Written by Nicole

One would think that with Christmas on our heels, everybody would have something better to do with their time that sling slurs around.

Noah Cyrus, Miley Cyrus’ sister, caught heat last week for calling conservative firebrand Candace Owens a nappy ass heaux. This retort was in response to Candace demanding to “bring back manly men” after Harry Styles was photographed wearing a dress for a magazine shoot.

As you may have noticed, I have shifted my attention to black women in my writing – I mean, I was always addressing black women, but now I’m really putting the magnifying glass on our collective. And this incident shows how there is truly no sisterhood at all. We cannot stay on code, because we pretty much hate each other. And, more than that, misogynoir is okay if you don’t like the recipient.

I hate Candace and you should too!!!

All through the comments sections on various platforms were black women clamoring to share how much they hate Candace. They had nothing to say about Noah’s insult towards her and black womanhood at large, but they wanted it to be clear that Candace was just the worst.

We are not a monolith (or so they say), so I get why Candace rubs some people the wrong way. But black women really took it to eleven with sharing their hatred of her, immediately pulling out raccoon gifs and that one gif of Daffy Duck tapdancing. And not only that, they did the crowd favorite – attacking her hair, just like Noah did. The nerve of Candace to have controversial opinions without 22 inches of Yaky Wavy Brazilian to back her up!

Some even went so far as to provide ammunition for next time.

Some admitted that Noah was wrong, and offered to do the dirty work in her place.

This is so crazy to me. And we turn around and complain and cry discrimination when Brad doesn’t give us a job because of our hair. But who hated our hair first, eh? I know my hair is a lot more similar to Candace’s than Noah’s, as are the follicles of black women siding with Noah over Candace. Yet here we are.

Out of curiosity, I hopped on more right-wing platforms to see what they were saying about this whole thing. I observed an interesting phenomenon. Not only did these ultra-conservative folks side with Candace, but when they voiced their distaste for Noah, they largely did not use her features to insult her, but her politics.

Some even drew parallels to 2007 when Don Imus said a similar thing.

Does that mean I’m siding with them? No. I am merely demonstrating that others stay on code. Even when they despise each other or their ideologies. A lesson we could very well learn.

Black women will let their hatred for one black woman cloud the bigger picture.

Let’s break it all the way down. If you notice, the screenshot says “any of u nappy ass heauxz”. One could reasonably assume that the “z” is meant to pluralize “heaux”, right?

So, in plain English, the caption reads “he wears this dress better than any of you nappy ass hoes”. Does that not paint us all with that same broad brush? “Any of you” is basically “all of you”, or “y’all” if you’re from the South. But you’re okay with this no-name woman doing it as long as Candace gets a negro wakeup call? Are you serious? Noah could have chosen Candace’s political views to address, but instead went for her appearance, and by the use of “any of you”, the appearance of black women in general. But because Candace says some painful but true things that gives Noah the right to say what she said.

The double standard strikes again!

This also highlights the curious case of conservative cancellation that I wrote about last month.  Black men can be vocal Republicans (which is their right, I can’t wrong them for acting in their individual best interests), and face zero backlash. Case in point: 50 Cent, Ice Cube, and whoever else. But black women dare not buck the expectation of voting blue no matter who. So, because Candace is a conservative Republican, that means she has opened herself up to criticism that has nothing to do with her political views, and everything to do with her being a woman who is black. Am I getting this right?

If Noah had called a black woman with more left-leaning views out her name, I wonder how this exchange would play out. Would black women declare how much they hate, say, Liberal LaKeisha before they went on to decry Cyrus’ comments, or would they #cancel Noah faster than they could say “beady beads”?

How about this – if a white woman of any political affiliation called a black man nappy ass anything, how do you think that would play out? One white woman had a slip of the tongue and said “naker” one time, and it is STILL being used to this day.  What do you think black women would be saying then?

And here’s another hypothetical – how do you think this would go if a white man, red or blue, called any black woman nappy? While I have my suspicions, I don’t have the answer – I merely pose those questions to shine a light on the double standards and have a think about how those scenarios might play out.

There is no such thing as black sisterhood.

What this incident showed is that black women will sanction misogynoir against their own likeness and image as long as the recipient is not in lockstep with the wider community. This is not the first time the so-called sisterhood showed its ass. Black women are still out here defending R. Kelly and Bill Cosby. Black women are on social media under posts about black girls and teenagers coming up pregnant or missing, and calling her fast and grown. None of the smoke is for the predators. A 15 year old apparently should have known better.If this is your sisterhood, please keep it.

Even if I hated a black woman from the very core of my being, if she was attacked for features that she and I share, my hatred of her would not need to be voiced at that moment. I don’t have to like you to recognize our shared humanity. But there is no code for black women to stay on, so incidents like this will continue. And we, in part, give the go ahead for it to continue.

Disclaimer: This blog was written by me, Nicole, and my ideas are not necessarily reflective of Christelyn Karazin or other writers on this platform.