The Crooked Room and Kavanaugh: How Should We Respond?

Several days ago a video of an African American woman ripping apart posters and yelling at a group of people on a UTexas campus who were supporting Brett Kavanaugh surfaced on twitter. This popularized quickly, gaining 12,000 retweets and 61,000 favorites or likes. The person recording the video was laughing at the woman, showing that the recorder of the video may have agreed with the message of the Kavanaugh supporters. One twitter user quoted the tweet and added a caption which defended the woman acting in a way which was, to the twitter user, revolutionary. This discourse further adds to the tension regarding the Kavanaugh hearings as well as to the crooked room concept, which asserts that black women are often portrayed in media in ways which are stereotypical, and that their own perception of themselves may be distorted as a result of that lack of accurate representation, whereas someone else (a white woman, for instance) never has to defend themselves or think so critically because they will never be limited to such an intense capacity. This woman most likely feared for her reputation and the reputation of black women generally when she chose to act with force, but the situation at hand was extremely demanding of a response; how could she not? African American women often have to choose between standing up for themselves or perpetuating a stereotype.