Misogynoir: it gets the people going

Am I the only black woman who feels the pressure to compromise my womanhood in celebration of my blackness?

I’ve recently realized being proud, black, and woman, are not identities allowed to co-exist peacefully. In fact, attempting to show all three faces is perpetually met with challenge and discouragement.  

This past Saturday, it was my university’s Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity that discouraged me.

I apologize for the poor quality of this video. But listen closely, the message will still be felt, even if not clearly seen:
Give me brain, bitch, fuck yo’ academics

We sipping, drinking, smoking weed, fucking bitches

This video clip, captured by a friend of mine, features a small portion of the Kappa fraternity's probate. (To my treasured non-blacks readers: probates are the unveiling ceremony held for new fraternity brothers, affectionately welcomed as “neos”).

Other catchphrases, not shown by the clip, ran along similarly derogatory lines. To paraphrase:

You don’t know me, but I bet yo’ bitch do

Is yo’ bitch in good hands?

As a black person observing an event intended to celebrate Black Greek life, I struggled to grasp what I was hearing, seeing, feeling. As a black woman, I feel less than celebrated by the black men on stage calling me, and all the other women watching, “bitch.” When being instructed to perform oral sex and forget my academics, I feel too distracted by my attacked womanhood to celebrate my blackness.

These identities cannot be separated.

With this, my reaction to the probate was as eloquent as the dignified Black men of Kappa Alpa Psi Inc.

“What the fuck?"

Thankfully, one of the Kappas I spoke with, we'll call him Kappa Man, has a more articulate response.

I understand people are gonna take offense to things, but it’s not directly pointed towards them …. I know there are derogatory terms, I know the word “bitch” was used, excuse my language … but it wasn’t used towards anybody specific. Let’s just say it’s being said to the general population.

To minimize these labels as "general"or impersonal, instead of the specified attacks on women that they are, feels like covering a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid.

The only way I have ever seen this done is by those willing to compromise their womanhood in exchange for their blackness. Kappa Man's rationale begs the question: is it possible to love only half of your identity, but still love your whole self? I imagine that this path of half-loving leads to a place riddled with self-hatred.

Admittedly, I understand the compromising black woman. Whether simple-minded or desperate in her compromise, she bears a lightened burden. Because to be proud, black, and woman is a load heavy enough to immobilize.

After all, even for all of the nuance and complexity of this dual identity, we do have a choice.

I could choose to suppress my feminist identity. I could settle for objectification, consoled by the warm embrace of mainstream black community and culture. Conversely, I could choose  to adopt the music, college Greek life, and men of other, less-destructive cultures. I could declare that my female identity trumps my black identity.

However, I am black, and, simultaneously female. I see no just compromise for what is not wrong.

With this, Kappa Man's jazzed-up “it ain’t nothing personal” falls on deaf ears. This justification feels dismissive. Had he been a less articulate Kappa Man, I can imagine that this quote would’ve resembled a vacant rap lyric.

 “Quit bitchin. Hoe, sit yo’ ass down.” ~ Trick Daddy

Appropriately, Kappa Man cites rap as a major source of our current “bitches” and “hoes” climate.

It can be related to rap music. With rap music, there’s a certain established culture and tradition of how you rap. You’re gonna be vulgar, you’re gonna use derogatory terms to get your point across and keep the people entertained, just like our Kappa probate.

“Entertainment” is generally associated with positivity. Meaning, Kappa Man's analysis implies that black masses are excited by the degradation of our women. Or, at the very least, the general consensus is that misogyny is a necessary evil. A small price to pay for entertainment. A part of the (rap) game.

Here, Kappa Man subscribes to the expertise of the one and only, Kanye West:

 It’s provocative. It gets the people going, he tells me. 

He goes on to assure me that it’s not as if these probates are woman-hating fests. Nor is the misogyny they present unique to the Kappa fraternity.

"Is it conscious? Yeah, you could say that. Is it the main point? No. Is our goal to objectify women? No. I can relate this back to rap music, or entertainment in general. Is this to objectify women on purpose, or is it to provide entertainment?"

But if it’s that simple, if the marginalization of women simply gets the people going, and there really is no magical, fairy-dust-enveloped, irreplaceable connection between misogyny and entertainment, then there must be a plethora of others ways to entertain.

These things, can be separated.

Unless….

"Because you’re a freshman, you’ve probably never seen a probate, and you’re shocked, Kappa Man explained to me. But the people … the sophomores, juniors, seniors, they all know what they’re coming to see. I don’t mean to come off as an asshole, but it’s your choice to come and see what you know is going to happen, anyway. I know I’m trying to justify us using the language that we use. And, you’re right. It can be cut out of the show. But traditionally, people want it …."

And just like that, Kappa Man has completely re-casted the characters in this story.

The black woman I have been blindly defending has been frequenting these events voluntarily. She has been metaphorically --I assume-- throwing her panties at the same neos that objectify her.

I wonder who the victim is, who the perpetuator is, and whether these identities can exist simultaneously.

Kappa Man tells me the probate’s theme of sexism isn’t new, and isn’t going anywhere.

"There are traditions at a probate. There’s a certain formation you go on. The brothers are going to be greeted in a certain way; it’s a culture. There’s no changing it."

This tradition is ours to share. Instead of blaming black men for our objectification, or shaming black women for our allowance of it, Kappa Man has me thinking: could a black people, truly in love with our blackness, treat any extension of ourselves with hate? I wonder if we, too, are the black man’s scapegoat for his own self-hatred –our own self-hatred.

Peggy Orenstein, a Jewish feminist, author, and journalist draws a cross-cultural parallel. From her perspective, the objectification of Jewish girls is, indeed, an extension of this self-hate.

“The Jewish American Princess was the repository for my community’s self-hatred, its ambivalence over assimilation—it was Jews turning against their girls as a way to turn against themselves,” she said in her book, CINDERELLA ATE MY DAUGHTER.

Traditions can be reversed, even those deep-rooted in toxic self-hate. But with the halls housing these probates packed with black bodies, filled by screams, cheers, and our embracement of harmful themes, there is little incentive for change.

Like Kappa Man says, it gets the people going.