So I'd heard plenty of commentary on how distasteful Miley Cyrus' VMA performance was but what made me feel the need to actually suffer through the whole painful thing for myself was when people started characterizing it as racist. Whereas accusations of distastefulness require avoidance, accusations of racism require investigation.
I come down somewhere between agreeing with the worst accusations I've heard and calling it "not racist." The overarching problem was that it was a complete failure as entertainment on so many levels with appreciation of historical racism being one of those levels. Its going to get extra ugly if you start with a super distasteful performance and then mix in some racially ignorant undertones for bad measure.
There is 'Knowing Racism' - purposefully seeking to dominate another racial/ethnic group- and 'Stupid, Clumsy Racism' - not meaning to but still demeaning another racial/ethnic group. Category B is only slightly less of an offense than Category A. Miley Cyrus and any of the higher-ups who green-lit her performance are guilty of Category B Racism, not Category A. In the world of music people like Pat Boone or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band are prime examples of Category A Racism: direct appropriation of African-American music while trying to hide its origins. This sends the message: "What's yours is really mine because I'm more powerful than you." Miley Cyrus' message was more like: "I crave attention and twerking is a thing and I want to use it and I don't care enough to acknowledge the issues that accompany my choice because then I would have to give up my idea." That is the logic that lead her to cross into the realm of Category B Racism.
If Miley Cyrus could actually pull off a proper twerk and she threw it in very minimally then that is fair game. White girls - or any girls - or boys - with the proper anatomical qualifications should be allowed to twerk freely. The way in which it became racially problematic - but fortunately stayed less visually problematic - is that she didn't actually try to twerk, she left that to her black backup dancers. This had the effect of pawning off the riskier dance moves on these women. By "risky" I am referring to the extremely fine line between making use of one's body for positive, constructive attention - done tastefully dances like twerking are sexy and genuine sexiness is empowering not degrading - or negative attention - the destructive, degrading kind. These women don't have star power and were relatively faceless and personality-less in the context of this performance and thus Miley Cyrus' choices as the star pushed them over that fine line into degradation.
Miley Cyrus then intensified this imbalance of power by putting her face in the butt of one of the dancers. I assume this was a wildly misguided attempt to co-opt/send up - a la Madonna and many others - stereotypical male sexual roles in a sort of "whatever, girls can do that too" way but ultimately it had the effect of further objectifying a faceless black dancer.
The kicker to me is that while this is a genuine problem the reason we're all spending so much energy discussing it is that we don't have a genuine movement for racial equality these days. If we could look around see concrete things happening to address the worst aspects of institutionalized racism - hardcore stuff like the entrenched problems in the justice system, educational and employment opportunities, vigilante violence against black people, immigrants or religious minorities, etc. - we would shake our heads at people like Miley Cyrus and not have to worry so much about the exact nature of their stupid crap.
I come down somewhere between agreeing with the worst accusations I've heard and calling it "not racist." The overarching problem was that it was a complete failure as entertainment on so many levels with appreciation of historical racism being one of those levels. Its going to get extra ugly if you start with a super distasteful performance and then mix in some racially ignorant undertones for bad measure.
There is 'Knowing Racism' - purposefully seeking to dominate another racial/ethnic group- and 'Stupid, Clumsy Racism' - not meaning to but still demeaning another racial/ethnic group. Category B is only slightly less of an offense than Category A. Miley Cyrus and any of the higher-ups who green-lit her performance are guilty of Category B Racism, not Category A. In the world of music people like Pat Boone or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band are prime examples of Category A Racism: direct appropriation of African-American music while trying to hide its origins. This sends the message: "What's yours is really mine because I'm more powerful than you." Miley Cyrus' message was more like: "I crave attention and twerking is a thing and I want to use it and I don't care enough to acknowledge the issues that accompany my choice because then I would have to give up my idea." That is the logic that lead her to cross into the realm of Category B Racism.
If Miley Cyrus could actually pull off a proper twerk and she threw it in very minimally then that is fair game. White girls - or any girls - or boys - with the proper anatomical qualifications should be allowed to twerk freely. The way in which it became racially problematic - but fortunately stayed less visually problematic - is that she didn't actually try to twerk, she left that to her black backup dancers. This had the effect of pawning off the riskier dance moves on these women. By "risky" I am referring to the extremely fine line between making use of one's body for positive, constructive attention - done tastefully dances like twerking are sexy and genuine sexiness is empowering not degrading - or negative attention - the destructive, degrading kind. These women don't have star power and were relatively faceless and personality-less in the context of this performance and thus Miley Cyrus' choices as the star pushed them over that fine line into degradation.
Miley Cyrus then intensified this imbalance of power by putting her face in the butt of one of the dancers. I assume this was a wildly misguided attempt to co-opt/send up - a la Madonna and many others - stereotypical male sexual roles in a sort of "whatever, girls can do that too" way but ultimately it had the effect of further objectifying a faceless black dancer.
The kicker to me is that while this is a genuine problem the reason we're all spending so much energy discussing it is that we don't have a genuine movement for racial equality these days. If we could look around see concrete things happening to address the worst aspects of institutionalized racism - hardcore stuff like the entrenched problems in the justice system, educational and employment opportunities, vigilante violence against black people, immigrants or religious minorities, etc. - we would shake our heads at people like Miley Cyrus and not have to worry so much about the exact nature of their stupid crap.
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