Must I Be Offended By Katy Perry’s ‘Mummies’ That Look Like Caricatures Of Black Women? (660 hits)
This morning, during my routine perusal of the Internet, I came across an article about Katy Perry’s Prismatic tour. Folks were all in their feelings about Perry’s dancers, who looked like caricatures of Black women. Katy donned a baby blue dress embellished with an ankh and the eye of Horus, while her dancers wore hoop earrings, padded body suits with protruding body parts, sunglasses and short black wigs. All they were missing were nameplates that read Bonequesha. Then it dawned on me, their costumes are mummy wraps. Oh. They’re mummies, not Bonequeshas…Duh. (Catch my sarcasm?)
It’s ridiculous at best, yet I don’t feel compelled to start a Twitter revolution or write a think piece about it. Am I losing my Black card? Am I broken? No. I’m just over mainstream (a la Miley Cyrus) artist’s misguided cultural appropriation and the people who so offended every time it happens. As a Black woman, there isn’t a day that goes by that I do not encounter an extra stare on the train, an in-depth glance from a stranger attempting to my hair to its root. I am fully aware that the White person next to me formed pools of judgement because they can hear my R&B or rap music (depending on my mood) through my headphones.
I have a choice. Do I wallow every time a White woman turns the diamond in her wedding ring to face inward? No. I go on about my day because if I focused on every subtle bit of racism in the world, I’d be more concerned with living life under a microscope than making it to work on time. It’s OK to be offended. I was recently offended by the woman who breastfed her baby in her graduation gown on the lawn of her college graduation, but I didn’t spreading it to the masses.
Being offended is OK, but we don’t need a think piece about it every time. M’ kay. Thanks!
