(Note: Update below the fold.)
Nubian falls out of love with the BBC over an article that–well, I mean, let’s just take it from the title through the subtitle on down. Just to clarify something up front: Normally, portions of a blockquote appearing in bold indicate emphasis I’ve added; here, however, I am keeping the bolded text from the original:
Black women ‘also cause splits’
Black women are “hugely responsible” for the family breakdown which fuels crime, MPs have been told.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, of the charity Kid’s Company, said men were usually seen as the “irresponsible” ones who got girls pregnant and “walked off”.
But black women were also to blame as they had a culture of rejecting men and being “cruel” towards them, she said.
Nubian’s commenters pick right up on the racism and do an excellent job of tearing it apart. As Kevin points out, “If women would just be nicer” is one of the oldest MRA arguments in the book. Here, it’s just been married to “Sisters are a little too strong and sassy,” for a fun, new, racist twist. Gag.
No comment thread would be complete without someone popping up to damn everyone for daring to question authority, however. In this case it’s a reader who goes by WestEndGirl (see comment #24), and the emphasis below is mine:
However, and this is a HUGE however, Camilla Batmanghelidjh knows more about its effect on children and particularly BEM children than you ever will. She works in the toughest areas, with the most damaged children and has personally helped 000s of them. She deals with the results of social breakdown every day and wants to protect children from harm, that is where she is coming from. For you to call her a clown because you disagree with her point of view on this issue just demeans you and shows your ignorance.
I want a Javascript that autotranslates phrases like “you’re showing your ignorance” into “quit assailing your betters,” because make no mistake, that is exactly what it means. We can call it “TRexify.”
Here’s why I disagree with Batmanghelidjh’s point of view, by the way: Because it is unsupported by any data whatsoever. Oh! The House of Commons got the data that more black families are single-parent than white ones–57% versus 25%–but there’s nothing to imply causality between those mean ol’ sisters and single parent status. And as someone who’s heard all the variants of “Quit being such a bitch” all her life, most of them being delivered by know-it-alls at times when the single most effective, life-affirming, powerful thing I could possibly choose to do was to get off my knees, quit apologizing for my existence, and start being a bitch, I’m, what’s the word?–Skeptical. Hugely.
Again (with the notable exception above), I think Nubian’s readers do great deconstruction here, so go forth and savor. If you participate, please do so respectfully; I don’t want another half-dozen WestEndGirls over there and the guilt of knowing I sent ’em. Cut your guest-blogger a break, here.
UPDATE: Just wanted to highlight a few comments here. First, Betsy’s right that despite my poor phrasing above, there’s nothing “new” about crackpot theories like these:
Sadly, there’s nothing new about it. This charming bit of horseshit has been around (in the US, anyway) since well before the Moynihan report caused a furor in the mid-1960s by helpfully explaining that black women are castrating, matriarchal bitches and that THAT’s the reason that there’s such a problem with black people and poverty. Cause it couldn’t be the discrimination, no siree. It’s the matriarchy and the castration.
When I wrote “Here, it’s just been married to ‘Sisters are a little too strong and sassy,” for a fun, new, racist twist,’ I was going for a play on the sort of language you read in fashion writing. This was a stupid maneuver on my part because the risk is that it will be read literally, when, literally, it’s wrong. So consider “new” redacted. That’s what I get for a sloppy snark attempt.
Second and more generally: It’d be nice if discussions about race issues could happen without the first reaction by white folks being to question a person of color’s anger: “Why get mad at the BBC?” is so demonstrably not the point that, frankly, I’m bummed out to see it raised here, especially within the first dozen comments. Besides, as Betsy, or as I like to think of her, “the person who should have written this post,” notes:
I would add that their headlines are reprehensible – they’re stating it as fact: “Black women ‘also cause splits.’” That’s an implicit endoresement of the study if ever I’ve seen one.
There were any number of other ways to have headlined the piece without giving that implicit endorsement, including the obvious “Black women alleged to ‘also cause splits.'” So, yes, I think a little criticism of the BBC is certainly called for; more importantly, I think focusing on Nubian’s disgust, instead of the issue Nubian is actually disgusted about, is really not helpful.
Besides, if we can’t knock the Olde Guarde Media, blogging is so over. What’ll we do all day, post pictures? Talk about how our partners/friends/family just don’t understand us? Have the Friday Random Ten every day? Post our “What Kind Of Vegetable Are You?” quiz results? See? It’s a losing proposition. Just let us keep picking on the people who get paid to commit random acts of journalism, and all will be happy in blogland again.