Girl, Ebony

Ok, I’m trying to form this in recognition that it is based on a pool of errant thoughts I have had for some time, but never quite molded into a fully fleshed out coherent stream.

Wait, first lemme say fuck you to a lot of you. I’ve seen the pic and I’m not appending it to this post because I’m just not playing the game of “oooh let’s look at the decline of this woman and feel better about ourselves and keekee at it.” Also, odds are you’ve seen pics of Lil Kim before. So this new pic floating about is not so new. It’s a continuation of the path she’s been on for a while. So either way, you get the point. And that’s why I’m saying fuck you. ‘Cause you *do* get the point. The current fascination with her most recent… transformation (?) is just superficial gossipy shit that further perpetuates the notion that women are primarily/solely here for visual pleasure. People don’t deem her current image as visually pleasurable so she’s ripe for fodder. Fuck that as a concept. And fuck y’all for clowning her as if what she is doing is as superficial as her wearing white shoes after Labor Day or some shit.

She is ill. I say this as a mental health professional. We’re acting as if all we’re watching is someone wearing clothes that are fashion faux pas (whatever in the fuck that even means). She is modifying her body. Drastically. And repeatedly. She’s aspiring to whiteness. She is not the same chick from the Player’s Anthem video. That cute little girl, with the cute nose and short hair? I haven’t seen her since 97 or so.

I read an article years back that spelled it out better than I am right now. I can’t recall where (perhaps Village Voice), but it discussed the issues she was/is experiencing. Particularly, how Kim feels inferior to Faith because she loved Biggie and he chose her over Kim. They got married after knowing each other for about a couple of weeks (IIRC). If you’ve known a guy for years, loved him the entire time and he suddenly marries the super light skinned (half white) chick after knowing her half a minute, that’s gonna damage you.

And this does not occur in a vacuum. This also has the larger context of institutionalized racism, living in a world where lighter skinned women are considered inherently more attractive than you based on skin tone alone, where you are already marginalized due to race and gender. She’s Black. She’s a Black woman. She’s a darker skinned, Black woman. She’s a short haired, darker skinned, Black woman with Africanized features. 

Not to mention, she’s all of that and lives in the limelight. Her world is even more distorted than the world we live in. She has the means and opportunity to get plastic surgery and exists in a context where people that have a financial interest in her as a commodity are likely to be encouraging her to modify her body.

Other folks see her most recent look and think it’s funny. I think it’s sad. And I am genuinely worried about her. I sincerely think she is entering the realm of MJ. Potentially addicted to plastic surgery, possible body dysmorphic disorder, *definite* self-esteem issues. All classic MJ issues. We see people in pain and we laugh at them (Wacko Jacko, anyone?). There’s something severely wrong with a culture of people that laugh at others instead of having sympathy. She is ill, but we, too, have a disease.