Blac Chyna: A Black Female Pedestal for White Female Supremacy

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by Catherine Saunders

Angela White, the public figure known to many as Blac Chyna, has maintained a consistent place in contemporary media because of her relationship with Robert “Rob” Kardashian Jr..

Kardashian, unlike his famous family, has spent much of the last few years out of the limelight. Kardashian has become somewhat of a recluse after gaining a significant amount of weight and appearing far less confident than supporters of the franchise recall from his early days in the spotlight.

Rob’s return to the spotlight could not have been more dramatic. Last year, he emerged from his sisters’ shadow with the former lover of his little sister’s then boyfriend, Black Chyna,  on his arm.

Their drama appeared made for television, and it was. The drama fueled more wealth and attention to the Kardashian brand via a Keeping up with the Kardashians spinoff, Rob & Chyna.

Now the very public breakup of the couple few were rooting for in the first place has the contemporary media in a frenzy. The responses, are predictably damning for Chyna, labeling her a money-hungry whore who alienated Kardashian after getting what she wanted—his child and the glory of birthing the sole Kardashian grandchild to bear the family name.

My question for all those critical of Chyna is the following:

What makes Chyna different from the Kardashian women?
The comparison between Chyna and former friend Kim is obvious. Kim, a woman who became a public figure when her private moments surfaced online over a decade ago, is the white version of Chyna. Both women have ample derrieres, full bosoms, long hair, and long eyelashes—aiming to capture a universal beauty with multicultural attributes. Yet, despite their appropriation of black beauty to season conventional western attributes, both Chyna and Kim desire to attain white female supremacy.

While the similarity between Chyna and the most popular Kardashian sister may be conspicuous, less overt is the comparison between Chyna and the Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner. Now, the author notes that Jenner and the elder Robert Kardashian were married for a decade before her indiscretion.

The author also notes that to many Jenner loved her first husband, contrary to how most conceptualize Chyna’s sentiments towards the younger Kardashian. This post however, solely gages the similarity of women who endure romantic relationships with conventionally successful men. The attribute of conventional success makes it difficult to measure the motives of any party involved, but the connotation that accompanies  black bodies leads many to label Chyna what they would hesitate to label a white woman.

Marriage does mean something, but white women have always been granted a legitimacy withheld from the black female body. This illegitimacy also functions as it did during slavery, to the detriment of the black woman not the white man who planted her seed in her womb without the conjugal sanctity of marriage.  Furthermore, Chyna exhibits similar behavior to the Kardashian matriarch in a dissolved loyalty for a man who funded her lavish lifestyle. These actions, while similar, stem from vastly different motives.

The motive for the Kardashians sexuality is dominance. Black female sexuality, on the other hand, is a matter of life and death. Chyna’s actions function as a means to overcome racists an sexist conflicts. Her attempts however are thwarted by white ex-lover Robert Kardashian who desecrates the temple she so desperately worked to deify, by airing her dirty laundry and genitalia for the world to cast their eyes and criticism.

The black female body, of course, is innately sexualized by the white male gaze. Whether an academic, astronaut, cook, dentist, doctor, or lawyer the black female is a presumably hyper sexual agent. As bell hooks says in Ain’t I a Woman, “Baby, you could be Jesus in drag—but if you’re brown they’re sure you’re selling” (hooks 58)!

So despite the distance many black women maintain from Blac Chyna and her behavior, to the western gaze, Blac Chyna is the black woman in her fullest and most raw form.

The most prevalent difference between Chyna and the Kardashians is of course race.
Yet coverage corresponding to the Rob and Chyna drama deflects from race, and uses the black female plight to consummate womanhood to push the feminist agenda—an agenda that will solely benefit white women. To clarify, feminism despite what modifying adjective precedes the term is for those solely marginalized by gender. To the being who stands at the intersectionality of race and gender, feminism hands you gloves in the freezing cold leaving your head, feet and torso frigid in the harsh cold air of global racism.

It is the feminist agenda that paints the KKK (The Kardashian Clan) as women simply trying to survive in a male dominated world, and Chyna as a white-washed jezebel incongruent to domesticity.

It is the feminist agenda that duplicates women like Blac Chyna, black females who seek to reap benefits for bearing female genitals. But as demonstrated in Rob’s actions, the black female body is inevitably destined for desecration in exposure and systemic mutilation.

Turning a racist matter into a solely sexist issue is yet another attempt of the western world to push other minority issues but ignore racism. Dissolving homophobia, sexism, ageism, and capitalism causes subjugated whites to elevate but still allows for racism to foment. As bell hooks boldly asserted in Ain’t I a Woman “ Systematic devaluation of black womanhood was not simply a direct consequence of race hatred, it was a calculated method of social control” (hooks 59).
Feminists maintain racist control as white female supremacists-- soliciting black female advocacy and support simultaneously steering attention away from black issues that consume those bearing the burden of both blackness and femininity.

It is the western desire to maintain global supremacy through racism that allow issues like feminism and gay rights to dominate contemporary conversations regarding change without engaging the intersectionalities that exists in these factions. Blac Chyna may seem insignificant in the larger portrait of issues plaguing the black collective, but she illustrates the systemic deflection that awaits the modern black body still bruised by traditional ideologies of whiteness.

To be clear, I in no way feel sorry for Blac Chyna. In fact, I do not see anything “black” about her besides her [altered] phenotype. However, whether willing or unwilling, she is a part of the black female collective and a viable tool in thwarting our progress.

Moreover, may her sexual relationship and fall out with a white man who fathered her child admonish those seduced by the temptation to dilute black pain with interracial sex. May Kardashian’s white male rage prompted by seeing seeing Chyna sexually engaged with black men remind the black collective of the brutal and often fatal consequences our ancestors faced for identical actions.

The KKK and their black accessories color the contemporary world with the red blood of the African holocaust, illustrating the danger of miscegenation and “keeping up” with klansmen (and women) who wear black culture as tokens of conquest.


Catherine is a doctoral student an the pen behind the perspective at whispersofawomanist.com.

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