my response to the “blacklash”

The following is a comment left on my most recent post, along with my reply. I hope this clears things up and that people can see where I’m coming from, how this whole mess happened and more importantly accept my apology.

Filomena:
I’m sad this ended so disappointingly, because I think you’re smart, hilarious (beautiful, sry to be so shallow, bb) and I really loved yr vid. While I liked that guy’s response a LOT, his was just one of many, and it’s weird that you don’t see how problematic it was to set him above everyone else. You have to understand that it’s a world of frustrating to see white people lauded for saying the same stuff we’ve been saying and ignored for— it’s more frustrating when fellow PoC’s perpetuate the idea of the white knight who takes up our cause and makes us palatable to the rest of the white people.

Shit black girls do to other black girls, dismiss them while favoring the one decent white dude who agrees with them…hopefully not from some sort of self-hate, but to give their arguments clout.

hey Filomena, thanks for your comment and for explaining where you and so many other commenters are coming from in such a respectful way. One of the main issues I’ve had since this whole thing took place is that many of the reblogs were really harsh and filled with insults and profanity. Because of that it was really difficult for me to glean the message without being turned off completely. This has been really tough for me because I’m really trying my best to be understanding and respectful without being passive aggressive or rude, but it seems I’m failing at every turn. That’s one of the pitfalls of communicating online. Truthfully, I just wasn’t prepared for hundreds of nasty emails and thousands of nasty comments. So while I thought I was tough enough to handle negative remarks, in reality, I’m human and I still have a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do. With that being said, I hope this turns out right lol

Yes, I’ve gotten lots of video responses (meaning videos posted via YouTube’s video response comment system), but most of them are parodies and not actual vlogs about the video. The few vlogs I’ve received have been negative and not from POC. The 2 video responses I received from black women, I commented on and thanked them for but didn’t post them on my blog because they were really long. One was 13 minutes and I believe the other was 15. One of the videos included clips from my video which kinda bothered me, but I didn’t press it because I appreciated her feedback. The other video rambled for awhile before addressing the topic. So my intention wasn’t to discredit their responses or suggest that their voice wasn’t important, I just didn’t post either of them because I like videos that are short and concise. When I said “his was the best” I didn’t mean because he’s white, I meant because he addressed the topic quickly and in a way that people could relate to and understand.

As of right now, I don’t have any vlog video responses in my inbox from POC, and to my knowledge I haven’t received email links to vlogs about the video. But as of right now I have around 200 unread emails, so there might be some in there. After doing a search on YouTube I see that a lot of people have posted their own vlogs, but unless they’re posted as responses on my video I’m not sent a link to them directly, which is why I haven’t seen them. Futuretalk’s video was posted on my Facebook wall by one of my viewers and that’s how I ended up watching it. To my knowledge I haven’t had any other responses posted on my Facebook or sent directly to me so I haven’t seen them. I don’t have anyone helping me sift through messages so it’s possible that some have been posted and have been caught as spam or have gotten passed over because of the multitude of posts.

So you’re right. In retrospect, seeing that many POC have posted vlogs about the video, it appears as if I’m saying their videos don’t matter and that this one does because he’s white. That was never my intention and I sincerely apologize to anyone that made a video response and felt I was discrediting their voice by posting this one over theirs. In reality, I haven’t seen many of those videos because they weren’t posted as video responses (using YouTube’s video response box) or sent to me via email or Facebook. I want to encourage anyone that’s posted videos about “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” to email them to me or post on my Facebook so I can see them and continue the discussion. Thanks again for sharing how you felt, I have a better understanding after reading your comment and hope that people have a better understanding after reading my reply.