The other week, during a visit to New York City, Sarah Palin and her daughter, Willow went to a Yankees game. Later that day, David Letterman quipped that "during the seventh inning, [Palin's] daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez." According to Letterman, he thought he'd been making a joke about Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol (got a baby), and not 14-year-old Willow. Many of us are familiar with the elder Palin daughter as the poster teenager for both the pro-life and abstinence movements. The Palin Machine (if we can call it that. And if we can, the machine was built by GM circa 1983) kangaroo'd on the public relations opportunity, calling Letterman's joke about "raping" Willow Palin "disgusting [...], contribut[ing] to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others." Letterman apologized--in a very Letterman way--and even invited Palin on the show. Not wanting to serve as a ratings boost--again--Palin declined the invitation, but accepted the apology.
The whole bit reminded me of something. I just couldn't figure out what it was.
Then, I remembered.
About six years ago, Dave Chappelle presented two now classic skits, "Pee on You" and its remix, on the genius but short-lived Chappelle's Show. In them, Chappelle impersonates R. Kelly, singing about peeing and defecating on a woman over a Kelly-inspired track. Of course, the germ for the spoof was a videotape--leaked in 2002--of a person resembling Kelly and a woman; in the now infamous video, the man, who looked a lot like Kelly, is filmed urinating on the woman after having sex with her. As we know, the video was more than comic fodder; it became a crucial piece of evidence in Kelly's trial, where he faced 21 counts of child pornography. But Chappelle's response to Kelly's anger at him for doing the bit is poignant to say the least. Chappelle announced, "R. Kelly was pissed. No punchline to that. Nigga was pissed. He was all, 'How could you go and make a video about peeing on someone?' Nigga, how could YOU go making a video about peeing on somebody?"
Granted, both moments inspired jokes. And though Chappelle is essentially putting Kels on blast while Letterman jabbed both Rodriguez and Bristol Palin, Other than that, these are two rather disparate and completely unrelated comedic blips on the pop culture screen. But I want use them to make a larger, perhaps more significant point. The crux of both issues-- the Letterman joke and the outcome of Kelly trial-- was a case of mistaken identity. Letterman mistook Willow for Bristol. I can understand that; I can barely tell one Atlanta rapper from another. I digress. Though jurors believed it was Kelly on the tape in question, they decided not to convict him because: 1. they claimed that they needed to be able to determine the girl's/woman's age, but couldn't, and 2. she chose not to take the stand as a witness.
I'm not particularly interested in the legal aspects of it all. What I am interested in, however, is the degree to which the burden of proof was and continues to be literally placed (back) on a black woman's body. The implicit claim in the Letterman/Palin beef was, "He should've known..." and therefore how dare he? Which is to say that in no instance can the sanctity of white womanhood be questioned or joked about, even if that sanctity is about as believable as the claim that Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience. To do so, it seems, would be criminal. Did the Palin Machine make a crazy argument by turning David Letterman's bad joke into a claim about sexual perversion? Hell yes. But it sparked debate, nonetheless. And people actually took Palin seriously--again.
Assumptions about black women's bodies, however, never compel such conversations. Criminal themselves, they make guilt potentially debatable rather than inevitable. Instead of an injection of fabricated criminality, the Kelly case required the opposite. Dependent upon an interpretation of the black girl/woman in the video, innocence or guilt became possible only through intense scrutiny. And, as always, her body was outside such jurisdiction. The question became: how could he have known?
Obviously, this disregard for black women and their bodies is about as fresh as using Auto-tune on a hip-hop track. So why do I, why should we still care? Because this is how racism, sexism, classism, et. al. work; this is the legacy of slavery. Such "-isms" are rarely, if ever, about individual choices for friends, or in voting booths, and therefore can neither be primarily understood nor defeated by positive gestures of either. That even as we congratulate ourselves for the apparent strides we've made (whatever they may be), we remain so unaware of--or perhaps simply refuse to understand--the ways such fluff of pop life are connected. Because it reminds me, us that even in this alleged post-everything world, it's never simply a debate about Michelle Obama's arms, or special appreciation for her butt. And so, when (black) women and their bodies are again somehow within the purview of the societal lens, directly or by proxy, it seems only right to discuss the real stakes, especially if I must deal with Palin pouncing on publicity.
So although Letterman's joke wasn't very tasteful, what it reminds me of leaves a lingering bad taste in my mouth...and the opening notes of "Feelin' on Your Booty" in my head.
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