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Sunday, May 11, 2008

A Real World


I know, I know. This blog has been on accidental hiatus and here I am, blogging about a white guy.

This is coming from a girl who has immense discomfort with simply being a student at a very white and racist institution (this is fact! - please read Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun by George Mariscal). From someone who still hasn't had a talk with a white dude whose hand I held for about ten minutes for an activity that wasn't exactly race-related. From the same girl whose first brush, or scrape, with racism happened when a white girl called my best friend (who identified as African American) the "N word." I use white and racist not as synonymous, not at all jokingly, but sparingly. I type this fully aware (to a certain extent) of the implications that this blog may cause. 

Maybe attaching these very real concepts to this one man alone is unfair. I can't deny the power of pop culture and I gotta give it up to him and the other male roommates on the Real World XX: Hollywood for trying to make the more privileged ladies of the house realize their narrow-mindedness about the realities of poverty, underprivileged life circumstances and womyn who have to strip for a living. 

Contrary to misguided, fucked-up and overwhelmingly generalizable belief, womyn who have to strip for a living do not choose the world into which we are all born. Consider that they may not have choice, or are not left with much choice or opportunity to figure out their futures. 

David Malinosky led the argument against the rhetoric of the white female roommates who insisted that womyn who strip are lazy, should further their careers through other means like McDonald's, or use their money to pay for their drugs. I can't count how many ways in which these arguments are racist, classist and completely misunderstanding, at the least. These claims are made from a point and perspective of (white) privilege. Power doesn't work the same way in certain levels of social status. If anything, these myths don't consider how womyn always have to be on the grind and take care home, self and families and bills (the basics) without the same resources. These claims cannot reduce the everyday of a womyn out of upright ignorance. No doubt, everyone's experience is different, but womyn already carry the brunt of inequalities on their backs. Thus, they are not lazy. And drug culture is a spectacle all on its own. You have to peer outside of (all of) yourself to get it. Don't wait until tragedy and oppression slaps you in the face to become fully conscious of your surroundings. People often do. 

Dave insisted that the female roommates look outside of their seemingly perfect worlds and try to even comprehend the idea or thought that womyn or people in general do not have the same life situations. And standards can't apply when we have never been on equal footing. I'm not trying to give all of the credit to Dave, because I do trust that there are plenty of allies who stand up for their sistas.

This blog really isn't much of a tribute to David Malinosky, but more of refreshing re-awakening of the fact that someone is trying to keep it real on the real world. I'm actually relieved that these people are real, even though they're pre-packaged in the Hollywood formula of images. I just sincerely hope that Dave doesn't fuck up and shatter my vision of him as the show unravels.

To compensate for a lack of clarity, I'll leave you with this video:



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