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Khloé Kardashian Shouldn't Have to 'Block Out' Racist Remarks About True


If you’ve spent any time on the Internet in the past week, you’ve likely seen the photo Kim Kardashian West shared of she and her sisters’ “triplets”: infant cousins Stormi Webster, True Thompson, and Chicago West. What should have been a sweet family moment—it was the first time all three infants have been pictured together—immediately derailed into a conversation about the toxic effects of colorism.

Not even minutes after the photo went up, commenters flocked to the image to critique and rate how the babies—babies!—looked. Or, more specifically, to share their discontent over the fact that True lacks the stereotypical biracial characteristics her cousins possess. The consistent underlying thread: She’s cute but “too dark.”

Khloé eventually closed comments on the photo to block her family from the racist abuse. And this morning, she took to Twitter to respond, assuring fans and haters that she was “blocking out the white noise.”

Although vile, the issue here is not solely about sexualizing, projecting and critiquing the desirability of a five-month-old baby, but the perpetuation of colorism. Even though Khloé’s wealth will insulate True, the fact is that her darker skin tone will be a factor in most of her interactions for the rest of her life—with school, with jobs, with dating, and with the value society places on her.

Colorism is nothing new; the 300-plus year experiences of darker-hued people around the world didn’t have a name until author Alice Walker coined the term in her 1983 book of essays, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. In the book, she explicitly defines colorism as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.” (Historically speaking, lighter skin was a currency used to gain social status and class progression, and in times of enslavement, freedom.) In layman’s terms: the lighter a person of a non-white race is, the better they’re perceived and treated.

Today, colorism is still particularly insidious in film, fashion, and beauty—industries predicated on appearances. From pay disparities between models and actresses to being completely cast aside for possessing broad African features, women of color who fall on the lighter end of the spectrum are afforded more opportunities.

As a model, I’ve been on countless sets where I’m the only black person, yet the shoot is supposed to be about diversity. I’ve been told that I don’t fall within the borders of an “all-American aesthetic.” And I’ve been interrogated multiple times about my race at castings. Even still, I’m a fair-skinned black woman with freckles and looser curls. So I understand how my privilege allows me to move and show up in spaces where models that look like Duckie Thot and Leomie Anderson have not been able to access. (Both the Fenty Beauty star and Victoria’s Secret model have talked at length about the fact that light-skinned women of color get more work than dark-skinned models.)

In Hollywood, lighter actresses such as Amandla Stenberg, Yara Shahidi, and Tessa Thompson usually fare better with role diversity than women like Viola Davis or Octavia Spencer. Spencer, an Oscar winner, just recently shared that she had to have her contract tied to actress Jessica Chastain’s in order to make five times her normal salary.

Even in outside industries, studies show that white employers are more likely to view lighter candidates as more qualified than their darker peers, creating a wage gap that goes deeper that just race and/or gender. Darker women of color lack wealth just from skin color alone regardless of educational background or achievement.

This, of course, in no way dismisses the ways white people themselves fall victim to their own beauty standards. Khloe Kardashian, who’s faced public vitriol for being the “ugly one” because never held the softer, whiter features of her sisters, has augmented her appearance to ascend to the level of mainstream beauty her sisters have attained—like getting fillers, for example. Even still, it seems fans fans neglected to consider both she and Tristan Thompson’s features and assumed True would be born in the likeness of her older cousins.

What people need to understand is that black people, multiracial or otherwise, come in a gradient of shades and tones. Mixed-race children are not always born with lighter skin, hazel eyes, or loose, sprightly curls. They should be loved and protected—period—and allowed the ability to embrace their full selves without being socialized into resenting a part of themselves that is rich in history and culture.

Related Stories:
–Meghan Markle Reveals What It’s Like to Be a Biracial Woman in Hollywood
–Makeup for Melanin Girls Isn’t Just Making Products for Women of Color. It’s Listening to Them.
–Khoudia Diop: I Want to Show Women It’s Not ‘Bad’ to Be Dark





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Why Female Journalists Shouldn't Have to Clean Up the Messes of Their Male Co-Workers


On Monday morning, Norah O’Donnell, co-anchor of CBS This Morning opened the show with serious news: Les Moonves, her boss and the longtime head of CBS, had resigned the night before after a second New Yorker story broke with new allegations of sexual assault and harassment from six women. That’s in addition to the six women who raised sexual misconduct allegations against Moonves in Ronan Farrow’s first New Yorker story, which was published in July.

That means, for the second time in less than a year, O’Donnell was tasked with reporting on sexual misconduct allegations involving men at her own network (the first instance was her reporting of Charlie Rose’s suspension from CBS after eight women accused him of sexual harassment). The same goes for O’Donnell’s female colleague, Jericka Duncan. After opening Monday morning’s segment, O’Donnell kicked to Duncan, who was covering the fallout of the New Yorker pieces.

After Duncan’s report, O’Donnell said: “This is really hard. It is. This is hard for everybody at CBS News. The most powerful media executive in America has now resigned in the wake of this #MeToo movement, and he’s my boss. Or, he was my boss, and so that makes it really hard to comment on it.” A visibly upset O’Donnell went on to note that “there is no excuse for this alleged behavior” and “women cannot achieve equality in the workplace or society until there is a reckoning and a taking of responsibility.”

Norah O’Donnell reports the demise of her boss, Les Moonves, on CBS This Morning.

At the end of the segment, a bumbling John Dickerson (O’Donnell’s co-host) offered that he was “really proud” to hear her say that and he “couldn’t agree more” with what she said. For his part, Vladimir Duthiers (the other male co-host) had no comment except to note that Duncan would continue to report on these developments.

And that she did. Two days later, Duncan revealed that she had become the subject of her own reporting: On Sunday night, she received threatening text messages from 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager after she did her job as a journalist and asked for comment on the most recent allegations about him in the New Yorker.

Why are professional women forced into the maternal role of emotional soother—the one who says: There, there, sweetie. Everything will be OK. Since when is that part of the job description of being a female journalist?

In a series of angry texts, Fager responded that she would be “held responsible” for harming him if she repeated the allegations without her own reporting on the subject. He went on to say: “Be careful. There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me, and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up, that will become a serious problem.”

That’s right, an executive threatened a colleague for trying to do her job, which is investigative reporting. On top of that, Duncan was then charged with reporting on the firing of Moonves the next morning, right after being threatened by another powerful male executive at her own company.

CBS correspondent Jericka Duncan becomes the subject of her own reporting.

Here’s my question: Why, out of all the reporters at CBS, were Duncan and O’Donnell the ones tasked with reporting the bad behavior of their male co-workers? Why weren’t co-hosts Dickerson and Duthiers assigned this particular report? In other words, why wasn’t a man given this responsibility? Why, when it comes to sexual assault and harassment allegations, are women the ones tasked with not only telling their male co-workers’ stories but also doing the emotional labor of making everyone feel fine about it?

This week’s news at CBS reminded me of a teary-eyed Savannah Guthrie reading Matt Lauer’s statement of apology on-air last year (the second day in a row that her job entailed discussing her former colleague’s alleged behavior) and Mika Brzezinski reporting the suspension of MSNBC contributor Mark Halperin and reading his statement.

Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb report on Matt Lauer’s firing. Where are Al Roker and Willie Geist?

It is disturbing to me that women are always the ones charged with cleaning up the messes of their male co-workers and contextualizing it for betrayed viewers who networks fear they’ll lose—because God forbid the networks hemorrhage even more money over these scandals while potentially having to give huge payouts to the men in question.

Men screw up. Women fix it. It’s an all too familiar narrative—and I’m tired of it.

Why must women, who are still paid less than their male counterparts, be the ones to put on a sad face and express the appropriate shock and sympathy so that viewers at home feel comforted? Why are professional women forced into the maternal role of emotional soother—the one who says: There, there, sweetie. Everything will be OK. Since when is that part of the job description of being a female journalist?

Mika Brzezinski reports on the suspension of MSNBC contributor Mark Halperin.

The women in these situations keep their jobs and remain on clean-up duty while their disgraced male colleagues try to collect huge payouts and hide in their million dollar mansions to do some “soul-searching” while they wait for the dust to settle. Matt Lauer’s attorneys allegedly tried to get him $30 million (NBC didn’t pay) and Moonves could potentially receive $120 million pending an investigation. CBS agreed to allocate $20 million of Moonves’ $140 million payout for #MeToo causes.

That’s not enough.

Time’s Up has called for the board of CBS to give the money to organizations that address sexual harassment and workplace safety. In a letter to the CBS board, the organization said: “That is $120 million dollars that will either go to Mr. Moonves or back into the coffers of the company that allowed the culture created by Mr. Moonves to continue. Or that $120 million can create change by going to organizations – and there are many impactful organizations – that can help women of all kinds. The choice is yours. But the answer is obvious. We ask that you not dishonor the bravery of those who have come forward by spending that money unwisely.”

Time’s Up also called on the board to “review and remake not only the structure, but the culture, of CBS and take ongoing responsibility for issues of safety and equity” in the company. “You can cling to a status quo as it crumbles around you,” it said. “Or you can demonstrate what happens when true leadership embraces the future.”

Because the truth is, what the #MeToo movement has revealed is a systemic problem. It’s not one that can be solved by calling out a few (or even several dozen individuals. Until we have more female leadership and a culture that rewards integrity and transparency—instead of power and money—the problem will only persist.

The next time a male executive screws up, maybe put them on the air to make their own announcements about their bad behavior and subsequent firings. Don’t ask a woman to do it. We’ve done enough already.

Abigail Libers lives in Brooklyn and has written for New York and O: The Oprah Magazine.





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New Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Asia Argento Shouldn't Negate the #MeToo Movement


A new report from the New York Times claims Asia Argento, the Italian actress who was among one of the first women to accuse producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, secretly agreed to pay a young male actor who accused her of sexual misconduct following her own admissions about Weinstein.

The Times reported that it obtained documents containing allegations that the actor, identified as Jimmy Bennett, was sexually assaulted by Argento in 2013 when he was 17. (The age of consent in California is 18.) The two had acted together in a 2004 movie, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, playing mother and son.

The paper reports that seeing Argento emerge publicly as a sexual assault victim brought back memories for Bennett, citing an intent to sue document in which his lawyer wrote, “His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein.”

Argento was one of the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of assault, and subsequently became one of the movement’s most vocal voices. She described an incident to the New Yorker where she said she was led to Weinstein’s hotel believing it to be a studio party, but instead found the movie mogul alone in the room. She says he asked her for a massage, which she reluctantly agreed to do. According to Argento, Weinstein “pulled her skirt up, forced her legs apart, and performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop.”

Argento also gave a rousing speech at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where she described the event as “hunting grounds” for Weinstein. (While Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to six felony sexual assault counts in New York, including first-degree rape, none are related to Argento. He has denied all of her claims about their encounters.)

According to the intent to sue document cited by the Times, the two were “intermittently” in contact afterward starring in the 2004 film together. “Jimmy’s impression of this situation was that a mother-son relationship had blossomed from their experience on set together,” his lawyer wrote. According to Bennett’s account of what occurred in May of 2013, the young actor met up with Argento in her Ritz-Carlton hotel room in Marina del Rey, California with a family member.

The Times reports that the account states that Argento asked the family member to leave and that she then served Bennett alcohol and kissed him before performing oral sex and engaging in intercourse with him. Argento also reportedly took a number of photos with Bennett, some with the two semi-clothed, which were included in the intent to sue document.

According to the paper, Argento eventually agreed to pay Bennett $380,000.

Following the report, many Twitter users starting criticizing #MeToo, seemingly conflating the allegations against Argento with the movement at large.

But others, including #MeToo leaders, are taking to Twitter to sort out their feelings amidst these new allegations. It’s a complex and nuanced discussion, to say the least.

These are incredibly serious allegations and should be treated as such. But what they should not do is take down or negate all the work that the #MeToo movement has done over the past year. It’s almost becoming cliche to say, but two things can be true at the same time. Argento’s alleged behavior does not mean that what happened to her and many other women at the hands of predatory men like Weinstein didn’t occur or that the issues surrounding women in the workplace are not still valid and important.

Argento and her team have yet to respond to the Times‘ repeated requests for comment.

Related Stories:

Brock Turner Loses Appeal to Overturn Sexual Assault Conviction

#MeToo Forced Me to Reevaluate My Own Sexual History—and I’ve Taken Advantage of Women





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It Shouldn't Be This Hard for a Woman in a Wheelchair to Get a Pedicure


Early last week, a screenshot of a Yelp review for a nail salon started surfacing on Facebook. In the post, a woman from St. Peters, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, wrote about the shock and frustration she felt when a salon manager turned her daughter Beth away from getting a pedicure. The reason, Mintner claimed: Because Beth was in a wheelchair.

Like Beth, I live in suburban Missouri, I use a wheelchair, and I enjoy getting my nails done. I also understand that the fairly uneventful experience is uniquely different when you have a disability. It doesn’t change the way kicking back in a massage chair makes you feel—that’s still heaven—but when you’re unsure about how willing a salon will be to accommodate you, something as relaxing as a spa day can be the source of stress and anxiety.

As Dorothy Mintner, Beth’s mother, wrote in her now viral post, “I brought my daughter, who is disabled and in a wheelchair, to get a pedicure and manicure and we were turned away. We were told they don’t do people like her.” She went on to explain that, despite the fact that both she and Beth’s friend offered to help Beth into a pedicure chair, the manager still refused service.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry what?’ Mintner tells Glamour of the situation.” She said, ‘We don’t take people like her,’ to which I asked, ‘What do you mean?'” According to Mintner, the manager, whom she says she had a language barrier with, said they didn’t know “what’s wrong” with Beth and kept repeating that they could not accommodate her. “At that point, I just really needed to leave,” says Mintner. “I was too upset. And you could tell Beth was very upset.”

Mintner says the ordeal was particularly painful because it was her first time taking Beth to get a pedicure in seven years, when Beth was in an accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury. Now, Beth is non-verbal.

The salon manager (who is also part-owner) of Q Nails spoke to local news station KSDK and admitted she denied Beth service due to fear of hurting her. Glamour reached out to the salon manager who, at press time, had not responded to a request for comment for this story.

The issue could also be a violation of Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination from “activities” or “places of public accommodations” on the basis of disability. Mintner says she is now taking her case to the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, which can issue penalties against the salon, if they decide to take and rule on the case. According to KSDK, the penalties usually aren’t financial; rather, they could require the salon to re-train its staff or create new business policies.

Here’s the thing: For far too many women with disabilities, this isn’t a rare occurrence. As Beth’s experience was making waves in St. Louis, a similar story surfaced in Burton, Michigan, last week: a woman with cerebral palsy was apparently refused service due to the fact that her condition caused her hands to shake. And in the 11 years I’ve been in a wheelchair, I’ve had countless experiences with salons—for both hair and nails—that made my existence feel like an inconvenience.

“I’ve had nail artists discuss ‘what to do with me’ without actually addressing me. It’s extremely disrespectful.”

I’ve never been straight-up refused service, but that’s always a fear in the back of my mind when I go to a new place. Sometimes workers will talk down to me the way you would with a child. They’ll call me “baby” or “sweetie” when I’m the same age as the friends there with me. Sometimes they try and do my nails as gently and quickly as possible because they feel nervous about getting close to me, which they have to since my arms don’t straighten. I have two rare forms of muscular dystrophy that cause excessive muscle weakness throughout my body, and I need an oxygen tank with a tube in my nose to breathe independently. It’s frustrating because when I see the person doing my nails is obviously uncomfortable, it makes me uncomfortable too.

As the shares from Mintner’s post continued to populate my feed, it’s clear her story resonates with other wheelchair users too.

“I worry that I’ll face inaccessibility or even be turned away because of my disability,” says Evelyn McConmell, 17, who lives in Pennsylvania. McConmell uses a manual wheelchair and also deals with breathing difficulties due to weak chest muscles. She says her fear is rooted in previous negative experiences. “I’ve had many incidents where I actually can’t fit under the tables, since they’re often lower than my chair. I have had to sit rather far away and lean in,” she says. “I’ve also had nail artists discuss ‘what to do with me’ without actually addressing me. It’s extremely disrespectful.” She adds that sometimes she’d just rather do her nails at home to avoid the hassle, but ultimately feels like it’s important to still go out in the world and advocate for other disabled people. “We need to be taken into account,” she says.

That’s not to say every salon experience is abysmal for people in wheelchairs. After Mintner posted her Yelp review, she ended up taking her daughter to a different salon where they were quick to accommodate her. “I’m so glad it made my daughter feel better. It made me feel better,” she says. “We were able to go home [relaxed] instead of thinking about what happened.”

When you have a disability, at least in my case, I don’t want people to feel awkward about asking me how they can be helpful or what they can do to make me more comfortable. What I do have a problem with is when they decide that I can’t do something before even trying to discuss a solution with me. It does, however, make it easier to pick a good salon. If my money isn’t as valued as an able-bodied person’s money for a service, they don’t deserve it.

All it takes for a good experience is for an employee to be empathetic and ask us what they could do to better accommodate us.

Alexis Villa, 23, who lives in California, has struggled over the years to find a salon that can accommodate her needs. She has spinal muscular atrophy or SMA, a progressive muscle-wasting disease that causes her to be in a wheelchair. “I found one lady and I only go back to her,” Villa says. “I’ve gone into my nail salon, asked for her, and when they say she’s not in, I’ll leave. I won’t make an exception. But Liz isn’t afraid of me, won’t over-extend my legs, isn’t afraid of my hands, and will do my brows with tweezers because I’m a princess! I’m only giving her my money and always a good tip for her efforts.”

When you look at a woman with a disability, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn’t, man, it must be really tough to get your nails done. Everyone asks questions like “Do you miss walking?” and “How do you get in and out of bed?” I mean, yes, I miss walking, and I do have to get assistance with what others consider to be basic movements. But the invisible struggles, like the anxiety that a place will turn me away simply because my mobility makes me “difficult” to serve are the hardest to process—especially when it comes to everyday luxuries like getting a pedicure or having my hair cut. The reality that some businesses still see people with disabilities as a burden, not a customer is frustrating. I’m tired of being put into a box that dictates what a person with a disability can and can’t do based on assumptions.

All it takes for a good experience is for an employee to be empathetic and ask us what they could do to better accommodate us. Recognize there’s a difference between empathy and pity, and never be afraid to ask if you don’t know how to meet our needs. Many wheelchair users have a hard time reaching all the way across the table when getting a manicure, and something as small as sitting closer to us and allowing us to be comfortable can fully alter an experience, and make it one we’ll return for. That simple gesture can take away a lot of fear.

People with disabilities make up the single minority that anybody could potentially become a part of at any point in their life.

When I asked my current nail artist—Cierra Sims in Boonville, Missouri, who is absolutely fantastic—she told me most cosmetology schools really only teach you the basics of technical training. “They never actually teach you how to service clients with disabilities,” she says.

The first time I went to Cierra, she asked me how I sit most comfortably. I told her the situation with my arms, and she brought her entire kit up to me so she could do my acrylics on the tray table of my wheelchair. I felt like everybody else in the salon. We spent our time gossiping about the Kardashians and our favorite trends. Now when I go in for an appointment, I don’t even think about the fact that I’m in a wheelchair because it’s not relevant. I’m just another paying customer.

You might be reading this as an able-bodied person thinking, “How can I do anything to help?” Recognize that people with disabilities make up the single minority that anybody could potentially become a part of at any point in their life. Seven years ago, before her accident, Beth walked into any salon she chose. She should be able to roll into any salon she wants to now.

Madison Lawson is a writer based in Columbia, Missouri. Follow her @wheelchairbarbie.





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My Disability Made Me Dread Going to Weddings Alone. It Shouldn't Have


I’ve been to plenty of weddings in my life—cousins, friends, William and Kate (OK, that last one was from the comfort of my own home, but you get the idea)— and I left each one feeling kind of wistful. Will that ever be me? Am I destined to spend eternity at the single’s table? And, maybe the most telling of all: Had my disability really made me this jaded?

In a way, I’d been preparing myself for being my own plus-one for two decades, thanks to my obsessive pop culture consumption. If romantic comedies are to be believed, weddings are the single person’s kryptonite – the Achilles’ heel of the heart – that blasts our relationship status to the world like a giant neon sign. I grew up with a steady diet of these films and even from a young age, I couldn’t help but feel like I was peeking into a crystal ball of my future: Hours sitting dejected while watching the bride and groom dance or hopelessly trying to make small talk with strangers who I’d probably never see again.

There was My Best Friend’s Wedding, for example, which came out 20 years ago this past summer. In it, Julia Roberts’ character watches love find her best friend while she sits alone on the sidelines. In a panicked, last-stitch effort, she tries to stop the wedding because, as I saw things at 16, not even Julia Roberts in all her glory wanted to risk being a spinster. Alone equals lonely.

As I got older, it didn’t help that my physical disability made me feel as though I was on display; I felt incredibly self-conscious of my surgical scars, wheelchair, and deformities and was about ready to say goodbye to any sense of hope. I was born with Freeman-Sheldon Syndrome, a rare genetic bone and muscular disorder. And in my wheelchair, well, I tend to make an entrance wherever I go. I’ve realized that it’s impossible for me to go under-the-radar, no matter how much I might want to. People notice me. That’s just how it is.

So when I found myself sitting in a small banquet hall one rainy October evening in 2015, attending my first wedding as a solo guest, I felt especially seen—and not in a good way. Everything should have been perfect—I’d been friends with the bride for six years, and her now-husband almost as long, and I couldn’t have been happier for them. Plus, at 34, I knew most people my age had probably been attending weddings alone for nearly a decade and it’s really not that unusual. But here I was, drinking my Coca-Cola in a dimly-lit ballroom and feeling anxious. It would be one thing if I could just easily blend in with the crowd—I craved that kind of anonymity—but instead, I carried that self-consciousness with me that night. Insecurity was my plus-one.

I dreaded sitting at a table with strangers, fielding all those pesky, inevitable questions, “Who are you here with? Are you married? Are you engaged?” Everyone around me seemed to have come with their significant others. Watching them, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d let my disability create a wall that separated me from the happiness they got to experience. I was feeling too awkward to actually sit with any of the people pouring into the ballroom, so I remained at my suddenly-too-large table, all by myself.

And then, shortly before dinner, I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

“Would you like to sit with us?” asked a woman I’d never met. I turned around to see that she was seated with her husband a few feet away. I thought that maybe they just felt sorry for me, but realized I didn’t care even if they did. It felt nice to be acknowledged and invited. So far that evening, I’d avoided approaching other tables for fear of intruding, but here was someone coming over to me. It took some of the pressure off immediately, so I accepted her gesture and joined them.

A few hours later, I was enjoying some delicious wedding cake for dessert, chatting and actually smiling. I’d been sitting with them all evening, having lively conversations about our jobs and our cats. We even discovered that we’d gone to the same high school, and reminisced about the past. All night, I’d expected to feel like the third wheel, as if I was somehow imposing on them, but they made me feel like I could truly be myself. Even more surprising, neither my single status nor my disability came up in conversation. At all.

For once, I felt like I blended in with the crowd. Maybe I’d created that sense of impending doom in my head before I even gave myself a chance to have a good time. Obviously trying new things can be incredibly scary, but I realized that doesn’t mean they’re destined to end in failure. When I relaxed and opened myself up to forming genuine connections with new people—regardless of whether I had someone else there with me to divert some of the attention—it was such a refreshing feeling. Somehow going to a wedding alone helped me feel more confident in myself. I was my own plus-one, and it turns out I’m a great date.

For the second time that night, I felt incredibly seen. This time it was in a good way.

Melissa Blake writes about relationships, disabilities, and pop culture. You can read her blog, So About What I Said, and follow her on Twitter.





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