Female Judge spoke next. “You know, you come off as the smartest person in the room. You should watch that, so you’ll be more likable.” I’m sorry, but eeeeeeeww. A woman telling another woman that she’s not likable because she’s smart is gross. It’s a big F-U to all the women who have fought and continue to fight for ladies’ equality, and furthermore, it continues the cycle of discouraging women from being as well rounded as men are allowed to be. And when race is factored in, this big F-U reaches André the Giant proportions. A white woman telling a black woman that she’s not likable because she’s smart is a prime example of coded language. In this instance, smart was code for “You’re showing off your intelligence in a way that I don’t believe a person of color should.”
The thing is, I hadn’t been “showing off” my intelligence—my closing joke was about me coveting Jon Hamm’s ham, for Christ’s sakes. High concept, that ain’t. The problem was that to Female Judge, I didn’t sound like I majored in Grape Drank Economics with a minor in Magical Negro Linguistics, nor did I carry myself like I was lucky to have a seat at the table. I behaved as though I believed I belonged there. While that’s an attribute celebrated in men, it’s constantly attempted to be ground out of women, especially those of color.
Don’t believe me? Look up the press’s treatment of Venus and Serena Williams throughout their careers as compared to that of John McEnroe. John was a ne’er-do-well tennis star whose tantrums were passionate and rambunctious. Yes, sports journalists wrote about his bratty ways, but essentially, he was a lovable heel, and tennis fans would attend his matches in hopes of catching a glimpse of his outbursts. As a result, his fame and bank account only got bigger. However, the Williams sisters, especially in the early going, were labeled as “too confident” in interviews, or accused of thinking they were better than everyone else. Well, it turned out they were better than everyone else, Serena especially. The issue the press had with the ladies is that they weren’t like John and people of his ilk—white, privileged, playing tennis in fancy country clubs—and that despite not having a leg up in life, they still believed they were designed for greatness. Which, by the way, is what all history-making athletes do in order to propel themselves toward fulfilling that destiny. And they are celebrated for that kind of confidence. Well, the men are. The women? That kind of behavior in them is simply unbecoming!
This line of thinking is nothing new. Far worse is thought (and said) about black people way less famous and accomplished than the Williams sisters. Unfortunately, knowing all this did nothing to make me feel better about this reality show competition. It reeked of mean-spiritedness and racism (accidental or intentional, I’ll never know) and signaled to me that speaking up to a white person who just told me I was coming off “too smart” and was therefore “unlikable” was not going to go well. If I were to speak back, the magic of TV editing would do everything to ensure that the judges looked great, while making me look like some sort of ego-driven villain. So I grinned and bore it.
“OK, thank you,” I said as Female Judge continued with her critique. “OK, thank you,” I said as Male Judge #2 echoed the sentiment that I had to tone down the smart a skosh. “OK, thank you,” I said again as the host told the audience to give it up for me one more time as I walked off stage and into the greenroom. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I tried to blink them off and thought of every tell-off from movie history and pretended I was saying them to the judges. I started with an oldie but goodie from Pretty Woman: “Big mistake. Big! HUGE!” From Anchorman: “I’m gonna punch you in the ovary, that’s what I’m gonna do. Straight shot, right to the baby maker.” And lastly, from Steven Seagal’s Hard to Kill: “I’m going to take you to the bank, Senator Trent. The blood bank.” They can’t all be gems, y’all. But above all, the one thing that I wanted to say to the judges was this: Might as well call me “uppity” and get it over with.
Like Gouda cheese paired with a smooth Merlot, uppity was a word often coupled with nigger back in the day. This phrase was used to put black people who possessed qualities normally associated with white men—ambition, high intellect, ego—back in their place. Over time, blacks advanced in society and bigots realized that the advantages of saying that two-word phrase (ruining someone’s day) were quickly outweighed by the minuses (sitting shiva over their now-dead social calendar because no one wants to hang out with a racist), so they lopped off the N-word and just used uppity as a sort of shorthand.
Despite the significant advancement we’ve made since the mid-1800s, the word not only still persists but also seems to be too readily available on the tongues of people who ought to know better than to use the N-word’s most common bedfellow. Perhaps it’s nothing more than pure naïveté on my part, but I’m baffled that uppity is still around. After all, we are long past the days when sidewalks were turned into water slides for blacks as police hosed them down, while white guys celebrated on the streets by doing the old-man dance from Six Flags commercials. Gone, too, are the days of blacks addressing whites like an elevator attendant would on Mad Men: “Hello, Miss Peggy.” Same with separate water fountains, being forced to sit in the back of the bus, or burning crosses on front lawns. Yet, uppity is still here, hanging on, dangling from a window ledge like John McClane in Die Hard.
Of course, people like Rush Limbaugh, Republican representative Lynn Westmoreland, and Glenn Beck have publicly feigned ignorance about the racial connotations of the word. This would’ve been believable if these men weren’t well into their fifties and sixties, fairly knowledgeable about the history of this country, and, most important, didn’t only use the word when complaining about black people who are well spoken, including Barack and Michelle Obama. I mean, Rush called Michelle Obama “uppity” for stating that she’s a fan of steak with arugula. Gasp! Apparently, for Limbaugh, arugula is too high-class of a lettuce for the First Lady of the United States to eat! How dare this black woman not settle for week-old iceberg lettuce like she’s some hipster who has three skateboards yet doesn’t own a bed frame? Despite how ridiculous the source of their rage may be, the message these men are sending with uppity is this: Quit acting above your station, N-word. That is why, to me, uppity is the gold medalist at the Coded Language Olympics, blowing kisses to the big JC in the sky while its national anthem, Drake’s “No New Friends,” blares. Naturally, silver goes to articulate, bronze to you people, and in distant last is gringo, which is the Polish men’s track-and-field team of racial slurs.
Let’s put aside the jokes and talk about coded language for a second. In a lot of ways, coded language—which is language that, on the surface, seems to mean one thing to the average person but has a different, often pejorative, meaning to the person or group of people being talked about—has revived racism by continuing to propagate stereotypes with seemingly innocuous verbiage. Urban. Articulate. Exotic. Basically almost any word that’s used in the SATs to describe people who hang at or near a veranda can be applied to nonwhites as a form of gentle racism. Coded language allows the speaker to deny any sort of responsibility unless their back is against the wall, in which case they’ll generally offer up a paltry “I’m sorry you feel that way” nonapology. As for those on the receiving end? Well, at best, they are left to feel like they’ve simply overreacted, leading them to spend minutes, hours, days replaying the events over in their mind, trying to figure out where they went wrong, even though they’re certain they are right. At worst, they stifle their legitimate concerns and complaints until the bitterness eats them from the inside. Either way, it’s a lose-lose.
By the age of twenty-nine, many of my black friends had been labeled as “uppity,” yet I had still managed to somehow escape that rite of passage. It’s certainly not for lack of trying. For years, people have been intent on letting me know that they think I think I’m better than them. Of course, that sentiment is never expressed outright. Oh no. It’s usually shrouded in “You can’t accuse me of being racist because I didn’t use any
racist signifiers, but we both know what I meant” language that is so shady that the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera might as well be hiding in it. It seemed no one had the courage to call me “uppity” in the light of day, out in the open. That changed one fateful Saturday afternoon on the set of the first web series I was starring in.
Like with any project helmed by a first-time director, it was a chaotic set. There were hour-long delays and a slightly stressful vibe in the air, but there were plenty of snacks, so it kind of felt like a JetBlue flight, minus a Kate Hudson romantic comedy playing in the background. In short, it was a fun, hot mess. Then it became just a hot mess.
During the long second day of shooting, everyone was tired, mentally drained, and wanted to wrap for the night. White Director (this is not the best name I could come up with, but also it gets straight to the point, so let’s roll with it) wanted to shoot my close-ups next. Trying to be a good actor, or at least what I thought was a good actor (which was based off the Inside the Actors Studio Q&A’s I watched), I wanted to have my lines completely memorized, as opposed to staying “on book” during takes or having someone from the crew feed me my dialogue. So we actors tried to rehearse while White Director, who was most likely stressed about how long the shoot had been going, dissuaded us from rehearsing so we could launch right into shooting.
I could sense his tension and that he wanted to get a move on, but I knew I wasn’t ready. And his anxiety was only making me doubt myself more. I don’t have my lines down. I thought I did. But maybe I don’t? I took a breath and then finally spoke. “Sorry, I know you’re ready to go, but can I please have five minutes to go over my lines?” I asked.
“You don’t have to be all uppity,” White Director snapped.
At that moment, everything slowed down. It was as though I got shot with a tranquilizer dart, like Will Ferrell in Old School. My skin felt hot, and I couldn’t think. Now, 98 percent of the cast and crew on set didn’t hear this exchange, as they were busy adjusting lights, fixing their wardrobe, or eating, but one of the black actors in the room did. We exchanged that “Did some racist garbage just happen?” look, which is often confused for “Did Aunt Bess really bring her cold and soggy macaroni salad to the BBQ? Again?” Anyway, that look was all I needed. I knew I wasn’t crazy and what just happened really did happen. I was acting for free (as was the rest of the cast) and this is how I’m going to be treated? Oh, hell no.
Regardless, I went on autopilot and powered through the scene. Once “Cut” was yelled, I walked off set and immediately vented on Facebook before complaining to the actors, which is how the world works now. Then I returned to set, finished out my day, and we wrapped. White Director was now being chummy with me as if nothing happened, but eventually, it dawned on him that I was not myself. He pulled me aside to a bathroom to chat. I explained to him the uppity situation via a short mathematical equation:
Your white skin + the word uppity being said to my face = me fist-punching the air like I’m getting my Billy Blanks Tae Bo on. Or in simpler terms: You done fucked up, buddy.
Now, sometimes when people get caught with their hand in the proverbial Toll House cookie jar, they will eat every damn cookie and then vow to go to the gym later—in other words, they continue to do the hot mess behavior, but promise to get right with Christ in the morning. Other times, folks will just power through like a train whose brakes are out of service and just keep moving like nothing happened. But neither of those things happened here. White Director threw me a curve ball: He gave me an apology deep-fried in white guilt. And not the good kind of white guilt—you know, the type that gave the world Macklemore. White Director’s apology was instead full of Hugh Grant stutters and bleeding heart sentiments. It. Was. Uncomfortable. And like all white guilt apologies, there were several stages.
First, this is disbelief:
Phoebe, I didn’t—did I say that, really? I can’t believe I’d say such a thing.
Y’all, remember on Sex and the City when Charlotte dated that guy who could only orgasm by saying, “You fucking bitch, you fucking whore,” but he had no recollection of saying that and was just like, “Oh, I thought we had tasteful missionary sex and then watched The McLaughlin Group and went to bed?” Looks like that same confusion happened here. Apparently, White Director had a blackout à la Abbi on Broad City—emphasis on black, hee hee—except instead of wearing a fedora and singing jazz, WD was calling me uppity, then returning to his normal self to talk to me about the Knicks as if nothing trifling just went down.
Now, as I continued to explain what transpired and why it was completely inappropriate and unprofessional, WD’s disbelief faded away and denial settled in:
This is awful. I couldn’t have—I would never say a word like that. I know better than that. I’m from New York—
LOL.gov.
My wife and I are good people—
LOL.net.
We have kids, and we have instilled in them what’s OK and what’s not OK.
LOL.edu.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful here, but his line of reasoning is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. First of all, people need to stop acting like racist behavior only happens within a three-block radius of Paula Deen’s house. Ignorance exists everywhere, including liberal bastions like New York City. Second, saying that he and his wife are good people means nothing. How can I verify that? I’d never met her; I’d only seen a picture of them posing like they’re about to go white water rafting, and I guess good people like that? But Jeffrey Dahmer could have been into white water rafting. I don’t know his journey. The point is just because White Director married someone who looks like she models for Aerosoles doesn’t mean he wouldn’t say something racially insensitive. Lastly, letting me know he has a whole bunch of kids does not prove he’s not racist. HELLO! Racists and bigots tend to have the most kids. The Duggars had nineteen children; meanwhile, billionaire philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates peaced out after baby number three. This logic was not gonna work here, though it was a valiant try, I suppose.
After his failed attempt to use his family as a proof-of-purchase receipt from Not-Racist-R-Us, reality set in:
Oh my God. I can’t believe it. I did say that. I’m so sorry.
HAHAHAHAHA forever.
Of course, I didn’t laugh in his face, just in my mind, as he fumbled out an apology. We then bro-hugged it out, and I mostly forgot about the situation—that is, until he “John Cusack in Say Anything’d” me. Instead of standing on my lawn while holding a boom box playing Petey Gabes’s “In Your Eyes,” though, he called me repeatedly and left a guilt-drenched voice mail, rehashing the conversation we had and asking for a chance to talk to me again to prove “how much of a good guy” he is.
Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, he called the black female executive producer on the web series to inquire whether calling me “uppity” was really as bad as I said it was, or if it was just a misunderstanding. I’ll tell ya, only with racism, sexism, and homophobia do the perpetrators of those injustices seek verification that what they did was actually an injustice. If you think I’m being harsh, think of it this way. When White Director called the black EP, he wasn’t really concerned with getting further educated about his actions; he was doing that trifling thing of looking for that one black person to cosign his foolishness, so he could be absolved of any wrongdoing. “See? This black lady said it’s OK, so I’m good!” Yeah, no. Much like the person who promises to end their subscription to Tidal after the free trial is over but forgets and is now paying $20 a month to watch videos of Beyoncé being bored by her own hotness (What? Just me?), the lone person of [insert disenfranchised group] who is all too eager to give a thumbs-up to ignorance toward their group is not to be trusted. Run, run, far away from him or her, and say what President Bartlet once said on The West Wing: “Stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.” White Direct
or did not do this. After speaking with the black EP, he had her call me to talk about the situation—a situation that, at this point, seemed to have left less of a mark on me than it did on him. And that’s not because I was completely unaffected by being called “uppity.” It definitely stung; however, when you are a person of color in this country, you learn early on that you cannot fall apart every time something racially charged happens to you. You just have to be resilient or you won’t survive.
When we spoke, the EP took my side (duh), and I could tell that she hated being stuck in the middle of this situation. I explained to her as I had to him that I was fine and had moved on, so it was all good. She was pleased, I was O-V-E-R it, but there was still the matter of his emo voice mail. I decided to return his phone call a couple of days later. He apologized again and then the conversation segued into this:
White Director began, “I have just been so sick, feeling absolutely awful about saying the word uppity. I honestly had no idea of the cultural sensitivity to that word.”
I replied with a simple mmhmm, which I suspected put him more on edge than if I let him have it, so he continued.
“I just want you to believe that I’m not rac—I would never say—I just, I’m really embarrassed. This is not who I am.”
“’Kay.”
A few moments pass.
“So . . . I sent you a friend request on Facebook, and I saw that you posted what happened on Facebook. And I know you didn’t mention my name or anything, but God forbid someone saw it and was able to figure out you were talking about me, you know . . . and then it’s like, ‘Oh, God. I don’t want to work with that guy.’ Especially because we’re trying to shop this web series around—and I know you didn’t say my name—but the status is time-stamped and someone can put two and two together based on when the shoot happened . . . and, again I know you didn’t mention my name—but can you take the status down?”
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