For Colored Girls who Considered Homicide When Patricarchy was Enough

These days and times are trife for Black women. You will rarely hear
me speak from the stance of victim-hood, as i try my hardest to keep
agency on mines.

My rationale is that as long as you are reactionary, someone else
will always be setting your agenda and you will not gain any sustainable
traction.

However the skin issues, sexual access issues have been on
my bird lately. The sexual access issues arose at the Spinna
Party on Saturday. I was standing with Filthy near the bar debating how
long it is going to take Spinna to play Shook Ones or Who Got the Props.
There were two clusters of white women there. In each group
there was one women wearing a veil. They were toasted.
Light-weight Girls Gone Wild toasted.

For the past six or seven years, New York City clubs have been making
extra cake by throwing bachelor/ette parties earlier in the
evening from 8-11pm with the regular party running from 11-3am.
However there tends to be carry over, which is what I think happened
Saturday. My homie K-boogie confirmed this later that night as she
went to a bachelor party at the same spot last week.

So, I am standing there, minding my own business and a woman walks
by me to order a drink. She apparently was a bachelor/ette party
attendee, stripper or both. Either way she was lit, blond, and hootered out.

The first time she passed me she complemented my earrings.
(My earing game is mean.)

Second time she rubbed passed.

The third time, I was leaning over talking to Filth, so his ear
was toward me, and she kissed me near my other ear. I was Frozen like a Robot.

Then she turned to me and said something inaudible.

Filthy caught on and was like awwwww sh*t. Here we go.
What went through my mind both how patriarchal that shit is and
how the club is a space for people to try and do what they think
about doing in the streets. I was reminded of a post that I came
across when I wrote the Mobb Deep and Patriarchy piece I wrote a month ago.
The piece is titled Dance Floor Studies Feminism and Booty Base.
The comment by Benjamin Mako Hill caught my attention
because he articulated the notion of sexual access and the role that the
club plays. He writes,

Booty bass is not just playing around with the idea of the dance floor being highly sexualized. In practice, it’s about serving the sex market and all about glamorizing and making palatable, laughable, and perhaps even justifiable everything that happens in that market.

Sometimes it’s not just about making fun of, toying with, or hinting at sexual domination in a safe context like the dancefloor but about creating, quite literally, a soundtrack for the real thing.

Back to what was running in my head. That good old fight or flight.
I didn't want no war with her. The Oakland in me says put my elbow in her throat.
The Martin in me know that this will solve nothing. That I will be charged with
assault and battery. It just gets real tiring to be constantly defending your body
and your space against strangers, against both men and women, who presume
that they have access to your body. I don't know where she as been and I
am paranoid. Herpes is the package that keeps on giving, don't touch me.
1 in 4 people in New York city has it. Don't touch me.

I asked him why did she do that? He responded simply , "Patriarchy".
She probably thinks that its cute and she enjoy's being the aggressor.

I responded saying, "if that was a dude, I wouldn't have though
twice about turning his skin purple or shoving him off of me, and
letting it do what it do". The woman played off her femininity and
the likelihood that she would get away with it, because she was
a woman and not a man. Alcohol played a role as well.

Then I thought, why should I give her a pass? Its the behavior,
not the gender that matters.

She is just as bad as the Black men on the street that treat
me like property.

Bringing bell hooks to the Spinna party is not what the streets
wanted.

Which brings me to the skin issues. Last night I listened to Phonte's
podcast and he has a segment called the Light Bright
list. What he meant was "Light Bright and Damn Near White" as my
momma would say. The Light Bright list is a list of light skinned Black women
that he finds attractive. In the podcast he went down the line naming the
greatest light skinned Black women ever, Lena Horn, Jennifer Beals, etc.

I am yellowish-red, and more copper in the summer time. As you will see
in the video above that skin color shit is no joke for Black people. Especially
the children. The whole time I am listening to Phonte, I am thinking about
the little black girl, at 4:30sec, who said that the black doll is the ugly doll,
then when asked which doll does she look like, she hesitates, and
reluctantly choose the black one.

That shit was heart breaking.

While I haven't recovered from the "black doll is ugly" and the "light bright
list" the Michelle Obama ain't feminine shit came to my attention. Recently,
feminist were in arms over Hillary being portrayed as a "ball buster",
"masculine" and un-lady like.

It wasn't clear to me how this related to Michelle, so I asked Filthy
why. He responded saying that, Hillary was being called masculine,
and the feminists came to her defense.

So the question is where is the defense of Michelle Obama
when the same criticism are being lodged at her?

I immediately thought of Phonte's list and the video with the inference
being drawn from that dark equals ugly, and presumably
unfeminine.

Can you imagine the kind of Black Girl Fatigue this shit produces?

The skin issues, the sexual access issues are enough to make a
Black Girl Consider Homicide when Patriarchy is Enough.