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'.
via GIPHY
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"
via GIPHY
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.
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