If money is power and more women acquire money, then relationships should be more equitable, right? Sadly, no. Patriarchy is moldable, ever-shifting and ever-moving, ensnaring even women as successful as actor, musician and social media maven Keke Palmer, whose boyfriend and father of her child took to social media Wednesday to publicly shame her about an outfit she wore to Las Vegas.
Patriarchy is moldable, ever-shifting and ever-moving, ensnaring even women as successful as actor, musician and social media maven Keke Palmer.
This week, Palmer became one of the many regular people and celebrities alike who’ve journeyed to Vegas to see Usher in residency. If you’ve been fortunate enough to attend his performance, then you’ll remember Usher traversing the crowd with a spotlight trailing him as he stops to greet fellow celebrities who’ve come to see him. He also serenades audience members. Trust me, it’s an experience!
When Usher saw Palmer, she screamed, they hugged and then they began crooning Usher's song “There Goes My Baby” together, their lips mere inches apart. As a video of their moment spread across social media, there was one person who wasn’t fond of the interaction: Darius Jackson, Palmer’s boyfriend, with whom she shares a 5-month-old.
“It’s the outfit tho,” Jackson tweeted about Palmer’s black see-through dress, which was overlaid on a black bodysuit. “You a mom.”
At first, it seemed to maybe be an inside joke between the couple, but when people objected to his criticism, Jackson doubled down. “We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife and mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others and he gets told how much of a hater he is,” he tweeted, before adding, “This is my family and my representation. I have standards and morals to what I believe. I rest my case.”
Though Twitter seems to be tottling on its last legs, Black Twitter revived itself to toss as many verbal blows at Jackson as humanly possible. There was incisive commentary about patriarchy mixed with hilarious jokes and memes, mixed with dragging up and ragging on Jackson’s previous internet indiscretions. Taken together, it was Black Twitter at its absolute finest hour, and given the rush of people looking for other social media platforms, it may have been Black Twitter's last hurrah.
Initially, Jackson engaged with the tweets coming his way. Then he seemingly deactivated his account for about 12 hours. Then he resurfaced Thursday evening.
One tweet, in particular, captured the overall sentiment: “Instead of being dope and gassing new mama having fun, you chose to try and check her with a gossip blog quote, in front of the world?” user @RevereRomance tweeted. “Why did you feel compelled to do such a thing?”
As of Thursday evening, Palmer hadn’t responded to the backlash her boyfriend received, but it should go without saying that she belongs to herself and herself alone.
As of Thursday evening, Palmer hadn’t responded to the backlash her boyfriend received, but it should go without saying that she belongs to herself and herself alone. It doesn’t matter that she’s in a relationship or that she has a child; her body is hers. A person she’s in a relationship with shouldn’t feel entitled to tell her how to adorn it — not even in private. But that person especially shouldn't feel entitled to do so publicly.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Palmer has been photographed in outfits that could be considered “provocative,” with Jackson himself even sharing a video of her in an outfit that accentuated her body while bragging about what giving birth has done to it. So, then, why would Jackson choose this specific moment to call her out, publicly at that? Maybe it was her proximity to Usher and not her outfit that bothered him the most?
We’re all indoctrinated into a patriarchal system that tells men and those who identify as male that women and femmes aren’t their equals, especially once they’ve had a child. Instead, women are property, and in this arrangement, property needs to be protected and hoarded over, rather than loved and cared for. It’s an age-old problem that feminists have been attempting to solve for centuries. Progress seemed to have been made when women were able to enter the workforce and sometimes, as in Palmer’s case, become the breadwinners of their households.
You would think that a beloved and successful actor, entrepreneur and social media queen would be immune to the trials the average Black woman faces while attempting to romantically partner with a man, but even she has to be publicly embarrassed by a man who presumes that their sharing of said child entitles him to publicly denounce her when he doesn’t like what she’s wearing.
We're living in the time of the manosphere, when online influencers are encouraging Black men and women to lean into conservative “family values” that re-create a hierarchy in relationships.
Unfortunately, we’re living in the time of the manosphere, when online influencers are encouraging Black men and women to lean into conservative “family values” that re-create a hierarchy in relationships in an effort to re-establish “order” in the Black community. It’s not just about prioritizing family; it’s also about being as respectable as possible, down to what we wear.
Underneath it all, though, is a disdain for Black women, even for those in relationships with them. In a 2022 piece for Elle magazine Nicole Young interviewed the founder of "Save Yourself Black Men" and wrote, “Toxic archetypes of Black womanhood—the mammy, the Black matriarch, the jezebel (or the Scraggle Daggle, in SYSBM parlance), and the welfare mother—are all alive and well in the Black Manosphere.” Rejecting these archetypes makes a Black woman more worthy of being partnered with; dressing in a way that shows your body, then, is an offense worthy of public excoriation.
It doesn't matter if Jackson isn't a member of this community; its influence is ever-growing, ensnaring even those who may not watch the specific YouTube videos targeted toward the community. This kind of behavior isn’t solved simply by women earning more money. A dismantling of the system is required, a dismantling of the worldview that convinces men that women can be owned and that having a child obligates her to be less sexual, and that she has no identity that’s independent of the relationship she’s in.
Palmer has always been outspoken. She’s been honest about the music industry being sexist and dominated by men, about single mothers being underappreciated, about the alleged harassment she faced from another artist, about colorism in Hollywood, and about the hypersexualization of Black girls and women. It wouldn’t be surprising if she publicly addresses what her boyfriend did and expresses her displeasure that he attempted to publicly shame her. But, there’s also a high likelihood that she may never address this moment publicly. After all, she’s a high-profile celebrity who likely has a legion of agents, managers and publicists around her who may advise her to simply move on. She doesn’t owe any of us anything.
However, as Palmer, whom Usher referred to as the “big boss” on Instagram, continues presenting herself as a millennial powerhouse who values her independence and refuses to be confined by industry or life standards, here’s hoping that her messaging aligns with her personal choices. In a world in which Black women of all ages and all tax brackets are often treated as if we’re disposable, a message from Palmer vowing not to take such disrespect would resonate. What would we want her to say? Don’t ever settle, even after having a child with someone.
We all deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, to be loved and cared for, and wearing a mesh dress to a concert in Vegas, of all places, shouldn’t mean being publicly lambasted by those who profess to love us. If Jackson has received that message from Palmer, then it was private. But let’s hope he also learned the same lesson from the well-deserved public thrashing he took. Let’s also hope it stops him from instilling the same sexist nonsense into the couple’s young son.