When I started writing this, we were in the late afternoon hours of the first day of Miley Cyrus #RatchetGate (thanks ?uestlove), and the first hours of this media/social media meltdown have been one for the books. We had the outrage of the public scolds, talk about the death of Hannah Montana, and the impact on the children, a media firestorm that enabled the media to show clips of the offending performance repeatedly, the feminist critique, and vital discussions about race and white appropriation of black culture on Twitter. My initial reaction was amusement because the whole thing was remarkably skeevy and unsexy for a pale imitation of what Britney and Christina had done a decade prior, but my second reaction was "whoa Nellie, that's pretty racist."
Blame Public Enemy, Ralph Ellison, City Honors, AP English teacher Mr. LaChiusa lending me The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, or #BlackTwitter, but my racist radar went off during Miley's Twerkfest. The stereotypes, the sight of Miley playing ringmaster to a circus of black women, the minstrel show put on and officiated by the former Hannah Montana, and the outright appropriation of "hood" (her word) culture for the former child star's coming out as a sexualized pop diva... the whole thing was rigoddamndiculous. But predictably white folks like Mika Brzynzski got their Tipper Gore on, leaving the more outrageous offense and timely issue to the folks on #BlackTwitter, while other white folks thought Miley's performance was A-OK.
I'm not suggesting that those white folks are racist, but shit, this isn't helping. This hasn't been a banner year for race relations in this country, and for white feminists, the Tipper Gore set, and the rest to be frankly oblivious to flagrant racism (in the form of a spectacle no less) presents further proof that we've got a looooong way to go before it's Kumbaya time. Thankfully New York Times critic Jody Rosen stepped up early to give Miley shit for her racism for Vulture (The 2013 VMA's Were Dominated By Miley's Minstrel Show), but otherwise it seemed like most white folks missed it. Jeff Meirs almost touched on the racial issues at work at the VMA's... in MTV's Justin Timberlake hagiography, but otherwise didn't go there in favor of a larger critique of pop culture.
But here's the kicker, near the end of Rosen's piece:
Cyrus’s twerk act gives minstrelsy a postmodern careerist spin. Cyrus is annexing working-class black “ ratchet” culture, the potent sexual symbolism of black female bodies, to the cause of her reinvention: her transformation from squeaky-clean Disney-pop poster girl to grown-up hipster-provocateur.
Now Miley Cyrus's hipster bonafides are certainly up for debate, but the concept of hipster racism is distressing and depressing. Yes. Congratulations white folks, you're killing hip. It was bound to happen, really, anytime you get that many white people together, that something fundamentally uncool would happen, and killing the concept of hip appears to be it. Because racism isn't cool and it certainly isn't hip; in fact racism is the exact opposite of the concept of "hip." Shit, what is hip if it isn't being hip in the original sense... as in down with black folks and black culture? Whether as an expression of rebellion to the "square" status quo, a show of solidarity with the oppressed, honest appreciation of another's culture, or Talking Heads doing a cover of Al Green's "Take Me To The River" on More Songs About Buildings And Food, hip was about communication, secret communication, and building bridges. It wasn't about being an ironic racist, or being casually blind to outright racism, which is definitely not as bad as outright racism but again, it's not helping.
Because that's the thing, while there has indeed been progress made, there's also been some significant backsliding, and not just on matters of race. Ask a feminist about rape culture in the United States. Things aren't trending in the right direction in a lot of departments, and it's starting to look like "not helping" matters. Maybe it's time to put the HIP back into hipster and attempt to show some awareness about race and gender issues beyond our own individual purviews if not doing so already (cuz white folks aren't all bad).
Otherwise fellow white folks, we're doing it wrong.
