Criticizing Black Women’s Clothing Choices : Ciara’s Oscar Dress
Pic from Yahoo!
Other people's bodies aren't about or for us.
Now here's the thing, some of us seem to be laboring under the white supremacist, patriarchal delusion that other people's bodies are about us or for us. But this ain't FUBU. Meaning that you don't get to choose how people dress or adorn those bodies. Though you get you do get to sit at home and be critical.
In looking at the comments online, I have seen about 3 major reasons why people are mad. Those reasons seem to be:
We are still very much entrenched into the baby mama trope and believe Ciara to be undeserving of happiness because of what we are deeming as past failures. When we think of the “baby mama” trope, this inspires us, consciously or not, to think about the Black, undeserving welfare queen, too. Often we have seen these Black mothers characterized as leeches on society, instead of seeing them as women taking care of themselves and their families. There has been much work both in and by the media and by our government to show welfare queens and baby mamas as Black women who are sexually promiscuous, for which many see their children and single status as punishment for wanton sexual behavior. We are taught to see the “baby mama” as a sexual deviant in need of patriarchal and racial control— particularly because baby mamas are characterized as Black because of racist lenses that permeate how we view sexuality.
This means that Ciara having the audacity to have a partner who married her, knowing she had a child out of wedlock, ruffles against some of our christian and puritanical sensibilities in the first place. Then to add insult to injury, some of us are further made upset that Ciara doesn’t seem to be humbling or prostrating herself to her new role in a way that we would prefer. We want her to behave in an obviously humble manner, contrite and showing herself as being undeserving of the love of her husband. But because she basks unabashedly in that love, we find her and anything she does as offensive.
We are jealous! I said what I said. Too many of us can mark our lives by the choices other people made for us or shamed us into. We look at our choices and don’t really see ourselves, but rather the hand of parents, siblings, friends, men, white folk, society at large, but not ourselves. We have let other people choose not only our wardrobes, but make our life choices on our behalf and we are BIG MAD. But of course instead of doing something to make sure we are living our best life, which would take a lot of work in knowing yourself and bravery to show up as that self, it is easier to sit on the perch of our judgement and talk about how Ciara is not a good enough Black woman because she didn’t allow others to make all her choices for her. When we see someone else living their best life and appearing to think of no one but themselves and what would bring them pleasure, we are a little bit upset, not only because we haven’t managed to do it, but because for some of us, we also don’t know how.
We are scared. There are those of us who wish to to be with Ciara or someone like her, but we are worried that the women in our lives won't choose us, if their clothing grabbed the attention of so many others. There is a belief that the way a woman dresses attracts attention and that an admiring suitor may simply have what you do not and that woman would walk away and never even glance back. The problem is: you're letting your fear dictate what Ciara is supposed to be able to do despite that fact that Ciara and her body don't belong to you!
Now, here's the other piece of it. Some of you like to believe yourself thinkers and you are — but are you thinking critically? Are you considering how your truama is informing your feelings? Are you considering who has power in spinning these narratives and how the spin keeps them in power?
No, you're not asking critical thinking questions, which means though you are thinking— you’re very likely jumping on the bandwagon, which requires you to reach no further than the last thing a self-proclaimed “alpha male” said, and you are stuck in their thought processes instead of doing your work. This means, no, you're not doing the critical thinking thing. If you were you would be asking:
Who gets to determine what a wife dresses like?
Who gets to determine what a good mother dresses like?
Here's the thing because she owns that body and not her kids and not her husband, and certainly not you, that means that she gets to dress how she wants to dress. Her husband and her that male gaze doesn't get to dictate her clothing. Her children also don't get to dictate her clothing. Furthermore, her clothing is not indicative of whether or not she's a good wife or mother. You'd have to ask those people who occupy the roles of husband or child in her life to determine whether or not she is a good partner and parent.
Some of us have been made upset because we were considering the white gaze and detemrined that if Ciara wore what she did, that she obviously was not thinking about it. How do we know this? We know because some have stated that they were upset because they thought that she was at the Oscars instead of the Vouge Oscar After Party event. Even if she was, the white gaze and the male gaze don't get to pick for us. We do! (especially consiering the Oscars very rarely pick out the talent among folk of color. A white award given to white people for being excellent amoung white people, is not interested in PoC except as optics to spin a different story, but I digress)
Our real fear is women choosing to adorn and dress themselves in the way that they desire. It would mean the end of white and male supremacy and oppression on the Black female body and a new era of Black women owning their bodies and their choices. Both of which upset the status quo that allows fear of white folk judgment or fear of men’s judgement to make Black people’s and women’s decisions, respectively.
Be mad. Be scared. and then work on being quiet. Sit in that discomfort and then go mind your business.
