Jun 16

Jun 16 On Jordyn Woods and the Expendability of Black Women in the Public Eye

We as a society need to show up for Black women while we’re still alive. A poem & essay about the 2019 scandal that showed the world how easily we are discarded.

Written by: Kai Naima Williams
Illustration: Tallia Lee

From the President of the Jordyn Woods Fan Club

Baby girl, nobody got family
like you got family. A country of sisters awaiting
command. No body robber turned against you shall prosper.
They tried to put you in the ground, and here we are looking up
rallying below your shade, could tirade after plastic, but no
beauty, this your show, we are living in it’s after green. We stan

your name extracted in the crowdmouth, distinct seasoning. We stan
Unloneliest star. Constellation crown with stark family
buzzing round to call you brilliant. Can’t you hear us waiting:
Jordyn, get the bag. Jordyn, take your tempest to prosper a little debris littered on private sands don’t need picking up
your foes forget you were an island before they came to know

you as a beach, before remodeling your mouth for sale, just to find out no
surgeon could extricate the echo from your shout, we stand
in front to block an attempt, also buffer back our families,
aunties blowing chilled tea, too-grinning uncles we are waiting
to jump, when they drag your name and sully your prosper.
Forget them, let you be faster than the bend coming up

on your highway, looser than waist without trainer, let you fill up
on your own honeycomb, feast your own mouth, know
you could say less, why fill your lips with mess? We stan
how you wear them, gentle glossed brag that a family
or a country can’t remake from package, awaiting
compliments in Cali air even where he prospered

for a kiss he had no right to take. It’s not right, but still, you prospered.
Men give and take movements that jerk table, women pick up
their plates to fill again. But since your unworlding, when no
thing seemed it would be okay, we’ve had no choice but to stan.
We play your new video, green opening up. Your mother made a family
of one face on two, so when we subscribe to you it’s Jodie too, waiting,

she looks up and you shine, shine, promise to prosper
but don’t fret her waiting wisdom. unbraid, unwind, and know
only your honor could foster this fam. On Jada, we got her, we got you,
We stan —

In February 2019, the internet exploded with rumors that Tristan Thompson had cheated on Khloe Kardashian with Jordyn Woods. As details about the alleged affair began to rapidly circulate, the Kardashians publicly excommunicated Jordyn from their inner circle, and seemingly encouraged the massive cyberbullying attack already forming against her. The aftermath of this scandal demonstrated numerous ways that Black women are made to feel and be seen as disposable, or valuable only for their service to others. This perceived expendability of Black women’s lives feels particularly resonant in a moment of hyper-visible Black death, and within a movement that tends to mobilize more efficiently around and generate more attention for murdered Black men than Black women, while still relying on their labor. Calls for the protection of Black women are vocalized online most loudly after individual deaths, instead of during moments of crisis in individuals’ lives. To me, Jordyn provides an example of a Black woman who, in the wake of an alleged transgression, was characterized by public figures and anonymous audiences as a person who did not matter. But of course, her life and her story matter a great deal, especially to the conversation about how Black women are treated when they do not perform duties imposed onto them.

In thinking about Jordyn Woods, I am drawn back to Saidiya Hartman’s essay, “Venus in Two Acts.” Hartman struggles to narrate Venus, a figure who is reproduced through generations of enslaved and exploited Black girls and women and nicknamed for her erotic service. Her name, and her life, exist in the archive only in iterations of violence and death — she is visible only in the moment of disappearance. I see Jordyn when Hartman writes:

I could say after a famous philosopher that what we know of Venus in her many guises amounts to ‘little more than a register of her encounter with power” and that it provides “a meager sketch of her existence.’ An act of chance or disaster produced a divergence or an aberration from the expected and usual course of invisibility and catapulted her from the underground to the surface of discourse.

Before the scandal, Jordyn Woods was introduced on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and in the media — and therefore publicly understood and described — as simply, “Kylie’s best friend.” To borrow Hartman’s phrase, all we knew of Jordyn amounted to the “register of her encounter with power.” Her name and the following she had amassed was inextricable from the Kardashian name and fame, and her coveted position as “Kylie’s best friend” was rarely questioned, except by a then scattered group of haters who challenged her worthiness of that proximity to power. Even though Jordyn had her own ventures — a cosmetic lashes line and some budding workout videos, as well as connections to powerful Hollywood families like the Smiths — her success and her celebrity was attributed solely to her connection with the Kardashians.

While Venus’ name is visible in the archive only in the moment of her disappearance, Jordyn Woods became a name at the moment she appeared, catapulted into scandal. The act of extrication, of breaking away and “breaking up” with the Kardashians occurred immediately, at the very instant that the rumors “broke” online (Khloe refers to the dissolution of Jordyn and Kylie’s friendship as a “divorce” on one of the Jordyn-centered episodes of KUWTK). Within mere seconds of gossip being published on sites, the public perception of Jordyn shifted to hate. Attention-grabbing, provocative headlines were produced, repeated and recycled quickly, with little regard for truth, perspective or pause, and no regard for the impact on Jordyn as a human being, as a young woman who had recently lost her father. Media accounts of the rumors served to arouse and gratify the internet urge to consume “private” information exposed to the public. “What Jordyn did” was so egregious, so unexpected, that from the moment of exposure, her severance from the Kardashians and her establishment as a distinguished figure, for better or worse, was cemented.

“To many, this was an unacceptable breach of purpose. How dare Jordyn, whom the Kardashians had given “everything,” possibly give up her lucrative spot? How dare she want more?”

In Jordyn’s case, social media operated as a space in which strangers all over the internet, and thus, the world, could punish her for her divergent behavior through tangible forms of bullying such as hateful comments published under her posts and “ugly” photos of her retrieved from the archive of the internet and reposted on anonymous hate accounts. Indeed, within hours of the scandal “breaking,” her Instagram had accrued hundreds of thousands of comments accusing her of irreparable harm, wishing violence and death upon her and her family, depicting her as a whore who had, with malicious intent, ruined Khloe’s family and relationship. The commenters made it clear that the truth of what had gone down between her and Tristan mattered far less (if at all) than the narrative created by rumor, especially since the Kardashians’ refusal to deny it was regarded as silent confirmation. The public condemnation of Jordyn turned out to have less to do with what exactly she did, than with what she had failed or chosen not to do: comply with the expectations set for her in the position of “Kylie’s Black best friend.”

I use “Black best friend” here because the racism that had been subtly imbued in discussions about Jordyn prior to the scandal erupted into vicious abuse directly during the fallout. To an incensed public, Jordyn’s transgression was not just that she had betrayed Kylie or broken Khloe’s trust, but rather that she had displayed ingratitude, that she had overstepped her role as a provider of service despite being compensated for that service beyond what she “deserved." The service in question was her friendship with Kylie, and part of what she provided was proximity to Blackness and permission to appropriate it.

Exploited as a token, Jordyn’s relationship with Kylie served as a talking point that the Kardashians, and their supporters, could bring into conversation to combat accusations of racism — a representation of the proverbial excuse: “my best friend is Black, so how can I be racist?” Jordyn’s presence and position beside Kylie throughout a litany of appropriation controversies was supposed to dilute or nullify the perception of Kylie as a culture vulture, and act as a silent co-sign of her problematic behaviors (The Kardashians have a pattern of collecting BW close friends for this purpose. I once watched a video of Malika Haqq assuring Khloe that she need not address or understand her white privilege). For Jordyn to violate the terms of her position as “Black best friend,” meant that she was refusing to engage in a role even though the removal of her labor would sever her access to unlimited privilege and resources. Incidentally, hundreds of commenters on Kylie’s and Jordyn’s profiles were eager to assume the role, writing different iterations of “Kylie, I’ll be your new Black best friend” and “is Kylie hiring a new Black best friend yet?” Trolls in the comments section degraded Jordyn, calling her newly homeless (she moved out of Kylie’s house) and broke, predicting her return to the streets despite the fact that she grew up extremely wealthy in Calabasas. Kim also suggested that Jordyn’s wealth is indebted to the Kardashians on one episode of KUWTK, telling Kylie, “She provides for her whole family off of what you have given her.” To many, this was an unacceptable breach of purpose. How dare Jordyn, whom the Kardashians had given “everything,” possibly give up her lucrative spot? How dare she want more?

What most captivates me about Jordyn, and what compels me to represent her in poetry, is the resilience with which she has survived the life-altering events of last year and her refusal to be buried. I say ‘buried’ because as the scandal unfolded I observed so many commenters express the hope and expectation that afterwards, her career, reputation and life would be ended, that the name “Jordyn Woods” would only be revisited in the memory of the event. Instead, Jordyn has achieved more fame, garnered more fans and secured more jobs this year than ever before. Her name is powerful — it carries clout and capital, so any product or project it’s attached to is certain to attract interest. And beyond business deals, Jordyn’s social world, at least the version / portion of it that she allows her audience to access, seems to have both expanded and reoriented around her inner circle. On her Instagram story she’s cheering Willow Smith on at a concert, on her YouTube channel she can’t stop smiling as her mother and sister Jodie compete to see who knows her best, and in flics that go viral minutes after they’re posted, she poses alongside Megan Thee Stallion, proclaiming: real hot girl shit. Watching Black people, specifically Black women, both on the internet and within industries of fame take up for Jordyn in the wake of disaster was a surprising, and moving, turn of events for me. I remember tentatively checking her comments section after the Red Table Talk episode dropped, bracing myself for pain and then feeling relief at how many people were voicing their belief in her. These comments inspired me and made me wonder whether some of the brutal access social media enables could be used to communicate care instead. How much does a stranger’s “we got you”or a “we support you” or declaration of love actually contribute to combatting systemized bullying? How much good needs to outweigh harm enough to make a tragedy feel like a necessary lesson? My hope is that the love from fans can serve to uplift Jordyn and to continue to protect her name, her narrative and her life.

What I want to extract from Jordyn’s example is the power of the people — all of us behind our screens — to use internet platforms as tools to halt and alter, in real time, narratives intended to abuse Black women. The beauty of social media is that we can all use it to extend care and protection to Black women, not only to defend famous Black women, but also to provide aid to one another in moments of emergency. That could mean donating to fundraisers posted by women looking to escape abusive households, or affirming people when they post about their experiences of harm or confronting bullies in comments sections. It is crucial that we ride for Black women online, visible or anonymous, and uplift their names and narratives not only in death, but in life.