Episode 10: Rules of Enragement

Whew...we made to to the Season 1 finale and the ladies are still all (kinda) talking to one another. This week attempted to wrap everyone's individual plot points into a nice bow, but then provided epilogues and a sneak peek of a reunion that undoes that neat little bow. The main story this week was that Gizelle organized a "Come to Jesus Lunch" so that the ladies could all come together and talk out their issues. No one was excited to attend. In particular, it was designed for Karen to get over her beef with Ashley, and for Gizelle and Robyn to rehash the butt-grabbing incident and complain about the fact that they were called "biracial". Oh and Katie got engaged, but no one really cares and also it looks like that doesn't last long. We begin with Robyn and Gizelle taking some of their (unenthusiastic) children horseback riding and complaining about a lack of knowledge of black history.

Robyn- "I've seen black kids who grew up with money...and they don't really know who they are...And honestly when Katie and Ashley called us biracial, I'm like, you don't know our history."

Gizelle- "We might need to teach Ashley and Katie a little something about their history."

Well that seems like it's gonna go over well, given that last time they tried to have this conversation, Katie told them to get their geneologies checked.

Katie may have a point that Gizelle is being unfair about her being biracial. When discussing how her father will be honored by Congress for his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, Gizelle basically implies that being biracial means you can't have been part of The Struggle.

Gizelle- "My family has gone through blood sweat and tears to make sure I can live where I wanna live...so that's why when Katie calls me biracial, I take offense to it".

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In addition to Gizelle's total invalidation of biracial people as black and/or participating in the Civil Rights movement, this episode also gives us the trope of childless women as less than "real women".

Karen to Ashley- "Until you become a woman, a real women, a mother, do not ever put my child's name in your mouth again."


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These women may be smart and wealthy and powerful, but clearly they need to take Sociology 101 and stop with some of this crap. Getting back to the racial issue at hand...

Katie- "Why don't you like look into your own family history? Because you bring up race all the time. It's stupid, it's offensive to me that you think that I'm not a black woman".
Gizelle- "You told me you weren't"
Katie- "I'm a black woman and I never said that I wasn't. I'm not just African American I'm also Caucasian. I'm biracial. What the hell is wrong with that?" 
Gizelle- "There's nothing wrong with that...you acted like it was a problem to be black"


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Katie and Gizelle and both right and both wrong here, but it doesn't seem like they're really going to see eye to eye. Katie has done some things that have given the impression that she's less than black and proud, but Gizelle clearly isn't giving Katie the space to define what blackness means to her.

Charrisse is all peace love and understanding, and the ladies quickly make up just in time for the crab cake to arrive. The issues may be buried in a shallow grave for now, but one Come to Jesus Lunch can't fix the level of shade that these women have been throwing at each other all season.


Linguistic Observations

Karen clearly speaks ALL the AAE when she's having that fight with Ashley, and it's really surprising to hear that coming from her. Mama Karen seems to be a proficient code-switcher, but it's interesting that they seem to only show her (and Gizelle) really using grammatical features of AAE when they're doing stereotypical black lady things. You know, like being angry.

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Random Unrelated THOTs

Judging from the reunion promo, everything that seems settled between the ladies quickly comes back up again, including the same damn issue of who's black and who's biracial. Come back next week and see what we learn from the ladies after they've gotten a little distance from the cameras.

Episode 9: Fifty Sense

Finally, the episode we've all been waiting for, where the racial identity policing finally gets brought to light, and people just start refusing to fight with each other any more. Though most of this week was dedicated to Charrisse's ridiculously expensive birthday party, there was still time for plenty of petty.

Charrisse- "I asked Andre, what do you estimate this to be? And he said 80"
Gizelle- "Thousand dollars?!"

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My first observation was that the producers are really setting up the racial tension with all the flashbacks in this episode about Katie and/or Ashley being biracial. In true Bravo fashion, it's foreshadowing that hits you hard on the head. At different points throughout the episode, Katie is over the top #notblack

Katie-"They bring up race all the time. I don't know what their obsession with race is".

Katie, it's 2016 and black folks are getting shot in the street on a daily basis. It's ok for other people to bring up race, and you do it yourself with some frequency! Katie's just mad that her (lack of?) blackness is always getting policed, but she participates in it herself sometimes.

Katie- "I'm gonna completely embarrass myself with my white girl moves". 

Also, on two separate occasions in this episode, Katie insists on saying "l'chaim" instead of "cheers" and spends a good 2 minutes trying to teach Charrisse to say it. It's cool that Katie's Jewish, but that's doing a lot.

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Once we get to the party, we have 3 main sources of drama. Mama Karen is STILL mad at Ashley for her apparently long list of unforgivable sins which include not throwing her husband out of his home, and being offended that Karen didn't want her around her daughter. The horror! When Ashley comes up to Karen at Charrisse's party and tries to resolve the situation, she is told by Gizelle,  to "steer clear". Ashley is having none of that.

Ashley- "I ain't steering clear of shit, okay"

Karen is clearly just done with Ashley, and it seems there's no getting back into her good graces.

Karen-"It's crystal clear that does does not fit into this world. ..Bye, Ashley, girl, go pet a panda."

The second large drama of the party, which triggered the third, was Michael's alleged touching of Andrew's butt. Neither Andrew nor Michael seemed to make a big deal of it, but Gizelle and Robyn COULD NOT let it go.

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Gizelle- "Michael..was on the dance floor excited to the point where he's squeezing Andrew's butt". 
Ashley- "Y'all, it's a joke"
Gizelle-"Most men don't like other men squeezing their butts"
Robyn- "Is that like a white guy thing?"
Katie- "Black guys on football teams smack each other's butts all the time"

Robyn (off camera) - "I deal with black guys on a daily basis. I have to ask the women who know what white guys like"

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Oh no. Katie's already decided that Robyn and Gizelle are obsessed with race, so here we go.

Ashley- "I'm biracial, you're biracial". 
Robyn- "I am not biracial".
Ashley- "Really?"
Katie- "You need to have your genealogy checked out. You are blonde with green eyes. You don't end up looking like this if you're straight out of Africa"

Robyn (off camera)-"Why is this girl calling me biracial when she knows I'm not. She should know better than to make assumptions".

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Katie (off camera) - "I don't know why Robyn is so insulted. I'm biracial. I'm actually offended that she thinks being called biracial is a bad thing".

I'm surprised that Katie didn't get slapped for that. Both Robyn and Gizelle are very clear about the fact that they're black, and this is not the first time this set of women has had this conversation. I think Katie said this to get to the jugular, because we already know that Gizelle feels some type of way about this. Last week, when she was discussing her makeup line, she was very clear about the fact that she had been dismissed as inauthentic when she was younger because of her looks. And weirdly, Katie does have some type of point about African Americans all being mixed, though she's definitely missing a level of nuance here. Robyn fixes it for her.

Katie- "You're not biracial? Are you crazy?"
Robyn-"I don't have a direct white ancestor so I'm not biracial."
Katie- "Come on!"
Robyn -"I'm not biracial"
Gizelle- "I'm not biracial, I'm black"

And there's the difference. Katie and Ashley each have a white parent, which colors (haha) their experience in some way. Even though they may be phenotypically similar to Robyn and Gizelle, those two have families that identify as entirely black. Ashley seems to be cool with being both black and biracial, but Katie clearly is not, and I think Gizelle experiences that as a rejection of blackness, which offends her. Katie finally articulates what's been going on here the whole season.

Katie (off camera)- Robyn and Gizelle are the most racially obsessed people I've ever met. They're always trying to talk about how black they are and how, I guess, how not black enough everyone else is". 

Katie needs to understand that her efforts to distance herself from blackness are causing tension between her and Robyn and Gizelle. Also likely playing in to this is the fact that as light-skinned black women, Robyn and Gizelle are frequently mistaken for biracial and/or are aware of the fact that people may not always see them as black. For this reason, they may be extra sensitive to Katie's efforts to reject the identity that they both claim. Finally, Ashley gets the last (reasonable) word here.

Ashley- "Who cares if it's a white or a black thing? I sure don't. And Robyn and Gizelle shouldn't either". 

Well put, Ashley. Not everything, and especially not accusations of butt-grabbing, is relevant to the racial issues at hand.


Linguistic Observations

Robyn (voicing Juan)-"Gizelle need to mind her own business". 

This is the 3rd person singular in AAE and it's interesting because I've never heard Robyn do this before. Juan isn't a much more prolific AAE speaker than she is, but somehow she brings that out when she voices him.

Just as she did last week, Gizelle does her hyper articulation thing again, about Ashley.

Gizelle- "I can't trust anything that comes out of her ITTY BITTY mouth".

And finally, Karen continues her streak of calling everyone "honey" and "child", but this time she does it with some AAE negation!

Karen to Gizelle (about Ashley)- "You know that child don't know no better"


Random Unrelated THOTs

Charrisee has no business rapping, and it's clear to everyone in that room. Just look at her poor father's face. Also, Charrisse's father looks like an OG, and I'm definitely here for it.

I can't wait for next week's season finale, when we get to here Gizelle FINALLY say to Katie, "You act like it's a problem to be black".

Episode 8: All Shades of Shade

Though the title of this week's episode promised us shade, shade, and more shade, the drama this week was actually pretty tame when compared to the beach incidents. Now that we're back from that vacation, the women have all now returned to their respective story lines. Let's dive right in.

Gizelle is developing a makeup line for women of color, which is wonderful because clearly she needs a hobby other than worrying about what Katie did at that one party. Gizelle mentions multiple times that because of her phenotype (color), people think she doesn't get what it's like to be black.

Gizelle- "People think that I don't understand the problems of the black community, because I'm light skinned and have green eyes but the struggle is real".

Oh the horrors of light-skinned privilege! I ain't too mad at Gizelle for that though, because she seems to be at least a bit conscious of it. She did mention one of the most stereotypical criticisms leveled at a certain type of light-skinned black women when introducing her makeup line to the ladies.

Gizelle- "Pretty was always a problem....people would always say, "she think she cute".

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For the uninitiated, "she think she cute", is basically light-skinned black girl kryptonite. It simultaneously accuses someone of being inadequately humble while also carrying a special connotation for those afraid of being called "high yellow".  Clearly, this still stings Gizelle and she's conscious of it in designing her makeup line.

There's another moment of coded light-skinned weirdness at the makeup focus group with Ashley, but it happens so quick that it's easy to miss. In complimenting the makeup, Ashley says something way more charged than she realizes.

Ashley- "You can't even see my veins!"

Ashley is biracial and pretty fair, and it may not have even occurred to her that this was a pretty messed up thing to say. But given the history of paper bag tests and blue vein societies, her commentary on her disappearing veins was a really strange unintentional highlighting of the colorism that's always existed within the black community.

Meanwhile, Karen is still mad at poor Ashley for the fact that Michael showed up at the beach house, and she decides the only way to resolve this is to get the husbands involved. Ashley is not here for it.

Ashley- "It's so old fashioned for Karen to suggest that the men work things out. What are they gonna do, have a duel?"

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As usual, I agree with Ashley here. There's something really gross and patriarchal about this solution, and it carries undertones of women as property with no agency. Karen is worried about how it looked for Michael to show up, but almost no one else cared at all. The whole thing wreaks of black respectability politics and REALLY old ideas about gender. Michael being white and Australian is clearly on the outside of this, and Ashley, being younger and more progressive doesn't really care. Ultimately, everything seems to calm down over a golf match, but Karen and Ashley walk away with different interpretations of the resolution that they share with the rest of the ladies.

Gizelle-"So Michael gave Ray the business?"
Ashley- "No, there ain't no business to give!"

The whole party at Karen's house was an intense hot mess, but she way overreacted to Ashley, and was downright mean in calling her a bad influence on her daughter, who Ashley has never even met.

Karen- "Ashley has done so many things wrong. the last straw for me was when she put my daughter's name in her mouth"

Knowing these ladies, they'll probably fake patch things up next week, but we'll have to stay tuned. I honestly cannot wait because in the promo, Katie and Ashley confront Robyn about "looking biracial". This is gonna be chock full of racial policing of biracial people and light-skinned black people, so I'm very excited to see how it all plays out.

Linguistic Observations

Gizelle- "Rude, rude, rude. Yes it IS, KA-TIE'. 

Gizelle does a lot of hyperarticulation whenever she has something critical to say, and this especially happens with her "t" and "s".

Karen becomes a totally different person linguistically when she talks to her assistant Eny. Every other phrase contains a "girl", "honey", or "honey child". I have no idea what this is about.

Random Unrelated THOTs

Why isn't Charrisse wearing a swim cap!? That hair can't take chlorine!

Why didn't Karen know that cheery blossoms only bloom in the spring??? That's the whole point of cherry blossoms!

Robyn and Juan talking about The Last Dragon is too cute. I'm rooting for them, even though he's a cheater.

Episode 7: Reading is Fundamental

This week, we got to see the Housewives at some of their best and some of their worst, as their "Girls' Beach Trip" continued. The title of the episode, "Reading is Fundamental" is perfect, and it was great that Brynee was there to show Katie how to argue with a black woman. In case you're unfamiliar, "reading" is a type of verbal sparring tactic common in African American Language, in which speakers call out someone based on their characteristics or behaviors (loosely defined). The RHOP do it all the time, but it came out for real this week, in the situation where Gizelle called out Katie in the sister circle and accused her of being on drugs at Ashley's party. The morning after this little episode, Katie and Gizelle started to get into it. Gizelle knew she was wrong for that, but she tried to play the victim.

Gizelle- "I don't know why they're coming down on me. I did not bring this up first, Brynee did."

Katie actually does stand up for herself in this exchange, but she's not indirect enough for it to be effective.

Katie- "I didn't ask you why you feel the need to have multiple sex partners or why you're like walking around in lingerie and having sex with people in lobbies. I didn't say that.

Katie then goes to her room to pout, and Brynee follows her and gives her some advice about dealing with Gizelle.


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Brynee- "Sweetie, you gotta learn how to read her. Cause you really need to assert yourself and check her. Do you understand what i'm saying?"
Katie- "That's what walking away is for me". 
Brynee-"But you need to tell her"

Karen comes in and helps with advice on this situation.

Brynee- "You know Katie's way of dealing with it was to walk away. But sometimes it's necessary to let a sista know, it's not going down like that.
Karen-"If you give her an audience, she'll perform. Take her audience away"

Yes!!! Brynee has just told Katie everything she needs to know about managing Gizelle's shade, and it works out. Katie calmly confronts Gizelle (though doesn't quite read her) and Gizelle apologizes and even gives her some respect!

Gizelle-"I have never seen this side of Katie...right now she is all business"

Katie's initially inability to manage Gizelle's criticism of her also betrays her lack of experience in these types of situations with black women. And since this is a recurring theme every week, later on in the episode, Gizelle jumps back on her complaints about Katie's "whiteness".

Katie-"When you try to talk to white men, you know, business owners or people who are in finance about what's going on in the black community...it's like they don't understand, it's just shocking".


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Gizelle -"Since when does black lives matter to Katie? Especially since she always wants to check the 'other' box. Katie does a lot of tryna fit in with white people. Well guess what boo, they don't like you".

Biracial Katie still can't win, but I'm with Gizelle on this one. You can't expect rich white dudes to get behind the cause especially if you're not sure if you're down with it yourself.

In other news, Ashley finally got her props about being a host! Though it did come with the fact that they doubted her initially.

Gizelle- "We graciously welcome you with open arms"

Karen-"You is special!"

Ashley-"I feel like the results were just posted on the board and I got the lead in the school play"

But alas, the party was short-lived, because the ladies all lost it when Michael showed up. I get that they were mad that he interfered with their girls weekend, but I think Karen and Gizelle definitely overreacted.

Gizelle- "Karen is probably gonna lose her wig because this is totally against any etiquette rule she has written down. Little miss Ashley hasn't learned a G D thing"

However, I agree with Katie that they need to chill.

Katie- "It's Michael's house, he wanted to surprise his wife and I think she needs to appreciate that".

In the end though, this caused a serious and growing rift between Mama Karen and Ashley, and I'm sure we haven't seen the end of it.

Karen- "At the end of the day, I'm not comfortable and you don't care, and I'm just doing a motherfuckin note to self..I'm done"

In my opinion, the house looked way more fun after the haters went to bed, and Robyn and Michael and them started playing beer pong.

Linguistic Observations

Katie (about Gizelle)- "I don't even know where that accent she has comes from. I don't even know where she's from or who her people are".

Oh Katie...you're clearly not a speaker of AAL, and you don't even seem to know it when you see it.

Random Unrelated THOTs

Ashley- "I feel as though I made it to the end of the rainbow and he's my pot of gold". 

Now I ain't saying she a golddigger...but she's telling us so...literally.

I loved when the drag queen said that the Housewives looked like they were from Southeast, and Charrisse was incredulous. Accusing these women of being from the poorest, blackest part of D.C. is pretty much the worst insult. 

Episode 6: Beach Season

Since the ladies all took a field trip to Ashley's house on Bethany Beach, we got to see them spend some quality? time together. As usual, there was lots of judgey judgey going on this week, and some of the RHOP still can't deal with the fact that Google exists. However, some of the most interesting (bi)racial issues also resurfaced this week, so let's dive right in.

The main highlight of the drama was Gizelle's disapproval of Ashley's beach house hostessing. Gizelle wasn't alone in this, but she was definitely the umbrella under which Ashley caught a lot of shade. Primarily, the ladies were frustrated that they would have to sleep on *gasp* TWIN BEDS!

Gizelle-"My children have a bed, actually bigger than that. And you want me, a grown, sexy, hot woman, to sleep in a kiddie bed...You don't bring seven grown women to a home and not tell them they're sleeping in kiddie beds".

Though Gizelle and Charrisee were losing it to the nth degree about this, it gave us a chance to confirm that Robyn is the truth!

Robyn-"These bougie hefas are trippin. It's a twin bed. They're not gonna melt, they're not gonna die. Their weaves not gonna fall out. Get a grip."

Personally, although most the of the ladies continue to attack poor Ashley for her (lack of) hosting skills, I felt that they were pretty ungrateful guests. Ashley made them elderflower cocktails, for goodness sake, and instead they demanded champagne! And Ashley did get to throw a little back in Gizelle's direction, although unfortunately it was in an off-camera interview. 

Ashley- "Gizelle, how's your beach house doing? Oh? Silence? Oh ok."

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Even though Ashley is the target of constant criticism for her etiquette, the fact that Mama Karen has decided to mentor her seems to protect her a bit.

Karen to Ashley-"It is incumbent upon us, as black women in this community, to embrace you" 

Aww, I'm touched. And in case there was any doubt about Ashley's racial status in the group, Karen confirms that she's black. This is important because of the contrast that we see in the way that biracial Katie is treated, especially by Gizelle. At this point, we've seen multiple instances of both Ashley and Katie being called out for behaving in ways that are "not black", and accusations of "not black"ness seem to arise whenever either of them strays from the way that the rest of the Housewives think they should behave. Ashley seems to let this roll off of her, but Katie takes it very personally. We got some foreshadowing about how this would go down this week when the ladies were on their way to the beach house. Katie admits that she talked to a blogger about her former relationship with Russell Simmons, and Gizelle does not approve.

Gizelle (about Katie)- "I don't know any black women that's EVER done that. Maybe that's some white girl stuff, I don't know." 

Gizelle thinks that Katie should've handled the situation the Angela Basset way. Cause that would've been blacker.


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The second (small) invalidation of Katie is very subtle, but it happens during the butt judging competition that the ladies have on the beach. Gizelle mentions that Katie is "flatticus buticuss". And as we all know, real black ladies don't have flat assess.

Finally, when Gizelle tries to throw subtle shade at Katie during the Sister Circle, Katie comes out and tells us that she gets that some of this hate is probably about her identity.

Katie (off camera)-"Did she just call me stupid? She's insulted my race, my religion, and now she's coming after me about this?"

The contrast between the ways that the women treat Ashley, who is also biracial, and the way that they treat Katie, speaks volumes. Though Ashley is clearly less part of the group, she's also clearly more comfortable as a black woman. Katie's insistence on distancing herself from blackness means that it becomes a weakness for her, and of course the Housewives will pick up on that.


Linguistic Observations

This week had lots of both pointed and baited indirectness (Ashley about Gizelle (above), and Gizelle about Katie (above)).

And when Robyn criticized the ladies for being TOO bougie, she used lots of AAE intonational features, as well as zero copula, r-lessness, and final stop deletion.

Gizelle as always, does some wonderful things with her use of pitch contours, especially when she feels the need to comment on someone's conduct. Go back and listen to her twin bed complaint if you'd like to hear it for yourself.

Random Unrelated THOTs

Robyn-"I'm not surprised they're not surfing. Did anyone really think they were gonna get their hair wet?"
Robyn is very clear on the fact that these women's weaves are WAY to fragile for water sports.

On the road trip, we  learned that most of the ladies think that Bill Clinton is very doable. 50 Cent, on the other hand is not, because he "might lick your armpits".

Episode 5: Error on the High Seas

Unfortunately for people interested in how these ladies police boundaries, the Housewives looked like they were gonna take it down a notch. That was, until the dramatic twist at the end, also known as the pants drop heard round Potomac. This week, Gizelle was a language star, and we also got some interesting utterances from Katie, Mama Karen and Ashley’s mom.

This week centered around Karen's decision to throw a yacht party to show Ashley how to "properly" host an event. (And Gizelle is STILL mad that Ashley's party didn't have an open bar). Though Karen claimed that she wanted to do this without hurting Ashley's feelings, the indirectness at the party was palpable. Karen all but said that the point of the party was to teach Ashley how to host, and Ashley had the best reaction behind her back.

Ashley-“I’m like, girl, bang, where’s the next cocktail?”

Ashley's somewhat more laid-back nature keeps getting her in trouble with these women, but I love her more and more each week. Unfortunately, her husband had to go and act a fool, and the whole thing was not a good look. Michael, being Australian and perhaps having a little too much to drink, decided that he wants to take off his pants and jump overboard. NO ONE was having it, and Gizelle took this opportunity to remind Ashley that her blackness is in question.

Gizelle- “We don’t do this...we black, Ashley. Black people don’t do this”

In this situation, Ashley does her best to talk Michael into putting his pants back on, and eventually the whole thing calms down. However, despite the fact that Ashley seems much more comfortable being a black woman than Katie does, this is the second time that her behavior (or someone she's responsible for, in this case) has been called into question for not being "black" (recall the humping incident as discussed in Episode 2). Michael might not understand all of these rules since he's white and Australian, but despite all his money, he is jeopardizing Ashley's social connections with the rest of the ladies. FWIW, I think that a lot of the behavior policing that that the Housewives engage in is ridiculous, but I cosign with Gizelle here. What the hell was Michael doing?

In case we doubted Ashley's blackness, this episode introduced us to her mother, who kept it all the way 100. Ashley clearly has a lot of respect for her single mom, and wants to help her out financially, but like all good moms, her mom doesn't wanna burden her. She will take some of that Patron though. 

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Ashley to Mom-"Oh you tryna turn up?”

Mom- "Well, I know you got the bar stocked”

Ashley- "People think that I have a wooden leg, you have a wooden leg".

We also learn, right after this exchange, that Ashley’s mom recently had to file bankruptcy. This is especially interesting in light of her putting Robyn on blast for the very same thing last week. Maybe Ashley could relate and was genuinely concerned for her.

Meanwhile, in another part of town...Gizelle was on one this week, and she had some beautiful one-liners. 

Gizelle- “These are my Robin Thicke pants”

Gizelle- "There’s something called scrubs, no I’m not dating those”

Giselle- “Forever? Ooo, no. You need to pump your breaks, slow your roll, back it all da way up, sit it on down”.

Gizelle- “Ooo Karen you shady! You know what, that’s not shady. That’s full blown eclipse”

Particularly in that last one, Gizelle goes all the way black with both her segmental phonology AND her intonational patterns. For you linguists out there, I heard her use multiple instances of zero possessive morpheme, zero copula, appositive pronouns, and th-stopping. Basiclaly, Gizelle turned on ALL her AAL features this week. Maybe it's something about Herman. 

Gizelle-“LAWD somebody help Herman. Jesus help Herman”.

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Poor Herman. He seems nice enough, but this man is just SO corny. Gizelle is clearly not feeling it, but she keeps wanting to give him chances. She says something about him that requires a whole essay to unpack, but I'll leave it her.

Gizelle-“In the flesh we working with Herman, we working on his swag. Just tell me you spent one night in jail, and we’re good"

Gizelle finds a reasonably attractive, educated, nice, straight, single black man who ran for Congress, and then she mad he ain't a little more hood. Girl, bye. 

  

Other Linguistic Observations:

Katie- "She says that she’s got like a great “roller deck”.

Oh Katie, it's called a Rolodex. To be fair, that's a weird ass word and also, no one has a Rolodex anymore (except maybe Karen). Also, the thing is pretty much a deck. 

Random Thoughts:

Ashley, why are you making this poor man interviewing for your assistant position vogue for his life? It did look fun though. 

Charrisse, you did not actually text your husband that you want a divorce. For women so obsessed with decorum, that seems wildy inappropriate!

Episode 4: Desperately Seeking Marriage

This week had a lot less explicit discussions about race and what black people "do and do not do", but it was much more enjoyable than watching Katie beg Andrew to marry her last week (cringe). Though Ashley was again the target of much derison for violating etiquette rules by committing the unforgivable sin of googling, I suspected that some of the shade she received was also part of a cultural miscommunication. Fortunately for Ashley, Mama Karen keeps kinda taking her side, even though she incessantly talks about her behind her back.

Karen- "She's [Ashley's] only 26. Her frontal lobe just came together last year".
Gizelle-"Did it come together when she made the decision to bring us to the bottom of the barrel?"
Karen-"She could use some guidance. She just doesn't know how to entertain mature women"

Karen is deeply upset with Ashley's party throwing behavior, and this comes up again at Ashley's birthday party. For a bunch of very rich women, these ladies are ridiculously thirsty for an open bar. You would think they were grad students.

Karen- "Make sure your guests feel like guests without them having to spend a dime. I'm jus' sayin'"

Gizelle-"No open bar, what type of party is this?"

Fortuantely though, Ashley reputation was salvaged in the end because Michael bought her a Porsche. It was a close call, though. Note to self: a rich husband can bail you out of awkward situations with bougie women.

Karen- "Ashley lost 5 points for that cash bar, but she gained 3 for the Porsche". 

The main story with Ashley, however, was that she googled the housewives and made the mistake of telling Katie about it, who subsequently told ERBODY. 

Katie- "Guess who's been Googling us...Ashley"
Karen- "Oh hell to the no. You don't get this far in Potomac without some bruises and bumps. We don't talk about it and we don't Google each other"
Katie-"And Robyn being in foreclosure, just thinking that was a funny thing to say...people's financial situations are their own."

Now Ashley was wrong for bringing up Robyn's finances like that, but I understand why she Googled. These women brag and brag about how high profile they are and then get mad when people find stuff out about them. But I also suspect that they're experiencing an age/class/cultural disconnect. In this type of community, especially since it's a black community, snitching on someone's finances is not okay. And Ashley may not know the depths of how bad that is because she didn't grow up in that type of community. In the end though, the only one really justified in her level of anger about Googlegate is Robyn, and this led to the best quote of the week.

Gizelle to Robyn- "Katie informed us that Ashley has been Googling all of us"
Robyn-"What is wrong with the child?"
Robyn to Gizelle- "So do I wanna go to this party, knowing that the little girl has been going behind my back and talking shit?"

Robyn-"I have heard about people being thirsty...Ashley is dehydrated. Somebody (pause) give her a glass of water".


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The gif above is my interpretation of what Robyn actually meant, but couldn't say because she's a RHOP.

Eventually though, Robyn confronts Ashley (at her birthday party!) and does accept Ashley's apology. But Ashley stays on notice for ish like this, week after week.

Robyn- "I am annoyed but i'm not mad because i realize she's young...but baby girl better watch what she says".


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Linguistic Observations:

Gizelle, who is normally r-full (it means she pronounces her "r"s), gets super emphatic when she needs to tell us that she could have her ex back anytime she wanted. And interestingly, she turns r-less in that phrase. This is of note because it's a stereotyped black feature, and Gizelle seems only to use it when she needs to make a very clear point about the kind of woman she is.

Gizelle-"If I wanted to get back with Jamal, he'd be sittin right HEA"

The second observation this week is just about Mama Karen's use of "IJS"
Karen- "Make sure your guests feel like guests without them having to spend a dime. I'm jus' sayin'"

Oh Karen. IJS is the most shadetastic way of throwing shade. It's a classic, just like Karen herself. The only other thing that would've made it better is if she was sippin tea when she said it.

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Random Unrelated THOTs (see what I did there):

Katie-"It's the Mrs. room. It's my room now". 

Oh Katie, you're truly the most thirsty and Andrew is pretty patient. You low-key just remodeled this man's condo while he was out of town and got away with it!

Charrisse-"We didn't have a lot. I had to put perms in my hair myself". 

When Charrisse is discussing her earlier financial status, the best way she can think to express it was that she had DIY perms. The horror! Especially compared to the questionable weave she rocks now, but that's none of my business.

Episode 3: What A Little Whiskey Can Do

After last week's dramatic discussion on racial identity, how could the Housewives possibly up the ante? This week we saw a little less etiquette policing, a little more overall shade, and lots of racially uncomfortable undertones.

Let's start with Katie.

Katie- "My family is old money. My mom's family founded black colleges and universities and my dad's family made their money bootlegging during prohibition. My dad was actually one of my mom's professors".
Oh, biracial Katie. I don't know about Katie's family in particular, but all of this makes me a bit suspicious. In the 70s, a white male professor gets involved with one of his black female students and now it's just a cute family anecdote? 


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Also, note the implied respectability politics here. Katie's black family is framed as being involved with education, while her white family made their money illegally (lol, omg, those adorbs bootleggers, amirite?). I highly doubt that if the family situations were reversed, socialite Katie would be bragging about it. #twiceasgood

Katie had some relationship issues this week, but one of the bright spots was her growing friendship with Ashley. However, this led to one of the most awkward exchanges in this week's episode during Katie and Ashley's dinner with their respective #richwhitedudes.

Katie- "Isn't it exciting hanging out with like, an interracial couple? I like it
Katie's White Dude-"Absolutely"
Ashley- "Do you feel sometimes like you don't have a lot of interracial couple friends?"
Katie- "We don't at all. Like none."

Katie finally found someone she can relate to! Another biracial lady with a #richwhitedude! Taken alongside her comments from last week, this is further evidence that Katie sometimes feels like she doesn't fit in with the rest of the Housewives, which seems at least a little related to her identity choices.

Speaking of Ashley, she had this week's most exciting storyline, and she handled it beautifully.
Everything about that bathing suit shopping sequence was just...off. Karen felt the need to assert herself as the matriarch, but she took surprisingly well to Ashley, for now.

Karen to Ashley- I was just gonna give you one tidbit of advice though, because you are new to the community" (dramatic pause). In Potomac, the women especially, you know, we've earned our position. so it's respect that gets you into the circle. It's a hard circle to get into, but I like you so you have an introductory". 

Subtext: Girl, watch yourself. You're alright for now, but remember that you're on probation.

And Ashley knows it.

Ashley: "It's so nice spending time with these Potomac women who aren't judging my character, just my figure".

Ashley is foreshadowing some future trouble, because Karen warned her about how they do. And low and behold EVERYONE had something to say about Ashley's whiskey tasting.

Karen- "I couldn't believe that THIS is the place she invited us to, to have a whiskey tasting. I am dressed to the nine, and I didn't know the attire was flip flops"

Robyn- "I'm really shocked that ashley is hosting a whiskey tasting. It seems like a grown up man thing and Ashley's like a little girl". 

Gizelle- "I'm Gucci down to my socks and y'all told me to go to the basement. I typically don't venture out this way"

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At this point, I was terrified for poor Ashley. She knew whiskey might not be their thing, and this whole event was a big, big risk. But in the end, she came out on top after confronting Gizelle about calling her a THOT.

Ashley to Gizelle- "You're being nicer to my face than you were behind my back...you called me a THOT for God's sake".
Gizelle-"You were humping her...typically hoes do that"
Ashley- "Hoes have sex with other people. Did I have sex with her?
Gizelle-"That's ho-ish behavior".

But ultimately, Ashley did get Gizelle to apologize, which touched Charrisse so much that it helped smooth things over between her and Gizelle as well.

Charrisse- Considering that she's 26, Ashley is behaving more mature than both Gizelle and I.

In the end, Ashley ends up with a win. And even Mama Karen can laugh about it.

Karen- "Ashley, now that you're in the circle, if I catch you humping another woman, I will pull you off of her"

One more thing. Mama Karen managed to make an awkward racial comment this week too, but it was more subtle. She's a little too excited about the whitest white dude ever who shows up to take her daughter to prom and it feels a little like she sees it as a come up for Rayvin.

Karen- "Interracial dating in Potomac is normal. We tell our children to look for a good person who has the milk of human kindness, so the fact that Rayvin's date is a Caucasian young man, it's a true reflection of what Ray and I taught Rayvin".

You taught your daughter to be interested in...what exactly? And this storyline, alongside Karen continuously comparing Katie and Ashley to her daughter, looks a lot like she's hoping that Rayvin will find her own #richwhitedude.

One moment of linguistic interest stuck out this week, along with the general intonation and discourse strategies that I've been seeing since jump.

Ashley to Karen-"I'm tryna get to know yo fashion sense, honey". 

Because of their power differential and Ashley's less glamorous background, we might be surprised that she said this to Karen, but it gets received in a good-natured way. Karen's treatment of Ashley has shown that maybe aside from all the etiquette policing, she's actually got a sense of humor.

Random Unrelated Thought: Katie, you cannot shoehorn Andrew into marrying you! And relatedly, I've also got some judgment towards that dude from Washington Life magazine who was all "what you don't have is a husband right now". Katie knows, dude. Trust us, she knows.

Episode 2- "Divas, Queens, and Bubalas"

In this episode, we get to the meat of the "tragic mulattoness" that we were promised. When we're introduced to Ashley, we see the season's first appearance of the "What Are You" question.

Robyn to Ashley- "And are you mixed or anything? With what?
Ashley-"Black and white"
Gizelle to Katie-"Katie, what are you today? Are you black and white?"
Katie-"I don't know what I am. 
Gizelle to Katie -"We're gonna need for you to know".

Oh Katie, I feel for you. Ashley rolled with the question here, but Katie stood firm in her biracialness which was something that Gizelle was not having. We get more insight about why this is a little bit later on in the episode at Katie's house.

Robyn to Katie- "How was your experience growing up black and Jewish?"
Katie- "I grew up like biracial...there were no other black people anywhere I was"
Robyn-"What box are your girls gonna check?"
Gizelle- "Are they gonna be black?"
Katie-"I don't know, like 'other'"
Gizelle-"They gotta figure it out. This is the United States of America. You have to check a box."
Katie- "We should create out own box and like rally"

Katie- "They don't necessarily understand that I identify as biracial, it's like 'choose one or the other'.


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Poor Katie. She's in this group of light-skinned black women who aren't feeling her multiple identity self. And Gizelle in particular is not here for her being anything other than black, because for her, that's just how things work in America. But Katie bounces back quickly.

Katie to Robyn and Gizelle- "I mean even with the two of you, blonde with green eyes...a lot of people be like 'those bitches are not black'".
Gizelle- "People always ask me which one of your parents is white and I'm like 'no both of my parents are black. I'm a black woman". 
Robyn- "My eyes might be light, my hair might be dyed but I'm black and that's how I've identified my whole life"
Gizelle- "People know I'm black once I open my mouth.
Robyn-"As soon as I talk, you know that I'm black...and it's funny I don't see what y'all see, I look in the mirror and I see a black woman"
Other Friend: "That's all that matters unless you get arrested"


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Their random friend should've dropped a mic, because ultimately this is the subtext of the conversation that these ladies have been having all along. For Gizelle and Robyn, even though they may look biracial, their internalized black identity is unquestionable. And when Katie self-identifies as biracial, it seems like they experience her identity as a rejection of the ones that they've chosen. But what the random friend points out at the end of this conversation is that though Katie can feel biracial all day long, she still has to deal with the reality of the way that she is racialized by others in society. And when it comes down to it, even biracial Katie may be seen as black. Just ask the family of Tony Robinson.

And Katie's not the only one whose identity gets policed in this episode. Let's talk about Ashley. I am too excited to see Ashley and her natural hair in this sea of weaves. Gizelle may hate it ("As I look at Ashley, I just see hair"), but it's nice to see someone rocking a different style. I'm also here for her goofy new money self. Go 'head, Ashley. But Robyn is also not feeling Ashley's non-conforming style:
Robyn (about Ashley)- "Black women don't hump each other like that. Must be a white thing. She spent way too much time around white people".
At this point, Robyn knows about Ashley's mixedness, and when she engages in a behavior that Robyn disapproves of, she jumps to her experience as evidence that she doesn't belong with them.

Finally, a few linguistic observations. When Charrisse is questioning Gizelle's behavior, she says, "Where do they do DAT at? Not here, not Potomac". To my ear, Charrisee sounds black but doesn't use very many stereotypical grammatical or phonological features of African American English. However, in this case, where she's trying to indirectly point to Gizelle's behavior as "ghetto", she uses a highly stigmatized feature, "th-stopping" (where an initial "th" becomes a "d") to do that indexical linking.

One more language thing: Katie uses a lot of vocal fry as compared to the other women. I won't join in the shaming of young women for using vocal fry, but I will say that it is much less common among black women. So Katie's use of vocal fry might be part of her performance of an identity that is firmly biracial.

Random Unrelated Thought: #shadysunday seems a little off. Yes, the RHOP throw a lot of shade, but that doesn't mean that you can call it "shady". That means something else.

Episode 1- "Mind Your Manners"

I’m not a Housewives loyalist, but I’ve seen enough to get an idea of how the franchise works. Aspirationally fancy ladies spend a lot of time grooming themselves, planning social events and yelling at each other...got it. But the Real Housewives of Potomac (RHOP) is different from the other franchises in that its location is very specific, and its cast members, unlike the ones in Atlanta, are largely racially ambiguous looking black women. In the first episode, several issues related to race and the Housewives’ individual identities came up, and those are primarily what I wanna look at. Some observations:

In all of the transitions, Bravo elected to play a DC gogo beat. Gogo is a musical style that's very specific to DC's black community, so although the Housewives take great pains to tell us about how exclusive Potomac is, Bravo is telling views in the know that we should contextualize them women as DC Black. 

In our very first introduction to Katie and her white Jewish boyfriend (because Katie "loves Jewish men", because they're "good with money"), the couple ate at a restaurant called Mix. I might call this foreshadowing but it's SO heavy-handed. And though this is the first we see of Katie, I'm already done with her and her white boy fetishizing.

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Katie clearly needs help, but the real storyline of this episode is the three way shade competition between Karen, Charrisse, and Gizelle. Charrisse is the only non-ambiguous looking black woman in the franchise, and I'm glad that she'll be there to hopefully help us untangle some of the issues that the other women seem to have bubbling under the surface.

Speaking of Charrisse, let's take a moment to talk about the hair of every single person in this franchise. At Karen's birthday celebration, Gizelle compliments Charrisse’s (questionable) hair. Every single woman in this franchise (at this point) is what we'd call "fried, dyed and laid to the side" and/or addicted to weave. And every single one of them needs to get their edges together. Personally, I wanted to turn the mirror on Karen when she called out Gizelle at the crab boil and accused her of having a bad weave. For women who spend a lot of time policing each other, they desperately need someone to stage a weave intervention. This is not a tragic mulatto problem...all of them are old enough to know better.

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I'm less interested in all of the etiquette policing that they seem to do, but I will mention that the primary criticism that these women level upon each other are implications that they're only one step removed from poor black people (the horror!). This is especially interesting because of the interplay between class and race. Some of the sociological literature has shown that middle-class blacks and biracial people experience invalidation of their blackness directly related to their class status, but that's not how they're using it here. When Charissee complains about Karen's behavior "walking around with the help" and exclaiming "that's why I don’t go to the ghetto, it seems to function not as invalidation but rather simply exclusion from their in-group. But Gizelle's reaction to Karen etiquette policing her is based purely on class: “Karen…I have a legacy and a pedigree and you grew up on a farm". As the season continues, I'll be interested in seeing how this interplay between authentic blackness and authentic wealth continues!

Random unrelated thought: I know some of these women are in exclusive groups and black sororities, but for legal reasons, are probably not allowed to talk about it. This however, makes me super sad because it's germane to their social and racial identities. In out introduction to Robyn, it's clear that she's a Delta, but they blur out her DST license plate.  I wanna see more of this from the other housewives!

Welcome!

I’m a sociolinguist who specializes in African American Language and especially among people with one black parent and one white parent. I was inspired to start this blog after reading Shamira Ibrahim’s piece called The Real Housewives of Potomac and the Tragic Mulatto Syndrome, which also inspired the title of this blog. 

I hope to be blogging each week (briefly) about the racial and linguistic issues that arise in RHOP throughout the season.