And the Target Is… - First Time, Funny. Second Time, Silly!
Apparently, the familiar adage, “I have to laugh to keep from crying,” still holds true. Is this what some women are doing when they laugh at the daily memes that make us the butt of all jokes? What’s with this targeting of women, specifically black women, up and down social media timelines? Even more disheartening is the fact that women are doing a great deal of the laughing. Why must the joke always be on us? There are so many things wrong with this picture. The obvious being the existence of a platform that negatively targets and insults women. What may not be so obvious is why women believe they must join in on the insolence. I believe there are some very deep issues here, but I won’t address them in this post. Instead, I will direct my thoughts and pleas to the women who feel that this is okay. Plainly stated, it is not!
Most of us are guilty of having laughed at an insulting picture, meme, song, post or status at some point in time. You see a joke about a black girl’s weave or a picture of a woman’s heels leaning over as she struts across the floor and die laughing. Then there are two, three, and before you know it, the internet is bursting with insulting visuals of women. At some point you have to stop and say, “Okay, first time, funny. Second time, silly!” This does not happen though. Instead, we repost and further mock our own selves. I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking that none of what is being said is about you. It’s kind of like when gangsta’ rap first came on the scene, and we bobbed our heads to lyrics about women. The beats were so banging that we used the excuse that they were not rapping about us. We shouted every word while blasting songs filled with nothing but hate for us. Still we exclaimed, “They are not talking about me!”
Pause. Check yourself, girl! They were talking about us then, and they are talking about us now. Face it. We are being duped into shaming ourselves. Even if we believe that what is being put out there is funny because the girl in the picture looks and speaks like our next door neighbor or our cousins on the other side of town, it doesn’t give us the right to further humiliate them. If we want to go with the argument that the women being ridiculed are not us, fine. But why is it okay to mock the women who are being shamed? When we see and support propaganda about women whom we feel do not represent us, does it make us feel better about who we think we are? Who do we think we are? Hopefully, we know and embrace the fact that we are spiritual, funny, intelligent, ambitious, supportive, encouraging, loving, confident, creative, passionate, intuitive, and courageous. And yes, we are complex. So when someone tries to separate any of us from all of the wonderful qualities we possess, we should be the first to shut them down. They say that laughter is the best medicine, and I am all for the cure. But the only medicine I’m taking these days is that good girl power tonic. It’s sweet, tangy and full of lift a sister up juice. Try it. It’s good for the soul.