Dear Hampshire College

Dear Hampshire College,
I know you specialize in creating smelly, oblivious, colorblind racist white people, but I have recently met some of your top anti black people of color! Congrats guys.
love love love
sea jarelle

Fashion Forward Feminism? *Chuckles Heartily*

“Does she even know she’s a girl?” Stacy on WNTW

So my bucketloads of free time have yielded yet another interesting hobby; watching fashion shows on TLC. Am I proud of this fact? No. Do they come on enough that it fills up all of the free spots in my day that aren’t eaten by food or blogs or my bosses elliptical machine? Why yes, yes they do. The most odious of these shows in my mind, more disgusting than even 10 years younger, a show that puts women in a glass box and allows onlookers to express exactly what aspects of the patriarchal beauty imperative they can adhere to if they want their faces, breasts and… wait, women don’t have any other parts anyway, right? Yes, the only show that I find more insidious than that is a program that is dubiously called self help, What Not To Wear.

Sure, the show is about as addictive as crystal meth, and the prospect of getting 5000 dollars to shop in New York sounds like an orgasm waiting to unleash itself upon me but the INSANE amounts of gender bias, heterosexism, and racism always shines through just enough to make my fingers curl into a Spritzhead beating fist. For those who are not familiar with the show, it involves a team of pornifing fashion consultants, hairdressers and makeup artist who take an “unattractive” ugly duckling who doesn’t even have the sense to make sure that all of their clothes are picked out by a jury of their peers into a “beautiful” and thoroughly pornified sex object.

As if strict adherence to the secretive rules of the beauty imperative were not enough to damn the show in my bitter, bitter, hateful little eyes, Stacy and Clinton (the shows hosts) consistently tell women who may very well not own a mini pencil skirt, backbreakingly high heels, or some other sort of “girl” coded clothing that they must not know that they are indeed “girls”. That’s right, the idea that women can age out of the beauty imperative is no longer valid, so look out dyke auntie the botox brigade is comin’ for that ass! Most notably for me was the episode (to my knowledge there is only one) where they have an out lesbian on the show. They proceed to tell her how to get an hourglass figure which of course she wants to know because she’s a “girl”. Exactly when do “girls” become women, might I ask? A better question seems to have been asked by the professor “what if we didn’t expect women to look like girls and girls to look like women?”

Now, yes, I am indeed a big black dyke, but am I anti-fashion? Ok, yes, who am I kidding, I do hate fashion as a woman killing merchant of death industry that promotes eating disorders and broken ankles by using waif thin women on stilts (stilts which I now own, the patriarchy affects us all) while telling them to look 7 and a half by hook or by crook. I suppose shows like this worry me because expanding the beauty imperative to all women eliminates the little pockets of safety from the beauty brigade that existed (i.e. age, lesbianism, membership of the academe, radical feminism) and the new virus says that this is no longer the case.

Spritzheads and Their Baby Boys

Jesus, will women stop treating their boy babies like they are the best thing to ever be associated with a vagina please? I don’t think that this tendency is super concentrated in the southern united states, but given my status as an outsider, and the LOADS of free time that I have on my hands I’ve begun to see the basis of this. I was riding my bike when I saw an absolutely gorgeous but terribly frazzled looking black woman walking to her car holding the hand of a 4-6 year old little brown boy, telling him fervently that he could have absolutely any “cold drink” he wanted when he got to the store before whatever game he had that day. Children in general are a) stupid, b) obnoxious, and c) annoying enough anyway but to make matters worse, this little boy was wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed “Stud In the Making”. Although I realize that the crisis of masculinity affects male bodied folks in profound and stifling ways, there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to dress your child as if he shits out gold nuggets purely because he was born with a sex organ more than ¾ an inch in length.

As if this did not make me want to grab the nearest Hothead Paisan Spritzhead Beating Bat there was a little girl behind this woman, no older than 3, carrying all of the bags and tottling as quick as her fat little toddler legs could carry her to keep up with her mother and older brother. I am sure that she was not offered any soda she wanted for taking on the official role of the girl child/ adult personal assistant so common in black homes. I felt especially bad for her in light of the fact that every little girl ( I assume this is not exclusive to black folks) knows that the glimmer in mommy’s eye changes when she finally fulfils the ultimate woman goal of shooting something out of her cooch that has a ballsack attached to it.

Don’t believe me, look at your local grade schools PTA dinners. Women will make the crrazziest excuses for their little boys poor behavior both black and white (he don’t sleep enough at night, he’s just bored, he’s too smart for the class, he’d rather be in gym) when all my bitter ass hears is “ how could you NOT love my little boy? I mean, little boys are a mothers gift! And he has a penis, that means that he could be the president, love him LOVE HIM YOU LITTLE BITCH!!!”

And of course, mothers love their kids in general, but when’s the last time you heard little Shanice, Susana, or Suzy’s mom defend her with these sort of wholeheartedly loving gems. No when a little girl fucks up in school… it must be because of a boy “ Oh Shanice just can’t stay away from those boys, I tell her to keep her head in the books but her fast ass just wont listen.” Yes, people seem to convince themselves that girls fuck up of their own volition and someone is out to get ever little boy on the planet.

Studies show that this sort of mollycoddling is bad for both boys and girls. Time Magizine called it the "soft bigotry of low expectations". The low or nearly non existent expectations of boys may be what accounts for both lower rates of college admission and higher rates of violent crime. So before you go all Spritzhead on little Stud Man Guy Jr. with "Iluvsmyperfectlittleboy"

1. please note how stupid you sound
2. remember that you may be hurting him by letting him do whatever stupid shit popped into his little egg head
3. read a book

This black dyke will thank you