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".