Just two weeks ago, Bravo fans were applauding the Summer House season 10 cast for having a candid discussion about race around the dinner table. As the conversation shifted to Ciara Miller, a Black woman, and West Wilson, a white man, who were dating at the end of 2023, and to the backlash that followed their breakup, Ciara said, “I don’t think you guys also understand the interracial aspect that exists.”
Clearly, at least two people at the table didn’t. Neither did a large portion of the internet. Because now—after West and fellow castmate Amanda Batula announced, via a joint statement, that their feelings are evolving into a “still very new” dynamic following weeks of speculation that they’re secretly dating—many fans of the series are asking that we please, please, not make this about race.
Do I think that the cast of Summer House is racist? No. Do I think the commentators saying they “don’t see the big deal,” “West and Ciara weren’t a real relationship,” “West and Amanda are a better match,” are racist? Not really, no. But I do think the reactions reek of the kind of anti-Blackness and subconscious bias that many Black women, myself included, have encountered in our friendships and relationships with white men and white women. As Reality With Ali put it beautifully in her video reaction to the Summer House drama, “Anti-Blackness is not the same as calling someone racist or saying they hate Black people. Anti-Blackness is often not intentional; it’s not always conscious. Often, it shows up in who gets chosen and who is deemed as ‘long-term material.’”
A glaring example of this is how so many social media commentators view Ciara and West’s dating history. West took her to meet his parents. They stayed with his brother in Chicago, went to a wedding together, and even though Ciara had been initially guarded against it, slept together. But then West was quoted in a post-breakup interview with The New York Times, saying, “The relationship ran its course.” During the season-eight reunion, Ciara told him, “That’s mean to take someone to your parents’ house and want to sleep with them when you have no intention of doing anything. You got everything you wanted out of me, and I got literally the bare minimum.” Ciara felt used and discarded, while West wrote it off as him not being ready to commit to a relationship. And since they never labeled the relationship, he had semantics on his side.
Despite breaking up with her, in the two seasons that followed, West continued to pursue Ciara, flirting with her, trying to get back into her good graces, telling his castmates that he thought their relationship had been “dreamy,” and calling her the “love of my life.” He also apologized for not understanding the racist backlash Ciara had received after he went to the press to talk about their relationship. He got upset when another castmate, Jesse Solomon, asked if he could make out with Ciara. And yet commenters still downplay Ciara’s feelings—“It happened ages ago, she should get over it, it wasn’t real.”
Speaking of Jesse, Ciara was sincerely offended when she learned of his request to make out with her. “Everyone knows I’m more traditional than your average girl,” she said on the show. “Me and Jesse are real friends. So, I just don’t understand why you only see me in this light of a good-time girl, when that’s so not my vibe anyway?” She cried in bed, opening up about how men just want to “experience” her and being relegated to a “hook-up.”
Summer House cast members, from left to right: Jesse Solomon, Amanda Batula, Kyle Cooke, Lindsay Hubbard, West Wilson, Ciara Miller, and Carl Radke.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
It reeks of anti-Blackness, the idea that Ciara—a nurse, a model, a catch in all respects of the word—could be seen as just an experience to these men. It also reminded me of how another white man whom Ciara dated, Southern Charm’s Austen Kroll, once called her a “Jezebel” during an argument on season six. The stereotype has historically been used to portray Black women as promiscuous temptresses, a characterization that Ciara clearly contradicts in all that she says and does.
The worst example of this subconscious bias, however, has to be in Ciara’s dynamic with Amanda—despite the latter telling Marie Claire earlier this month, “It would have been a very difficult summer to get through without Ciara. She is one of the kindest, most loving, loyal friends I’ve ever had.” The current season showed Ciara as a shoulder to cry on for Amanda, fighting back her own tears as Ciara told Amanda she deserved more than a toxic relationship with her husband, Kyle Cooke, whom Amanda has since separated from.
When Ciara Miller spoke to her castmates and ex about the racial dynamic she deals with by being on the show, stating, “It’s a whole contraption that you guys just don’t understand or can even empathize with,” Batula sat beside her and comforted her. To witness that firsthand—your friend being discarded, treated differently, and neglected by men—and to then actively take part in that cycle by dating one of those very men, may be the worst example of these internalized assumptions for me. It’s like saying, “Yes, he treated you poorly for hurtful reasons outside of your control—but for me, it will be different, because I am different.”
For so many Black women watching this play out on Summer House—including this TikTok user, and this one, and this one, and Bre DeShon, who described the happenings as “unfortunately a canon event that happens to every Black woman who operates in white spaces,” or my friend who called me yesterday with no context other than “ARE THEY SERIOUS!”—we feel like this play is about us. So much of this story bears witness to what we’ve experienced firsthand. Being strung along until right before it gets too serious, being picked up as collateral for coolness or clout before being dropped again, being friends with a woman who felt entitled to a friendship or relationship with their ex. It’s felt by the women whose interracial relationships were treated as a phase by a friend group and inherently “not that serious,” to the Black women who are called cold and mean when they keep their guard up for a reason.
This drama is a microcosm of who we as a society believe should get treated with respect in romantic relationships, who is seen as an appropriate choice for real love, and what we think we can get away with when we believe—because of unchecked bias—that someone doesn’t deserve the same level of humanity we do. And sure, it’s all literally for show, but hopefully the people watching can take the time to dissect why they feel and behave the way they do.
