My sister wanted me to buy her this TeeSpring, so naturally – having no clue what it referenced – I checked out the shirt’s creator, CaShawn aka The Pretty Brown Girl of the blog Dirty Pretty Things. I scrolled down the page and came across this post. I had some things to say, but the comments were closed, so…
For those too lazy to click the link, a little backstory first. A friend of The Pretty Brown Girl (PBG) was hyping her shirt on Facebook when a male friend of hers asked, “Are they paying you to promote these?!”
First – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this question. In the world we live in, it’s hard to decipher what’s legit and what’s an ad. Marketers know we trust our friends so any opportunity to show you “Kelly bought this” or “Samir liked that” is a possible sale. It was a genuine question. The interrobang wasn’t necessary but his excitement is explained later:
I’ve seen a lot of posts about the t-shirts from you so I wasn’t sure if you were affiliated in any way… Odd? No. Observant? absolutely.
My problem is with the way these ladies (PBG & her friend) handled the situation. PBG’s friend answered her male friend’s question with:
-side eye-
That’s it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what set things off. Instead of politely answering his question, she gave him attitude. Lady, you’re spamming his wall! He can ask a simple question! I know this doesn’t seem like much, but the conversation quickly escalated from there. The male friend asked why he was getting attitude to which PBG & her friend finally gave the polite answer he was looking for… but by then the damage was done. The male friend pointed out the unnecessary attitude (with too much attitude himself, I should add) and the conversation downward spiraled into a war of Angry Black Women tropes.
I don’t believe the male friend was right to respond so heated. But I do believe this conflict could have been avoided if PBG or her friend simply answered his question. They were offended when there was no offense to be made. When you’re fighting an uphill battle—talking to you WOC & women in general—you absolutely need to pick your battles. I’m not saying you have to be perfect and always poised.
There are a lot of things to get angry about with our current society. A LOT. We’re treated so poorly and most of the population is blind to it! But if you start picking fights for every mistreatment, you are going to be angry all the time. As activists and advocates, we need to think about when and where to be outspoken. Every opportunity to enlighten is also an opportunity to misguide others and hurt our own cause.
If PBG or her friend truly felt wronged, they could have simply pointed it out to this dude. Instead, they threw the feeling of being wronged back at him and it became a game of hot potato with everybody’s hands getting burned.
Pick your battles, ladies. It sucks that society is against us. But if you yelled every time you were wronged, you’d lose your voice and make everyone around you deaf.
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