“I especially want to note that if the picture had captured one of those men staring between my wide-open legs, this would be a totally different conversation.”
“‘This came from a journalist who is not happy that Donald Trump is the President, but I just want people to focus on the great work of the HCBU presidents and how honored we were to have them here. I was excited about the picture I’d just taken of the distinguished leaders of the universities that once served as the only institutions people with brown skin could attend.
I recognize the impression that the picture has left people with and acknowledge the discomfort my posture may have created for the men directly across from me. I especially want to note that if the picture had captured one of those men staring between my wide-open legs, this would be a totally different conversation.”
Over on Facebook
SharlaLaurin
I find this to be a blatantly racist microaggression (if blatant microaggression isn’t an oxymoron). it’s the white woman using body language to throw up the message that ‘you’re in my house. i can do whatever i want here without regard for you.’. it’s disrespectful of her audience, a room full of black men and a few black women, as well as a white woman striking a vaguely sexual pose as a taunt to a room full of black men in what should be a setting where everyone respects everyone else in the room, simply due to the nature of the room itself. it’s othering. it’s ‘i belong and you don’t’. and it’s disgusting, not for the lack of feminine demurity, but for the lack of adhering to the social norms of mutual respect in the setting.