WhatFinger


"S--t-shaming and racial condescension."

WaPo columnist: This hulabaloo about Miley Cyrus really shows how racist we all are



Silly me. To the extent that I thought about it at all, which wasn't much, I thought people were buzzing because someone who was an innocent family-friendly Disney Channel star just a few years ago is now prancing around on stage, simulating sex acts with some dude and wearing almost nothing. But I obviously forgot to check with Washington Post columnist Clinton Yates, who would have set me straight.
It's really about racism. Oh, that and "s--t-shaming" because how dare we object to a young woman letting loose with her honest expression or whatever. He appears to be completely serious:
It seems that we still can’t handle what it’s like for a young woman to be able to perform, as she chooses, without layering in a heavy helping of insults as well. While Cyrus was condemned for grinding on Thicke, very little criticism has been laid on the singer himself for his role in the performance. The nastiest of the comments have implied that Cyrus is somehow diseased because of her preferred dance methods. Add to this the fact that some people feel she is appropriating a certain amount of black culture without proper license and you’ve got a cauldron of ignorance and discrimination that even in 2013 is widely regarded as understandable, if not sensible. It is not.

Support Canada Free Press


When the white, 20-year-old, former child star and daughter of a country singer goes on stage and does something that the so-called ruling classes deem unseemly, it starts a firestorm. When scores of young women across the globe take the stage to express themselves in exactly the same way at an EDM concert by Diplo, and plaster their exploits all over social networks, no one bats an eye. By implying that Cyrus is somehow creating a minstrel act of sorts by including black dancers in her act, you are implying that there is something lesser than about such an act. As if it’s completely impossible that she simply enjoys and respects the talents of those she chooses to work with. In short, it is inherently racist to imply that there is anything wrong with anyone other than black women twerking. Ha, see? Bet you didn't think anyone could find a way to make you out as not only a prude, but a racist too! Yates is nothing if not resourceful. I think the incident does matter insofar as it confirms a coarsening in our culture that clearly is not a surprising development to anyone who's been paying attention. Cyrus may be correctly reading the culture when she calculates that an act like that will benefit her career insofar as you're on top if everyone is talking about you, and it really doesn't matter what you did to get the attention. From what I've seen the crowd at the VMAs didn't appear distraught in the slightest by what they were seeing. They loved it. They were firing away with their camera phones. People like me can sit here and wring hands over the way she was objectifying herself, but the mass consumers of pop music probably think more like Clinton Yates than they think like me. The real problem is that Miley Cyrus's act isn't really outside the cultural mainstream at all.


View Comments

Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.


Sponsored