Olivia goes to Washington

I have recently become more than obsessed with a new ABC drama, now in its third season, which comes on afters Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights called Scandal. Scandal follows main character, Olivia Pope - a high-profile, lawyer and ex- director of communications for the White House who now uses her brilliance, experience, charm and connections to fix problems for the elite in Washington DC out of her law firm, Olivia Pope and Associates. Olivia is determined, successful, stoic, and earned her rock solid reputation by succeeding in solving problems for her clients without exception.



As a powerful woman of color in the nation's most powerful city, Olivia has a high level of access compared to most people but especially compared to other people of color. The majority of her White House colleagues are white, though her law firm is more diverse in terms of race and gender. Her team is composed of two men of color and two white women, all with unique skill sets that allow them to be the best in the business.

It seems at first that Olivia has no problems of her own, until viewers find out that she is having an affair with the President. Olivia ran the president's campaign and allowed another member of his team to rig the election in order to win.

This plot complication has shock value simply for the fact that presidential affairs are shocking, but I believe this particular affair requires further analysis by viewers because of the gendered and racial tensions inherent in this relationship. It is also important to note that this show is written by Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey's Anatomy.

First is the question, is Olivia Pope allowed to be a professional black woman and have an affair with the President? Audiences are introduced to an independent, black, female professional, whose weakness is the President. Some may ask show creators why, when Olivia Pope is the only strong female and black lead on television would they make this decision. Many view it as potentially damaging to her character. Why is it that she couldn't just be the strong, independent black woman without doing something to mess it all up, especially when there are no depictions to the contrary.

While I think this is a fair question, I think it is important also that we do not allow the politics of respectability to dictate character's decisions. Olivia Pope is both a thriving professional and the president's lover. I think that writers do a fair job of exploring this contradiction and responding to the politics of respectability in the show.

 Throughout the show, Olivia repeats that she would have been able to get the president elected fairly if she hadn't fallen in love with him. Her internal dialogue highlights her self-confidence and awareness. She knows that she is the best and blames her one failure on having let her guard down for a man. I find this interesting because of the fact that men often limit opportunity for women by doing things like denying them promotions or asking them to give up work and take care of children. However it becomes more complicated here by acknowledging that men can take women's success even after they already have it. The show asks viewers to recognize that women have to take extra precaution with their work lives.

In a recent episode, Olivia's father engages and complicates this conversation after discovering the affair by reminding her that she has to be twice as good as other people to get half of what they have.

She understands the implications of her actions as one of the only women of color in such a high-powered position. And the show creators are aware of this as well. In this conversation they communicate the nuances of the black professional experience. This is a conversation I have had with my own mother.

I also want to look at the racial tensions in Olivia's relationship with the president. She tells him at one point that  their relationship is very, Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemmings. In other words, she serves to satisfy his jungle fever, while he is able to reap the power she in many ways handed to him. While the President is immediately insulted by this comparison, I think it is fair to say that a powerful white man sleeping with a black woman on the side is not exactly tolerable by the American public. Olivia's race is important in this relationship. Should their secret come out, her femaleness would not be the only aspect of her identity at play. Unspoken moral codes suggest that interracial relationships are inappropriate for the White House.

One last thing I question about Olivia Pope's character is, where are her black friends? Olivia Pope has two black friends in this show if you count her ex-fiance as one of them. From the age of twelve her father sent her to elite boarding schools meaning that she probably did not encounter many black people unless they could afford them. She worked hard to get to where she is, but is also privileged by her high socio-economic status. To me this suggests that in order to achieve financial and social success as a black person in America, you have to sacrifice your blackness.

We are all Renisha McBride

    On November 2nd, 2013 Renisha McBride's parents received the call no parent wants to receive. Their daughter had been killed in a shooting on the front porch of Paul Wafer, a resident of Dearborn Heights near Detroit, Michigan. Shortly before being in a single car accident, it is believed that Renisha left the scene disoriented and sought help on the Mr. Wafer's porch. When he believed she was there to break into his house, he shot the unarmed nineteen year old in the head with a shotgun.

    When police arrived, Mr. Wafer claimed that he accidentally fired the gun, that he was standing his ground by protecting himself. He was not arrested or charged until two weeks after Renisha's death. The incident immediately reminded the public, especially the black American public of Trayvon Martin and the many other unarmed black teens that have been killed for walking, talking and being in the wrong place while black.

     The rhetoric was very similar to what we heard after Trayvon Martin's death and after George Zimmerman's trial. However, I cannot help but notice the communal response seems very different than it was when we lost all the black young men before Renisha. There were no national rallies in the way that we saw for Trayvon Martin, though there were in Detroit. I wondered if this was perhaps due to the fact that after the damaging loss that allowed George Zimmerman to walk free, our community has in some ways given up the fight. Have we come to the point where we see yet another black child dead and feel no sense of urgency to do something because we know there is nothing we can do?


Or could this incidence be related to the gender of the victim?

     When the shooting first happened, I remember seeing a Facebook post by a friend that said something along the lines of, "Another black child dead. #canwetalkaboutourdaughtersnow"

     It really got me to think about the ways in which women have been shut out from the conversation of violence against the black community. After the verdict was read in the Zimmerman case, a Congressional hearing was called on the National state of young black boys and men in America. I was working on the hill when this happened and was happy to see something being done, but could not help but notice the way national rhetoric framed who this story was really about. It was not about black people, it was about black men. The message was not, protect our black children, it was, protect our black sons. Black men needed to be protected and they were not afraid to call on black women to do it.

I cannot recount the amount of times I saw articles with titles like this:

"The Talk: How parents raising black boys try to keep their sons safe" - Time Magazine

     What about our black daughters? What happens to them? Does our femaleness some how counteract the blackness that makes black men a threat? Are we somehow less dangerous or threatening than black men? I remember being a teenager and making white people uncomfortable, especially while with a group of friends. It was obvious they felt threatened even when no men were around. 

     Black women are called upon constantly to support black issues when the majority of the time the solutions to those issues are in the favor of black men. Black men want to talk about ending stereotypes that black men assault white women but never want to talk about how black men assault black women. They ask us to show up, to protect black men - to have talks with about protecting our sons and not to have those same talks with our daughters. 

     I think it is time we start having those conversations with our daughters too. Because if the death of Renisha McBride has taught us anything, it's that black women are a threat to white society. It is time we start asking black men to show up to the table. It is time for people to stop conflating blackness with maleness. 

Why is it so uncomfortable to think that we are all Renisha McBride?

Orange is the new Racist

As a queer, black, woman, it is often difficult to find representations of myself in the media and television characters whom encompass all three of those identities. Most of the time I am stuck choosing between white female characters, black male characters and straight black female characters. Because of this severe underrepresentation, my experience is in many ways unknown to society at large. So when a show does come around that presents that experience, I am obviously hopping on board that train.

Orange is the new Black is a brand new show that features many queer woman of color. As a Netflix series the show is riding a new wave of media. Netflix began as an internet option for viewing movies and has successfully put many movie chains like Blockbuster out of business alongside Red Box. The company has expanded now to include instant viewing of movies and television shows that have opened it up to every possible television audience. With the creation of Orange is the new Black (OITNB), the company has become almost like a television network. Whereas you can only view Glee on Fox, you can only view OITNB on Netflix. Though for only about $7.00 a month, it's not a bad deal.

The show follows a character named Piper Chapman who is about to begin a year long prison sentence for her role in a drug smuggling operation alongside her ex-girlfrind. The prison stay could not come at a worse time, as she has just become engaged to her boyfriend Larry. Now Piper must readjust what can only be described as a hiccup in her all around privileged life to prepare for life on the inside. Because the show is based in a female prison, most of the leading roles are played by women. This is in many ways outside the mainstream and has given the show a captive female audience who find it to be in many ways empowering. I feel that this show was created however for a very specific demographic and at the expense of others.

Lets talk first about access. We are talking about one of the only shows available that features, comparatively the most realistic portrayal of a trans* woman of color offered no where else except Netflix. We spoke extensively in class about access to the media and how it extends beyond whether or not you own or can find a computer at your local library. It matters whether or not you can afford the right type of internet cable and how long you can use a public computer. OITNB is a great example of this.

If you cannot afford a Netflix subscription, you do not have access to this show. Queer andTrans* women of color are disproportionately poor and oppressed compared to queer white women and queer black men. Netflix is cultural capital. It is a symbol of the middle class. And in this sense, OITNB is a show about many low-income, incarcerated, queer women of color created for middle-upper class white (queer) women. These images and representations do not serve as empowering because the people that need to see them do not have access to them.

In addition, how empowering can it be to see the only legitimate representation of yourself set in a prison? From its inception, this show was racist. It featured advertisements that relied on racist stereotypes to draw in its audience like the one below.



The characters of color are subjected to these tropes in the show as well. The Latina women are presented as fiery, promiscuous, bitches with too many kids. The black women are presented as loud, ghetto, stupid, dangerous and cold. The one Asian woman on the show is presented as submissive and voiceless. All of them are presented as in need of saving. While the white women in the show also have stereotypes attached to them, they are spared racial character commitments. They are subjected to class stereotypes.

The only character in the show with full legitimacy is Piper Chapman, because of her race and class. While the show asks us to believe that Piper is just like anyone else, it is only successful because it plays on the fact that she isn't.



Piper is not just like anyone else in prison. She has access to wealth and family. She is a business owner and she holds values that Americans trust like marriage. The show creators use Piper's whiteness in order to offer legitimacy to the other characters in the show. The audience is told who to like and who not to like based on Piper's perception of them. No one cares about 'Crazy Eyes' (a name that could only be assigned to a black character) until Piper has a relationship with her. In this way, white audiences learn to have relationships with people of color from a distance and only through the lens of the white savior. Piper has no black friends on the outside and suddenly she is puting her freedom at risk to reopen the track for a black character who used to run track in high school and needs it to stop being so angry all the time.

The only thing that makes Piper's character significant is the fact that she is queer. She dates both men and women, though the show and audience at times tries to push her into one of the two camps- (biphobia at its best). It is this fact that draws in a large white lesbian audience. There is a lot of white lesbian sex in this show, which makes it the best thing to happen to queer television since the L-word. However, it once again erases black female sexuality. Black women do not have sex in this show, especially with one another. It is extremely ironic that even on a show where lesbian sex is the norm, it is still deviant as long as it is black and brown. Piper's rejection of 'Crazy Eyes' serves to reinforce this commitment to the right kind of gay sex.

Orange is the new Black allows white women the opportunity to engage in revolutionary television without actually having to examine what is going on. They are privileged enough to see themselves represented in multiple media outlets and therefor do not have to fret over inaccurate representations of themselves based on class. They can come just close enough to black and brown culture without actually having to go to black communities or make black friends. They are afforded access to and consumption of black bodies and lives without permission. They even earn street cred by watching a show about prison but do not have to worry about prison reform.

Many of my above points are highlighted in Julianne Hough's recent decision to dress up as crazy eyes for Halloween by doing black face. It is clear that this show was never made for me.

America's Next Top White White Girl

     America's Next Top Model just ended it's 20th season, meaning that the show has been on for just about ten years now. I have been watching the show since I was young but have not become so invested in critically critiquing it's messages about black and queer female beauty until recently. While the show is indeed searching for the best possible model, it also searching for the best possible role-model. For this reason, the model that they pick must reflect not only the values of the show producers, but of Americans as well.

     While specifically addressing issues of race and gender in this show, it is especially important to point out that Tyra Banks is the host and producer of this show. She is one of the most famous women of color internationally and has been enormously successful as a model, actress, talk show host and businesswoman. However, Tyra's politics aren't always on the right side of things. Often times, I believe she uses her singular success as a tool for oppressing other people in her community as well as her straight and cis-gender identities to oppress queer models on her show.

Tyra consistently asks models on her show to compromise their self-identity to gain success. Many models of color have been forced to wear longer, straighter, and blonder hair pieces. In some cases, she has even asked them to change the way they speak in an effort to sound more white. Danielle, who won the show was consistently criticized by Tyra about her country accent, though many white contestants with accents were given a free ride.

She told one potential contestant that she didn't want "another black bitch"on the show and has criticized black and African contestants for wearing clothing that is too afro-centric. ( though she has no problem allowing white contestants to mis-appropriate the clothing in their photo shoots: see below)

Most viciously, Tyra lashed out at a black model for the attitude that she consistently tried to reign in. My belief is that this episode was an effort to control her blackness and force her to have a sense of gratitude, which is so often asked of black women who deserve the things they have achieved.

Most interestingly, Tyra also plays the role of the stereotypical black woman when it is convenient for her. In times where she needs to establish herself as credible within the black community, she code switches. She speaks of herself as a strong black woman, though she consistently erases many of the things that code her as such, including her skin tone. 

What drives me most crazy about Tyra Banks is the way she treats queer contestants. When a queer model named AzMarie would not wear a butt pad meant to enhance her curves because it caused her gender dysphoria, Tyra would not allow her to participate in the challenge. 

See the Booty Tooch refusal HERE

Overall, I would say that America's Next Top Model is a great example of the ways in which the white centered media teaches women of color to feel empowered by black role models more interested in their financial success than the success of other black women.