Sunday’s Sermons: I Pose as a Black Woman on the Internet

I don’t think one can ever really know what it’s like to be another person. I might utterly despise someone like former President Bush, but I really don’t know what it’s like to be him. That being said, it’s very true that he absolutely doesn’t know what it’s like to be me, poor, or a woman, or a minority, etc.

However, this being media issues week on Alabama Liberal, I decided to go one step further and dive into the role playing the internet provides. I created a facebook profile as a black woman and decided to explore what difference there was in the treatment I received. Now before anyone thinks I’ve gone off the deep end of shady or strange behavior, I would like to say that I posted pretty much as I always do on facebook (political, unromantic, slightly impersonal). The only thing I really changed was my name, profile picture, and a few bits of information. I’ll describe the results I got under two different profile pictures:

1. The Beautiful Black Woman: I went and found about the hottest picture I could of a black woman in a yellow bikini, and backed it up with several of the roughly 5,000 pictures I found of this one woman modeling under every possible condition: at the beach, at the mall, at a friend’s house, at the toilet (seriously). Needless to say, the treatment I got was best under this profile.

I could have said almost anything and gotten men to agree with me. A simple comment of “I really like cheese” would have been greeted as profound. [“Hey I really like what you said about cheese. What’s your number?”] It will surprise no one that guys were ultra friendly no matter how many times I told them to fuck off (generally speaking, black men almost seem to enjoy this because they come on even stronger after being told it, not all but generally), but it surprised me that women also treated me better. Not all women, but generally the treatment was better, even if non-black women pretty much treated me as an idiot. I guess everyone wants to be friends with the pretty girl.

However, there was a pretty dark side to this attention. Guys don’t take “I’m really just here to talk politics, and am not interested in meeting anyone” well no matter how politely you say it. There were about ten black men calling me “beautiful angel” one minute but saying things I wouldn’t call my worst enemy the next even if I had been very respectful in turning them down. Ultra sexual Middle Eastern men were probably even worse than that (I have a strong suspicion my alter ego would get raped in Turkey), but I couldn’t make out half of what they were saying.

Black Women: Extremely favorable to this persona. Very encouraging and supportive and gave me very positive comments on my looks. It was almost like a support group I wasn’t asking for, but I have to admit, it felt good.

White Women: Seemed to want to be my friend or go drinking. But sort of treated me more like a pet than an equal person, left an aftertaste of resentment if I’m just being totally honest.

East Indian/Asian Women: Most negative, treated me like a complete idiot.

Spanish Women: Largely ignored me.

White Men/Spanish Men: Cautiously interested in getting to know me. Asked me out but usually dropped it after being told no.

Black Men/Middle Eastern: Most sexual, persistent, very complimentary in the beginning but still (usually) framed it as if I should be lucky they’re talking to me.

2. The Business Professional/Philosopher: I just basically changed the pictures to a less obviously attractive woman (although still very pretty) in a business suit, changed my job from aspiring model to philosophy professor, and posted as intelligently as I had under the first handle. However, almost everyone treated me like an idiot.

Black Women: Very favorable and supportive of this persona, especially ones that may have been prettier than it, perhaps fishing for a plainer best friend type. When it came to the content of what I was saying, this group paid much more attention to it from my alter ego than they usually do from me. Sometimes the Wisconsin protests are seen as a white guy talking about what’s seen as a white problem of mostly white Wisconsin schoolteachers losing their benefits that doesn’t necessarily impact them directly. The lily white protesters at the capital in Wisconsin and the ultra white Tea Party may look eerily similar to someone less familiar with the union’s fight. Under the handle of this woman, much more notice was taken of it.

Black Men: Respectful, sweet, but mostly just paying polite attention to a “sister” that they think of as more of an actual sister. The older guys were really nice, some really older ones creepily so. The younger ones just want me talking about liberal causes that might benefit them, but not too many takers on asking me for a date.

White Women: Ignored me wholesale, wouldn’t have noticed if I had been posting ice cream recipes or my suicide note.

Spanish Women: Wanted to be my friend.

Middle Eastern Men/Spanish Men: Still approached me sexually, especially if they thought I was rich.

East Indian/Asian Women: Ignored me, but with a slight edge of hostility. Treated anything I said as less than intelligent.

White Men: Hard to say. Some asked for a date, some bent over backwards to show me they weren’t a racist, and some conservatives who probably don’t talk to black people face to face unless they have to were very quick to bring up affirmative action, ACORN, and Obama playing the race card even when it wasn’t relevant to the discussion at all. A generally favorable group, but the most variety in terms of the responses I got. Some responses were very negative and went for my intelligence right off the bat.

All and all I would say it surprised me that the first thing most groups of people went after was my intelligence. It just generally seemed like calling me an idiot was a lot more accepted than calling me a racial slur…even if that might have been what they wanted to say.

When I post stuff as myself conservatives just treat me like some fool white kid that wants to “give” everything away to minorities. To them, it’s less that I’m an idiot than I’m just something resembling a communist. Under the mask of a black woman, to conservatives it was less that I was of a different but equally valid political persuasion than it was I was just an idiot that didn’t understand the ramifications of what I believed, and needed a “smarter” race like Asians or white people to make sense of it for me.