​RHOP: “The Complexion for Protection”

The Real Housewives of Potomac fails to deal with the complexity of Black women’s lives. In my opinion, the show reduces multifaceted issues to simple right/wrong, black/white matters. This handling of issues is compounded by the production process. The intermittent nature of physical production for TV and film often leads to women of a certain age, who carry the burden in this society of dependent care, to opt out of physical production jobs. As a result, the onset crew typically consists of people assigned male at birth and/or very young women. Similarly, in the social media sphere, men overwhelmingly produce the content concerning RHOP and RHOA. This means the perspectives of Black women viewers of a certain age are largely marginalized. 

Let’s take colorism for example. Colorism is a facet of antiblackness and White supremacy. As I’ve stated in prior posts, colorism is not a personality flaw. It is a hierarchical social system that privileges people with perceived proximity to Whiteness. I am paraphrasing Candiace’s words from the reunion because she did not misspeak, she was not inflammatory, nor was she off-base. Colorism is not, as Ashley seemingly contended, a preoccupation with skin color. As a hierarchical system based on power, the powerless e.g., dark-skin people cannot reverse colorism. Hostility can be directed from darker-skin people to lighter skin people, but power is not that easily redistributed across space and time. 

A major aspect of colorism, being a structural component of antiblackness and White supremacy, is the systematic, almost automatic, subjection of darker skin people to wanton violence. Wanton violence can be physical violence to blatant disregard for one’s kinship relations to exclusion from certain spaces. Watching RHOP, we see a different standard of interaction for people who fall on the desirable of side of the colorism system versus the people who do not. This differential treatment is accepted as the norm. This is where I take issue with Dr. Wendy interjecting and redirecting Candiace. As a learned scholar, it is incumbent upon Dr. Wendy to clarify misperceptions. I remember when BET’s Teen Summit was on the air in the 90s. Many misconceptions about HIV and AIDS were rampant at that time. It was on Teen Summit that I learned from an expert that straight, cisgender, Black women were contracting HIV at high rates from partners who were both straight and male-identified. It was on Teen Summit that I learned HIV and AIDS are not interchangeable terms. When an expert is in the room, it is your obligation to clarify common (mis)understandings of a particular matter.

Here’s my concern with the issue. When Wendy interjected, she corrected Candiace in three ways. First, she gave the impression that Candiace’s delivery was unbecoming. Wendy stated “I know you’re angry.” I read this statement as tone-policing. Tone policing is a microaggression. It is characterized by amplifying a person’s tone of voice or demeanor, using it to dismiss the significance of the content of the message. Tone policing also works to minimize and/or justify the harm done to marginalized people. The other issue with Wendy’s correction of Candiace’s statement was she mischaracterized Candiace’s words. In the clip offered by Bravo, we did not hear Candiace say anything about Gizelle’s “White skin.” Candiace used the phrases White-looking and proximity to Whiteness. Colorism is about proximity to Whiteness. I am all for correcting one’s friend when she needs correction. In this instance, however, there was nothing to correct. Relatedly, Wendy implied that Candiace was engaging in reverse-colorism by commenting on Gizelle’s complexion. As a I stated earlier, colorism is a power-based system, and darker-skin people cannot reverse it. If Dr. Wendy lacked the range on this topic, she should have remained silent. 

Wendy’s behavior in that scene exemplifies a larger problem that I see with the darker brown girls on Potomac. They have a pattern of throwing each other under the bus to gain favor. In season three, Monique shared Candiace’s view that Gizelle and Charisse were in fact attempting to son Candiace, and Monique encouraged Candiace to forcefully confront it. Then, at dinner when Gizelle and Charisee were present, Monique critiqued Candiace’s delivery to secure her place as the lesser excluded one. In season four, Candiace returned serve when she spread the misperception to Gizelle that Monique called Katie a slave. Again, Candiace seemed to frame Monique as ignorant to earn her spot as the model brown girl. Similarly, in season six, Candiace sided with Gizelle and Robyn when they stated Wendy was behaving aggressively. Remember, Candiace placed Wendy in the cottage to make Mia “feel comfortable.” Those were Candiace’s words. I need the "brown girls" (Candiace's phrase) to cease with the intramural policing. You will never be favored in an antiblack, colorist system. You will end up like Monique: off the show. 

It is disappointing to see this pattern season after season. When Monique came on my screen on season two, I thought she would be the Maya Wilkes (Girfriends, Viacom), calling the cards of these uppity Black women with relatable and timely shade. However, Monique succumbed to the pressure and subjected Candiace to wanton violence. In a colorist system, that kind of physical violence cannot be directed at the people who have the "complexion for projection" (Gizelle and Robyn) as Paul Mooney would say. It’s my hope that Candiace, Wendy, and Karen, who have all been subjected to colorist-classist exclusion, will get together and work through the moments they have felt unsupported by the other. If we’re honest, Bravo made Gizelle the face of the show, but Candiace and Karen are the fan favorites. Like Nene, they bring the eyeballs. It would be real to see these Black women say, “you hurt me.” I don’t want to see them move on or participate in fake resolution scenes orchestrated by (male) producers. It’s unhealthy to expect people to brush significant matters under the rug and work in a hostile environment. No, I want to see them take the time to express their experiences and work through them. That would be a good show that connects to Black women viewers.