Accountability and white forgiveness

Ethel Cain, oh how you've broken my heart

So, I just found out Ethel Cain is a racist. For those of you who have been reading my work over the last few months, you know that I adore Hayden’s music. I had a piece a while back discussing some of my favorite albums that explore the topic of death in different ways, Preacher’s Daughter being one of them. Regardless of the drama and controversy surrounding Ethel Cain’s lore and the stories she’s decided to tell through her music, I found her music to be incredibly moving and visceral. Nothing will change that for me. What has changed, however, is how her music will affect me moving forward.

I want to start by discussing transphobia and how it relates to Hayden. For years, she has had to endure awful, disgusting transphobic comments from people who were simply looking for any excuse to abuse her on the Internet. This, sadly, doesn’t come as a surprise. Being the first openly trans musician to land a top 10 album on the billboard charts doesn’t just mean success, but rather another opening for degenerates to bully and demean. In light of her recent controversies, that of her racism, incest t-shirt, etc., Hayden released a statement addressing everything that has been floating around recently. Truthfully, I can’t speak on anything else other than the racist comments she made because I simply don’t know enough about her other controversies. From what I can surmise, a lot of the outrage being thrown at her stems from rumors and hearsay that I don’t think should be entertained further because, quite frankly, many of them are rooted in transphobia. I’m here to talk about racism, and how society is so quick to forgive white people for racist a racist past when it isn’t their place to forgive them to begin with.

I’m sure most of you know about the Love Island drama concerning Cierra Ortega. If not, Ortega, a cast member on the latest season of the show, was recently kicked off due to her racist remarks about the Asian community. On multiple occasions, she used a very specific slur that, rightly so, upset a lot of people. The Internet was quick to call her out and in doing so, she was pulled off the show. This is a completely valid response. Someone like that doesn’t deserve to have a platform like the one Ortega had, and she quickly lost hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. It didn’t stop there though. Death threats to her and her family and continued bullying ensued, and while some may find such behavior justified, I don’t. Ortega is also a racist. She knew what that word meant, and she continued to use it to put others down, but the overwhelming reactions to her comments compared to Hayden’s have been interesting to say the least.

There are obvious differences, of course, mainly that Hayden is already no stranger to online harassment. What I’m talking about specifically, however, is how the majority of her audience has seemed to have given her a pass simply because her apology seemed “genuine.” Yes, an apology was necessary, and I’m certainly glad she gave one, but I don’t share other people’s sentiments about her authenticity on the matter. Hayden’s statement begins somewhat fine. She says that, “I was entirely aware of what I was saying and that was why I said it” and “all I can say is that I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, to anyone who read it then and to anyone reading it now. Any way you feel about me moving forward is valid.” She, unfortunately, continues by saying that the reason for her comments were really to make her friends laugh and to get attention, which, quite frankly, is a fucking ridiculous reason to say those things. I didn’t know any 19 year olds who said the n-word that weren’t racists. Other than her having to address other controversies, this, I think, should have been the end of it. She was outed for saying awful things, she apologized, she won’t do it again, end of story, right? Well, no, not exactly.

Again, while I can’t speak on the other issues she addressed, there is something that truly rubbed me the wrong way about the rest of her lengthy statement, and it’s that she attempted to pin the blame on the person who outed her for her comments to begin with, saying that this was all a part of a “smear campaign,” stating that whoever released those screenshots doesn’t actually care about justice. This may very well be true, but at this point, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about what the person’s intentions were, all I care about is that they revealed to me that Hayden is not who she has portrayed herself to be. She was caught being a bad person, she apologized, and then immediately diverted blame on to someone else. That isn’t accountability, and considering the vast majority of positive reactions from her fans, it doesn’t seem to matter. Hayden has dealt with countless hardships, yes, but white privilege still exists, and I can’t help but see that privilege when I look at her and Ortega. The fact of the matter is that if she hadn’t been racist, this smear campaign she rambled on about wouldn’t have any validity. As I continued reading, it became clear to me that she doesn’t actually care about how her comments made people feel, but that she feels embarrassed that those comments got out. I don’t need her fanbase to tell me she’s a product of her environment, or that she’s had a tough life, or that it was a long time ago, or that she’s changed. Excuses for racism are never okay, and anyone who defends this kind of behavior needs to check themselves and their privilege. Just because she’s an amazing musician, doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be held to the same standards as any other person.

I wish I could say I’m shocked about how forgiving her fanbase has been over the last few days, but I’m not. The majority of her listeners are white. To them, this is nothing more than a small smudge on her career, a mistake that can be forgiven and forgotten. It’s easy for them to move on because they haven’t been the victims of racism or “jokes” that others insist shouldn’t be taken seriously. She isn’t apologizing to white people. Her comment about building a wall weren’t to keep white people out of the US. Her use of the n-word wasn’t directed towards white people. So why on earth do white people have the audacity to tell people like me that we should forgive her? Why on earth are white people comfortable enough to say that they forgive her? What do you forgive her for exactly? How have her comments and her actions hurt you? These are, of course, rhetorical questions. White people, once again, remain unscathed, including Hayden herself. White forgiveness is a powerful thing in a society that values white opinions more than anything else, and I’m sure she let out a sigh of relief when she saw her image, temporarily tarnished, sure, intact, and that she can continue her album rollout like nothing ever happened.