So, apparently Russell Simmons has yet another young model girlfriend, and she is Just Beside Herself that people think their old/young, rich/not rich, famous/not-famous ‘relationship’ is about a an older rich guy digging a young hot girl and her digging his money. Julie Henderson has gone on the record: she is “no one’s high-falutin’ ho’. Well, thanks for clearing that up. Now I can sleep easy at night, because I was really worried! Except not.

Still, the press release re: high-falutin, rootin’ tootin’ whoredom didn’t tame the beast – or, more accurately, didn’t stir it up enough to get really great press coverage – so Ms. Henderson took the media bull by the horns with this searing, elegant, profound blog post:

I have been spending “special time” with Russell for about 4 months and in that time I have learned some subtle things about some in the black community that have surprised me. I must say that while it has been a bit of a challenge for me, it has also been a wonderful learning experience. I realize that in this day of Obama and change that there is still a tremendous amount of poverty, suffering and pain in the black community, and for that I am deeply sorry. But, I have to say the angry responses to those realities are sometimes misdirected….Just for the record, I am nobody’s white b*tch, gold digger or fame chaser. Nor am I any of the other mean things I have been called lately. I don’t need anything from anybody, I come from a good family and I’m a young independent “successful” model making my way in NYC. (If you don’t believe me google me or go to juliehenderson.net).

Where to start? When you’re overwhelmed with material to mock, just start anywhere. So let’s do that, dear reader. Let’s jump in and roll around in all this uppity white girl angst.

First: note to Julie Henderson. Sugar, please run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore, and buy yourself a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You”. This is what you will learn:

1. If you have to use quotation marks to describe your relationship – eg “special time”, “special” friend – then it is not a relationship. The quotes cancel out the word. They are meant to imply an irony or an inconsistency between the word and the meaning. Think about that. Now let’s review your self-described job title: “successful” model. Do you see a problem here?
2. If you have to describe your man as your “special” friend, then he is not your man.
3. If he is not your man, then you can’t legitimately say “b*tch get your own man”, because he is not your man. (If you’re not following, please re-read points 1 and 2.)
4. If you want to be hardcore, you say the bad words and spell them in full and you fucking dare anyone to tell you different or say shit about it. I think. Or so I’ve heard.

Second: the peace-loving spiritual allusions of your use of ‘namaste’ are kind of, sort of, a tiny little bit, TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY cancelled out by your “b*tch get your own man” directive. You can’t in one breath say ‘the goddess in me recognizes the goddess in you’ and then cuss the bitch out in the next breath. Well, you can, but it pretty much invalidates the goddess bit.

Okay, that’s the making fun of young, pretty, silly, sheltered white girls part of this post. Now let’s be serious.

This kind of thing drives me crazy – white girls who think that dating black men gives them some special, “subtle” insight into the black community.

I make this observation with authority, because I am often that girl. My former partner is black and over the years my dance card has included invitations from black men. So I know what often happens when a white woman starts dating a black man. She now understands the black community and has the inside track on the meaning of oppression just because she sucks disenfranchised cock.

And by ‘she’, I of course mean me. And Julie Hendersen.

Suddenly a middle class white girl from a “good family” has street cred. Or so she thinks – and then she starts saying stupid stuff like “I’m sure as sh*t not giving him up because some in America object to our friendship.”

Now let’s examine this last point. Who is Julie Hendersen addresssing? Well, since she starts the post with a back-handed, oblivious ‘apology’ (remember my lesson on what it means when you put quotes around a word when there is no dialogue going on?) to the black community, it is a safe bet she’s not addressing white racists who may or may not take offense to her ‘relationship’. Nope, she’s addressing the angry black bigots – or, as I hear the kids are saying these days, the ‘haters’ – who are throwing a little contempt her way.

Oh. My. God. Contempt for a white woman?

Note to black community: White people really, really don’t get this. Oh you knew that? I’m stunned.

You see, dear reader, our lovely Julie is grappling with something far greater than culture shock. She’s dealing with a sudden loss of privilege, and she is unmoored. Instead of floating through life wrapped in a protective cocoon of white privilege, feeling racially neutral, she’s suddenly feeling acutely, uncomfortably white. She’s suddenly getting negative judgement hurled her way because of her ethnicity, her age, her gender – and she is utterly discombobulated.

Unfortunately, our dear Julie lacks the analytical rigour or introspective bent to unravel this mess, so she’s just lashing out. She’s uncomfortable, she’s feeling vulnerable and attacked – for being white, female and young – and she knows who to blame.

Black women.

They want ‘her’ man. And those angry, hating black women are willing to call her names and denigrate her and hollow out her identity to a set of signifiers – white, young, female – rather than acknowledge and appreciate the full complexity of her self. She is a ‘successful’ model. She doesn’t need anybody for anything. She is from a good family. She knows the meaning of ‘namaste’ and probably practices yoga. She is more than just her white face and her nice boobs, dammit, so stop calling her a ho!

Yeah, so black women might be intimately familiar with being socially assessed and dismissed by overlapping social signifiers and identities. I’m just saying. What Julie Henderson is experiencing right now, the thing that is so completely foreign and frustrating to her, is what social minorities experience every day.

To all the Julie Hendersens out there: if you really want to sympathize and connect with people in black communities, start with trying to understand where some black women are coming from when they criticize black man/white woman relationships, and why they feel pained when they see a black man with you. There are real and fraught reasons for this, and they are not going to go away just because you can say a couple of curse words. So if you’re serious about your ‘special friend’, seek to understand rather than being understood.

And while you’re at it, understand this: there are just some things you’re going to have to take on the chin. When you let the mantle of white privilege slip, people are going to criticize you, and it will hurt. You will be frustrated and confused and you will just have to find a way to cope with it. There are useful things you can do. You can talk about it. You can ask questions. You can read a book or two. You can think critically. And you can stop calling black women bitches.

Because sometimes interracial dating leads to something else. This:

That’s right. Interracial dating can create interracial families and little baby girls who will grow up to be black women – just like the ones you called bitch.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 3:11 am and is filed under Family, Love, Meaning, Power, Sex. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.