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?!"

via GIPHY

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.

via GIPHY

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.

via GIPHY

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"

via GIPHY

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".

via GIPHY

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".

via GIPHY

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?"

via GIPHY

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.


via GIPHY

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".


via GIPHY

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."

via GIPHY

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.


via GIPHY

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".