I just thought she was a mediocre pop singer who’s clearly on the cusp of some sort of emotional breakdown. But I suppose she can be both.

Someone calling herself Ninjacate, at the delightfully named blog Groupthink, has a theory about Cyrus’ performance at that stupid awards show the other night:

Jezebel’s piece on the performance chose to focus on the slut shaming that has been thrown Miley’s way in the wake of the performance. All fine and good. Slut shaming is bad, don’t do it. On that we can all agree. What it didn’t acknowledge was the incredibly racist nature of that performance. So I brought it up.

Okay…. but can we talk about the problematic and racist nature of her performance? Her literal use of people as props? Her association of her newfound sexuality with the traditional codifiers of black female culture, thereby perpetuating the Jezebel stereotype that black women are lewd, lascivious and uncontrollably sexualized? Can we talk about the straight up minstrelsy of that performance? Can we talk about how not a single black person won an award last night even though the people who did win awards have been mining black music and culture for years?

No? Ok… I’ll just sit at the back of the bus then. #solidarityisforwhitewomen

See the problem isn’t that they talked about slut shaming. That deserves attention. The problem is that they completely sidestepped the other glaring teddy bear in the room, and that is the commodification of black female sexuality in Miley’s performance. But it’s not a thing that white women deal with, so it didn’t warrant inclusion or discussion by the white-led mainstream feminist media.

So I’ll include it here. What Miley did last night was easily one of the most racist displays I’ve ever seen. From her insistence on twerking, to her use of all black women as literal props (they were teddy bears) to her smacking of her dancer’s ass and the simulation of rimming, it is very clear to me, that Miley thinks that black women’s bodies are to be enjoyed, devalued and put on display for entertainment purposes…

Here’s the thing: historically, black women have had very little agency over their bodies. From being raped by white slave masters to the ever-enduring stereotype that black women can’t be raped, black women have been told over and over and over again, that their bodies are not their own. By bringing these “homegirls with the big butts” out onto the stage with her and engaging in a one-sided interaction with her ass, (not even her actual person!) Miley has contributed to that rhetoric. She made that woman’s body a literal spectacle to be enjoyed by her legions of loyal fans. Not only was that the only way that Miley interacted with any of the other people onstage with her, but all of her backup dancers were “black women with big butts” as Violet_Baudelaire so astutely pointed out. So not only are black women’s bodies being used as props, but they are also props that are only worthy of interaction if that interaction involves sexualization.

Etc., etc. Okay then, Miley Cyrus is a big ol’ racist. Why not? After all, she’s white. Hell, she’s from Tennessee! That’s all you need to know. Definitely a racist.

Read the whole thing, if you feel like that’s a good use of your precious time on this planet.

After making you slog through that, you deserve a treat. This is great, especially if you’re a fan of Breaking Bad:

(Hat tip: Rachel Ayn Pickens)