Drama, Not Trauma Part 1: "Depoliticizing the Personal"

Reality TV shows featuring Black women ensemble casts are toxic to watch right now. Normally my posts are more eloquent, but there's no other way to say it. Our favorite shows that formerly revolved around serving flyness with a side of drama are straight-up exploiting the trauma of the cast. ​

Let's focus on Basketball Wives. Admittingly, this series has been problematic since the episode when Eveyln threw a glass of water on another woman of color (Season 1). We gave Evelyn an inch because she divulged details about enduring various forms of domestic abuse—from financial to emotional. We felt her pain, and we wanted her to win. But now girlfriend's done taken a whole mile. When a cast member feels comfortable uttering a racial slur on a ViacomCBS set, we have moved from conflict to violence. The network's decision to air this footage was irresponsible at best and negligent at worst. Once the footage aired, VH1's ethical responsibility was to address the anti-Asian American xenophobia against CeCe for what it was. Instead, VH1 depoliticized the personal. Depoliticizing the personal is evidenced in comments like "everything isn't about race," "maybe it's not sexism, maybe you just didn't deserve a raise," and "it doesn't offend me when he calls me [insert perjorative]." Some people are unable to understand the larger implications of everyday/personal interactions. They can't see that all forms of oppression are maintained by daily practices. BECAUSE an event is experienced as personal, these people believe it is divorced from the political. Depoliticizing the personal is not the same as a microaggression. It is the thinking or outlook that justifies an oppressive act. Depoliticizing the personal seems to be VH1's stance on matters, and, unfortunately, it is highly effective.

This depoliticizing of the personal was VH1's approach to the situation involving Evelyn and Cece, and it's the network's approach to OG accurately describing her experiences of colorism, specifically with Evelyn. We see the personal being depoliticized with Kristen's attempts to undermine OG's claims by pointing out that she and OG have similar skin tones but that she has never experienced colorism. This is how oppression works: through the seeming existence of hierarchies and exceptions. Think of slavery. There were those in the field. Some were in the house, and a few or maybe one Black person was an overseer. However, they were all subjugated as slaves. Kristen is the exception. Because she has features associated with what are believed to be European traits, she is accepted as beautiful. Because she does not feel that her life is personally affected by colorism, she feels no need to assist OG in challenging it. Kristen depoliticized the political, which helps to secure the perpetuation of a larger problematic structure, which is antiblackness. 

People reading these words might think: "I'm not colorist. I just think OG's ugly." This statement is a classic example of depoliticizing the personal. The idea is these are my personal thoughts, so these thoughts can't be racist (for non-Black people) or colorist (for Black people). However, they are. The question is why do you hold such beliefs? Why is it taken-for-granted that OG is ugly? The answer is she has facial features that are conventionally believed to be African. Africans in racist thought are compared to monkeys, apes, and gorillas. Africans, in racist thought, are black the opposite of white, meaning goodness, purity, beauty. When some people see OG's African face, they see all these underlying beliefs. Scroll through Twitter, and you will find people calling OG "ugly," "mean," and "negative," etc.—all synonyms for black. 

It's important to think deeply about this. It is through the personal that oppressive acts are enacted. For example. it's in everyday individual encounters with real estate agents and loan officers that millions of Black people have been denied access to loans and revered communities. These personal interactions created an inequitable system that prevented generations of Black people from building wealth. What I want readers of this blog to take away is depoliticizing the personal is a practice that facilitates and protects all forms of oppression. There is no exception to this rule. One way to dismantle these larger systems is to remember the feminist mantra that the personal is the political and to take a stance of support and solidarity.

So what about our personal viewing habits? Is this what we want to see on our screens: hurt people hurting other people and then gaslighting them by depoliticizing the personal? I think we deserve better than this. We all tune in to our favorite reality TV shows for a little drama, but it's time for VH1 to take a serious approach to the evident trauma playing out on screen. There's nothing fly about seeing our sisters in pain.