*clears throat* *taps mic* hello, is this thing on?
ok, i just wanna get this shit off of my chest. i’ve been ruminating on these thoughts for a long while now, and wanted to place them somewhere. i originally posted parts of this as tags to a reblog, but i think this discussion is important and deserves its own post. so. here goes nothing, i guess.
every time i come across people not being able to understand what manon's childhood might've looked like, and what it must’ve felt like, in terms of the relationship with her culture, ethnic background and identity — or, even worse, people who stubbornly refuse to understand it —, and therefore use this as an excuse to invalidate and diminish her experience as a black women, an angel loses their wings.
true, she doesn’t have the same lived experience of a black american woman (or any other nationality). and yes, i am aware of the importance of the discourse about black people with a lighter complexion like her being, to quote Zendaya, “hollywood’s acceptable version of a black girl”. it is undoubtedly a very interesting and very urgent discussion to be had.
however, while all of it is true, this doesn’t make her life experience any less significant or real. just like being mixed doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, still black: different life experiences from your own aren’t less valid.
and for the sake of clarity and honesty, i want to preface this by saying i am not black, so of course i recognise that my understanding of the matter will never be complete, nor do i have the pretence of it. but i do know the type of environment i’m talking about (2000s/2010s switzerland) simply because i grew up in a similar one just a little after her. and also because i’ve spent way too much time listening to the kats girls talking and intensely thinking about them, sooo. just giving my two cents here, you know?
i don't know if it's solely because i'm european that i feel like i get a better understanding of some things she has said during the years — of statements she has reiterated many times during interviews, of sentences that require a little bit of willingness to read between the lines of what she is allowed to say (and what she wants to disclose) and the context she’s referring to without explicitly mentioning it. it’s really not that difficult to grasp the subtext of her words, though.
the subtext being:
what it meant to grow up in a predominantly white country and to be one of the few (if not the only one) black girls in her school (at least when she was still living in lucerne before moving to zurich);
how deeply this comparison may have affected her and her perception of self when she was younger — beside being probably one of the reasons why she hated school with all her guts in the first place (i know i’m just guessing here, but it’s not a reach too far from the truth);
how much this experience, which is already troubling in itself, gets elevated to the tenth when you’re a teenager, especially coming from a mixed background like hers (a 2nd generation swiss-ghanaian citizen), where it either feels like you're a part of two worlds or belong to neither of them. where the risk of losing yourself in those formative years is so high that, in order to not forget who you are outside of the boxes the world tries to shove you into, you're bound to develop a strong sense of self and identity, just like she did, and cling to it with your nails and teeth;
what a cultural shock it must’ve been to come to america during that exchange year and to find such a different social and cultural landscape from the one she had grown into;
what it means for her now, as a black european woman, to reconcile this part of herself with a place and a culture that are already so radically different from hers, on top of having to “represent” so, so many people across the globe who are so diverse from her and yet see themselves so profoundly reflected in her — how to reconcile those roots she’s so loud and proud of with the bright exterior the world, and we as fans, get to see. also, i think that getting to see her figure out this process in real time is beautiful;
what value holds, both personally and for the community she represents, being a woman of color in today’s entertainment landscape, especially in a spot so visible and exposed like the one she has come to occupy — where the lights can turn blinding and harsh in the blink of an eye (as they’ve already done multiple times…). where for a woman, especially a black one, forgiveness is a luxury, scrutiny of your every move is a stable and the constant observation and pressure that come from being in a girl group so deeply in the public eye only worsen as the sole black member — which, truth be told, is something thoroughly documented that has been happening well before and regardless of the hiatus situation (a topic i’m not touching even with a ten-foot pole today, along with the whole t&d + DA discourse, otherwise we’d never see the end of this post. those are stories for another day).
and i’m not even getting into the racist stereotypes and slurs (and how deep of an impact they can leave on someone who is growing up) she may have received because 1) i don’t wanna indulge in that negativity any longer than necessary and 2) she’s never said this out loud (nor she’s in any way required to) and i don’t wanna put words in her mouth. but these things aren’t difficult to infer or to imagine.
sadly there’s a high probability of such things being directed towards her personally at least once, whether to her face or behind her back — because no matter how nice, how pretty, how kind, how soft-spoken and well-raised you are, how “pampered” the suburban environment you were raised in was or how much your family loves you and tries to shield you from these revolting things… old men, pathetic teenage boys, petty women and similar, miserable rats will always find a way to snark at you and make it sting + the internet being a shit-dumpster and a cesspool is a given. a gross, sickening, retrograde one, but still a given.
so now you understand why when i hear “but she had it easier because-” or “but the documentary showed that she was lazy-” i wanna smash my head against a wall so viscerally. cut that bullshit immediately. i’m gonna block you in less than a minute if i see a dogshit comment like these ones cuz istg i have no more tolerance for this. the racial undertones that have long been rotted and embedded in this narrative, both from the company and the so-called “fans”, are sickening and i feel my skin crawl every single time i stumble across them.
sooo to sum it up yeah, i don’t know if it’s indeed because of my own background or because a good chunk of eyekons just lack basic comprehension skills and empathy and simply aren't willing to allow her an ounce of grace (because god forbid we don’t hold black women to impossible standards). i think it's probably more the second option, though. (#oops who said that #truth nuke)
and btw, people like me used to be called brown people until a few decades ago. we literally weren’t even considered white until the 1940s or smth. so don’t you ever pull up with this bullshit in front of me. it really is the one thing i don’t joke about. and yes, it really is that deep.
as i always say, everything is rooted in misogyny and racism *i scream into the void as they drag me to the padded room*.
thanks for coming to my ted talk. *drops mic*
(i hope there aren’t any typos. i would be twitching at that. sorry if there are. you get the sentiment, though.)
