There's a right way and wrong way to express love for black folks. Fetishizing us is most certainly the wrong way.
On Sunday, blogger Dami Olonisakin tweeted a clip from the sex-positive podcast Guys We F**ked, and expressed her disappointment in the content, according to Buzzfeed News. Olonisakin pointed out she had been a fan of the podcast and Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson, the comedic ladies behind it, until she reached an episode in which they "started fetishizing black men."
"Their concept as a whole is an amazing idea – having guys you’ve slept with come on the show with you. As a black woman there’s no way I could do that because there is still a level of slut shaming within my culture,” Olonisakin told iNews.
Really dissapointed with a sex podcast. I respected their work & even bought their book till they started fetishising black men.
Dear white women, black men are not sexual objects you can tick off your bucket list for your own sexual gratification.
This drag will be postponed
— Oloni (@Oloni) September 17, 2018
Soo here’s the clip. pic.twitter.com/VPZF0mtARq
— Oloni (@Oloni) September 17, 2018
In the clip, Fisher brags about bagging a black dude, and Hutchinson enthusiastically applauds before adding a sprinkle of hipsterness to her fetishization by noting she's been "f**king black guys since the early 2000s."
"It was my second black guy though," Fisher says of the black man she's slept with, before Hutchinson says, “Yeah, but you even said your first one didn’t count.”
This second black man counts, apparently, because he was "like a real black guy, like basketball player height, deep voice, lives uptown."
Fisher then goes on to complain that although she considers this sexual partner "a real black guy," he wasn't "black enough" for her because he didn't "act, more like, thug. I don't like … black people who act like white people.”
Doubling down on the casual racism, Fisher says, “And I know we’re gonna get a bunch of letters like, ‘What do black people act like?’ Guys, we all fucking know when we say stereotypically what black people act like, and that's what I like.”
Not wanting to be left out, Hutchinson joins in by referencing an ex partner of hers, saying, “Nico’s kinda like that. He’s got that hood swag, mmm, I love it.”
Olonisakin, and many others on social media, did not love it, and pointed out how "disturbing and super offensive" it is to fetishize black people, and to treat black men as "sexual objects you can tick off your bucket list for your own sexual gratification."
When she said “he was a real black guy” I had to stop there. Then I went back to listen to the rest and it got worse. https://t.co/CvJL0ZOlz8
— Jendella Benson (@JENDELLA) September 18, 2018
This is so disgusting. How can you think this is okay to say?! Drooling over him having 'hood swag' and him being black enough for you for the weekend. You're gonna get a bunch of letters because it's RACIST, you are racist and using black men as props in your sex life https://t.co/eSSOliegWi
Hutchinson took to Twitter to apologize, and said she will strive to "do better."
— Kiran (@Nutty_kk) September 18, 2018
Can you explain what was meant by “he wasn’t black enough”?
— Jen (@JennaNDavis_) September 17, 2018
That was not me who said that. Regardless, that has to be beyond disappointing to hear and I’m sorry I didn’t step in. I want to erase insensitive dialogue from my conversations & am trying to do that by shutting the fuck up & listening when people point it out, so thank you.
— Krystyna Hutchinson (@KrystynaHutch) September 17, 2018
I will do better. I understand why that’s fucked up (that episode came out a while ago and we have had many conversations about why it’s fucked up). I’m sorry, I can’t imagine how disappointing that must have been to hear.
— Krystyna Hutchinson (@KrystynaHutch) September 18, 2018
"The thing is, although this isn’t new, you’d expect that a sex positive blogger would be the last kind of person to enforce those beliefs because they’re not only problematic, but they’re violent," said Olonisakin.
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