from chattel enslavement in this country. She told me very matter-of-factly how White, male owners of the enslaved would often send word to for the enslaved women to "clean up" mere babies, aged 7, 8, and 9 years old, requesting for those innocent babies to be sent to have sex with these men. Babies.
It may appear that it was just simple name-calling; however, oppressed people learned a long time ago that the "sticks and stones" myth is a lie! C*nt and other words have deeply racialized and misogynistic meaning, and the author of that tweet entered into a cosmic and historic struggle trying to get a chuckle.
Ignorance is not bliss! Get it together. Until your writers get some good anti-racism and anti-oppression training, I would stay away from some stories--satire or not. When this person called her a c*nt, the person called many women one. You called my mama one. You called me one, then called my daughter one, and if I were I fighting woman, I'd take my earrings off and roll up my sleeves right now.
Yep, it's personal--but rampant individualism doesn't understand collective community and connection.
Parenthetically, I am available to provide such training and can direct you immediately to some great resources.
Very soberly, and with much intention,
Kelle
The Rev. Kelle J. Brown
I cannot rightly speak to the depths of my anger concerning your now-removed tweet concerning Quvenzhané Wallis. However, let me say that calling a 9 year old girl a "c*nt" is beyond disgusting. This will go down in history as a bad choice of words, perhaps, but I want to point out the long and tortured history of women, particularly women of color, and more specifically African-American women with the subset of children. And, this time-- a baby.
Quvenzhané Wallis is her beautiful name. Say it, and don't stutter. She is nobody's c*nt, and if folk were thinking it, they wisely swallowed it name-calling for righteousness sake.
I recently talked with a woman whose grandmother shared with her a story from chattel enslavement in this country. She told me very matter-of-factly how White, male owners of the enslaved would often send word to for the enslaved women to "clean up" mere babies, aged 7, 8, and 9 years old, requesting for those innocent babies to be sent to have sex with these men. Babies.
It may appear that it was just simple name-calling; however, oppressed people learned a long time ago that the "sticks and stones" myth is a lie! C*nt and other words have deeply racialized and misogynistic meaning, and the author of that tweet entered into a cosmic and historic struggle trying to get a chuckle.
Ignorance is not bliss! Get it together. Until your writers get some good anti-racism and anti-oppression training, I would stay away from some stories--satire or not. When this person called her a c*nt, the person called many women one. You called my mama one. You called me one, then called my daughter one, and if I were I fighting woman, I'd take my earrings off and roll up my sleeves right now.
Yep, it's personal--but rampant individualism doesn't understand collective community and connection.
Parenthetically, I am available to provide such training and can direct you immediately to some great resources.
Very soberly, and with much intention,
Kelle
The Rev. Kelle J. Brown
