I’ve let some of you down. Not the first time and prob not the last time. Against my better judgment, I’m going to say more. Not just to clarify my initial intent, but because this stuff is on my heart. Mute or cancel me as you see fit.
I was introduced to Chance in part because of his desire to do better by Black women and girls. Yes, I consider him a friend and I’m protective of him to some extent. I would prioritize neither of those things over the pain BW have endured bc of misogynoir.
My reaction to everything last night, however, is one that I would have had even if I didn’t know him or much about him. Everything broke while I was at a viewing party where we discussed next steps and how to use this moment to truly change things.
One of the issues that came up was loving accountability and confronting the misogyny that is the default in our communities. Most conversations that took place in our community about that documentary did not look like the ones dominated by Black Twitter’s leading voices.
So, we are left to grapple with the question of how to create accountability and restorative justice practices that do not excuse those who dismissed the harm done to Black women, but lovingly correct them? That last part is devastatingly complicated...
Black women should not be tasked with fixing misogynistic men who have harmed or disappointed us. However, it is also unreasonable to expect that they can learn how to treat and respect us in our absence. We have but so many BM who are able to lead and teach that part.
My position has been that those of us who are willing and able to do that labor should, while the others can focus solely on the critique, the outrage and/or their personal healing.
I was pissed off last night bc a number of men piled on Chance as if they magically arrived at anti-sexism without unlearning things and doing harm first. That’s bullshit.
I also think that the spirit of Chance’s comments were taken out of context. For those who read and didn’t hear them, the vocal inflections were gone. The part about race+complexion was muddled. It was a musing. “Perhaps this is why I felt that way,” not “I didn’t FW Black women”
What surprised me when he did the interview was his willingness to admit that he’d been guilty of misogynoir. We identify it in men routinely, they rarely recognize it in their past or present selves.
He doesn’t get a prize for that but it changes how I’d engage him on what next steps are and how he’s continuing to learn to do and be better, versus someone who focused solely on say, him being 8 when the tape comes out.
Furthermore, my end goal is always “how do we get as many people to do the right thing by Black women and girls, how do we teach the world to recognize our humanity?” When I see someone trying, I want to help them get it right more than anything else
There’s a lot of performance outrage on here. I’m certain I’ve done it in the past. I joined twitter at 24, im 34 now and I want to be more productive and less RTable
Chance has a huge platform to influence young people and other celebs. Even if I didn’t feel like I know his heart, I’d want to leverage that for good as opposed to discarding him for admitting to doing what most of Black Chicago/the industry has done regarding R. Kelly.
Keep Chance accountable! And me too. That’s all I have. I’m sorry if I became one of the women caping for a man, I was trying to cape for us. Love y’all.
