Zinzi Clemmons has condemned Lena Dunham’s ‘hipster racism’, saying: ‘She cannot have our words if she cannot respect us.’

In a statement on her Twitter and Facebook pages, Clemmons says she will no longer write for Lenny Letter, the online feminist weekly newsletter founded by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner.

Dunham was at the centre of a controversy last week when she defended writer Murray Miller, who wrote for her TV show Girls, from an accusation of rape by actress Aurora Perrineau. Dunham has since said she regrets casting doubts on Perrineau’s allegation.

Clemmons was at the Ake Arts and Book Festival when she made the statement, and says she has been ‘awed and inspired’ by the women she shared the stage with in Abeokuta, Nigeria, who face ‘immense obstacles’ in the pursuit of feminism.

Clemmons, who was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father, published her debut novel What We Lose this year.

Read her statement in full here:

Zinzi Clemmons
18 November  

As a result of Lena Dunham’s statements, I have decided that I will no longer write for Lenny Letter. For all you writers who are outraged about what she did, I encourage you to do the same. Especially women of color. She cannot have our words if she cannot respect us. To eliminate any doubt, I know exactly who Lena Dunham is–who she was before she was famous–and have for years, and I will tell you:

She and I ran in the same circles in college. Jemima Kirke was in my year at RISD while I was at Brown. We had many mutual acquaintances and still do. Most of these acquaintances were like Lena–wealthy, with parents who are influential in the art world. They had a lot of power and seemed to get off on simultaneously wielding it and denying it.

Back in college, I avoided those people like the plague because of their well-known racism. I’d call their strain “hipster racism”, which typically uses sarcasm as a cover , and in the end, it looks a lot like gaslighting–“It’s just a joke. Why are you overreacting?” Is a common response to these kinds of statements. In Lena’s circle, there was a girl who was known to use the N word in conversation in order to be provocative, and if she was ever called on it, she would say “it’s just a joke”. I was often in the same room with her, but I never spoke to her, only watched her from afar in anxiety and horror.

I have been overcome by emotion since reading Aurora Perrineau’s account because of its similarity to an incident that happened when I was in college. One of my best friends was victimized in almost the exact same way by someone in Lena’s circle. It was never addressed, and he continues to move in those circles and has a powerful job. My friend was going through a hard time then, and we decided not to report it or take it further because we didn’t want to expose her to more trauma, which would surely come from facing these people. I grew up middle class, with no family connections in the writing or art worlds, and my friend was from a similar background. We were powerless against them.

Even so, I still carry so much guilt, to this day, that I didn’t do more at the time, and I worry what effect that had on how she’s processed this trauma.

I am currently in Nigeria at a literary festival on the theme of feminism, which, of course, means black African feminism. It is a beautiful thing. I have been awed and inspired by the women here who are facing such immense obstacles, putting themselves in danger every day to help women in some of the worst conditions on earth. Remember that many of those 26 migrant girls who drowned off the coast of Italy last week were Northern Nigerians, and sex trafficked. Yesterday, I had the honor of sharing a stage with Hadiza El-Rufai, who comes from the same region, who lost both her son and daughter in the process of publishing her latest novel. She has made it her mission to promote the stories of women from that area, no matter the cost. If these women can do that, surely we can make this small sacrifice.

I had one reservation in this decision, and that is that there are many incredible women who work for Lenny, two of whom have supported my work with such selfless care. I would apologize to them for this decision, but I’m not doing that anymore. Their boss betrayed them by her actions, and it was wrong for her to make them choose between their authors and supporting their boss. They deserve so much better.

Let’s hold Lena accountable, and to me that means sacrificing some comfort and a little bit of cash, in this moment.

A luta continua ✊

https://twitter.com/zinziclemmons/status/931856769089003521

https://twitter.com/zinziclemmons/status/932493340871987200

Author image: Nina Subin

Categories Africa Fiction International

Tags Aurora Perrineau Hadiza El-Rufai Lena Dunham What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons