Co- written by Kiitan Doherty
Piers Morgan has the annoying habit of giving advice and opinions on matters that don’t concern him, to people who didn’t ask. He did it when Kim Kardashian posted a nude on twitter a while back, and he brought that picture back along with a picture of Madonna at the Met Gala recently, saying he thinks ‘real women’ need to put an end to this. He did it when Larry Wilmore called Barack Obama ‘my nigga’ at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He did it when he attacked Lemonade and Beyoncé’s activism.
Why Piers Morgan is so ready to speak up and give his misguided opinion about women’s issues or race relations in America is beyond me. He’s not female. He’s not African American. And he’s insistent on speaking over all the voices of the people he claims to want to help. He doesn’t get to define feminism, what it means to be a black woman, or what it means to be a woman in general. His opinions on feminism aren’t helping anyone, they’re just a way for him to stay relevant on Twitter.
Take his criticisms of Lemonade for example. He claims to be worried about Beyoncé ‘suddenly’ becoming political. Apparently the money she’s donated to help bail black lives matter protesters out of jail, and the time she’s spent with the families of police brutality victims don’t count as legitimate proof that she cares about black lives in America beyond how she can harness them to sell albums. If he really cared about black lives, he would know about the ways she’s aligned herself with these causes in the past. He would also step back and acknowledge that he was wrong when called out by black women like Franchesca Ramsey, rather than attacking them for trying to correct him.
Quite frankly a white man’s opinion about art made for black women isn’t the most important, and if he’s going to critique it, he can’t start from a flawed conception of the point of the project. The music of Lemonade is just as politically charged as the video, and with good reason. Being rich and famous doesn’t protect Beyoncé from the experience of being looked down on or disrespected for being a black woman. Being a white man, however, does protect Piers Morgan from that experience and it’s so disrespectful of him to attempt to silence a black woman’s expression of pain resulting from that experience.
Undeterred by the number of people who dragged him for his criticism of Lemonade, Piers Morgan was quick to come after Larry Wilmore after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I don’t know how many times we have to say it: white people don’t get to tell black people how we’re supposed to feel about a racial slur that’s been used against us. End of. Reclaiming slurs is to many people an important part of healing from oppression they’ve faced. Larry Wilmore is not the first black person to call Barack Obama the n-word, and plenty of white people have used it towards him in a derogatory way. Where was Piers when that happened? Oh, that’s right, he’s only worried about regulating black people’s responses to racism. White people can just do them.
Another thing, why is Piers so focused on how women choose to present themselves and their bodies to the public? He had a problem with Kim’s nude and Madonna’s Met Gala outfit? Great, he can keep it to himself like the rest of the world instead of devaluing their contributions to the feminist movement because of what they choose to wear. He needs to get rid of the idea that all women, everywhere have to adhere to his standards of what a woman “should be” and what her activism should look like. For him to not consider women who bare their bodies at their own will “real women” immediately lets people know that he doesn’t respect women or the choices they make. A woman’s ability to enjoy her own body just because she can is one of the most celebrated parts of feminism, one that Piers clearly wants no part of. He isn’t an ally unless you exhibit the feminism that he believes in; a feminism that withholds a woman’s right to control her body and decisions.
The comments he makes only open up more doors for ‘mansplainers’ and sexists to tell women how they feel they should be active in the feminist community. He provides opportunities for women like Chloe Grace Moretz to continue to demean other women for choices that are different from hers. He makes it seem like women who feel liberated in their sexuality only feel that way for media and male attention. He constantly reverts their celebrations back to the male gaze, something that doesn’t matter to these women and obviously never has.
Perhaps, that is the problem. Maybe Piers has an issue with accepting a woman’s need to express her sexuality on her own terms because those terms don’t exist to please him. Like most men, Piers isn’t used to women getting naked if it isn’t for his benefit or pleasure. Any woman who dares to do so is unintelligent and trashy, they aren’t “real women”. Men can paint or sculpt or photograph as many naked women as they want, but God forbid a woman feels comfortable enough to share a nude image of herself on her own terms.
Piers’ mentality is beyond problematic. He’s crossed the line too many times to be forgiven, and he doesn’t care to be. His support for feminists and black lives comes with fine print: you do as I say or nothing at all. People in support of him have the same mentality. It’s toxic and it sets feminism and white allies back several years. We don’t need you or your input Piers, we just need you to stop talking.
Comments are closed.