A Nuanced Conversation About Mo'Nique and Bonnets
By: Naima “Queen” Muhammad
A Nuanced Conversation About Mo’ Nique Bonnets
I tried, I seriously tried to stay away from the bonnet conversation, but like a moth to a flame, I here, even though I don’t want to be. About a month ago, I was on Facebook, and I saw a post that said, all Black women should come together and wear our bonnets in protest. I was with it ’cause I just love any kind of Black fun that counters respectability. My mind burst with excitement. Where is this bonnet con happening cause I want to go?! Little did I know about the foolishness that birth all of this. Comedian and Oscar award-winning actor Mo’ Nique decided to get on Instagram live to shame Black women for wearing bonnets and pajamas in public, and the world went to shits. I was already over it and didn’t even want to publicly speak about a damn bonnet and couldn’t understand why everyone wanted to crucify Mo’ Nique for saying regular elder aunty shit we all usually ignore at the family reunion anyway. We swat silly comments like that so often, and I wondered why we cared so much about it this time?
Although I did indulge in those jokes, the Black internets is funny as fuck; I avoided most podcasts, youtube videos, and essays reacting to it. It wasn’t because I agreed with Mo ‘Nique, cause I don’t, but mostly because I didn’t feel harmed in the process. I had resolved my conflicted feelings about respectability and what society said Black women should look like a very long time ago. I felt distant from the conversation because I had that conversation so many times before with myself and people around me that I was done with it. When I was younger, in the early 2000’s I remember thinking the things Mo’ Nique said cause honestly, the world was much nicer to me when I met their standard of presentability. There were so many levels of respectability and how we have used it to survive not just whiteness but with each other, that makes it difficult for me to dismiss Mo’Nique for her video.
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Fat, Black, dark skin women are treated horribly, and we’ve allowed it. Although I would love for desirability and how we treat people not to be connected, it is. We learn that fat, Black, dark skin women deserve their treatment early in life and can handle whatever is given to them. Those intersections of her identity leave hardly any room for any privilege; no specialness is afforded to anyone who looks like her. I disagree with Mo’ Nique’s statements about bonnets or pajamas in public, but I get why she thinks appearance matters in that way. She’s a Black, fat dark skin woman; the standard of appearance is VERY different for her. Coming correct is something very different living in the body she lives in. I wear bonnets in public, and I know what that means. I’ll be poorly treated cause of my darker complexion; I’m sure that triples being fat. Being darker skin with my hair type, I could just leave the house looking anyway I want, but it will significantly affect how I am treated by other people, especially other Black people. We all navigate surviving these ridiculous societal norms differently. I cope by not giving a fuck about the communities standards, and she seems to have managed by assimilating to the bs standard.
Mo’ Nique’s intersections clearly explain why she would assume dignity and safety in altering appearances to fit societal norms. We have seen her physically transform to do so, and her Instagram page looks pretty dedicated to taking us along on her fitness journey. She’s also always soft-spoken and delivers loving messages, a delivery I’m sure she learned so she won’t come off so aggressive. Her intersections may also be why people went so hard to vocally reject her stance on bonnets and pajamas worn in public. An undertone of “this fat, dark skin bitch better not EVER tell me how to appear in public” seem to heighten as the conversation continued almost a month later. I am confident that if “don’t wear bonnets” was said this by someone who isn’t fat and light-skinned, it wouldn’t have caused such an uproar. We would’ve just gone on about our business and paid her dust.
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Remember Da’Nia Jackson, wife of Derrick Jackson? After Derrick Jackson, the viral Facebook “relationship expert,” was exposed in March for cheating on his wife. He released a video of him confessing to adultery as she sat next to him in a bonnet. The Black internets dragged her appearance. So much that she released a video on her Instagram defending her hair covering. Where was the defense of bonnets then? Most of the people engaged in that discussion, making fun Da’Nia’s appearance, bonnet included, chastised her for what she wore in the video with her husband. The call for protecting Black women’s appearance seems to be only under the right conditions. I rarely saw anyone defend her right to dress cozy and according to her comfort levels. Tabitha Brown also comes to my mind. The consensus is Black people like her. She can probably say anything because of her likability, respectability, and desirability. They’ll be space for her to not be so great in peace, which was proven when she clapped back at Wendy Williams a few weeks ago (I have lots of thoughts on that, that I will maybe get into at another time). Who we like and treat nicely is so tied up in respectability, yet somehow we miss when we perpetrated it.
Photo Credit: news.yahoo.com
It’s interesting when Black people talk to each other about Black people, and we somehow bring white people into the discussion. We commit respectability harm amongst ourselves without white people even being in the room. It was strange hearing folks compare our cozy clothing in the airport to how white people dress. Who gives a fuck what white people do, and why would white people dressing cozy at the airport, too, be rebuttal for a discussion that doesn’t involve them? They shouldn’t be centered as the standard for us to say we can do it too. Mo’Nique never mentioned white people or white gaze; she specifically mentioned looks and treatment being connected, which is true. Da’Nia Jackson was treated horrible, blamed for her husband cheating because of how she looked. No grace, care, or concern for her or her bonnet.
Throughout the 5 minute video, Mo’ Nique doesn’t mention white people or white gaze, but most implied that’s who she was centering. That reveals to me where most Black people center their watch, the white standard. It’s disappointing to see us still center on white folks in conversations we’re having among ourselves. Are we not tired of doing that? The fact of the matter is, we condemn those who we don’t like or the folks that respectability says are okay to dispose of. The disposal of a fat, dark-skinned Black woman is easy to do and very low-hanging fruit. I firmly believe the statement about bonnets wouldn’t have mattered if someone else said it because we are all guilty of treating people based on the same respectability politics we criticized Mo’ Nique for expressing. We all have to do better.
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