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Kristen Scott

Source: VH1 / Viacom

I’m going to cut right to the meat of what needs to be said because it’s only been two episodes of this season of Basketball Wives, and truth is, I’m tired. Not even the pandemic could get these folks to act right.

And not even the pandemic could keep Kristen Scott from passing bones and other people’s business from Atlanta to LA. This responsibility, a stark contrast from her efforts to put a spotlight on social justice and police brutality, was…let’s just say, it was something else.

When we first get to see Kristen in episode two, she’s moved from L.A. to Atlanta during the pandemic with her family, allowing her to be closer to her cousin by marriage, Malaysia Pargo, as well as to Jennifer Williams, who has also become a Georgia peach. Kristen goes to visit with Jenn during the episode, feigning once again that she keeps her in her circle because the Basketball Wives vet is fun when it’s really because Jenn’s always got some mess Kristen can take back to the other ladies.

Kristen tells Jennifer about Evelyn Lozada’s plans for a girls’ reunion involving quarantining together in a mansion in LA, and to her surprise, Jennifer knows and is going. She’s planning to stay in a hotel with Jackie Christie and Ogom “OG” Chijindu. Kristen says she has to prepare herself for both women coming because they barely get along with anyone else. Pushing that problematic “aggressive” OG stance that was prevalent last season among the women, Kristen says that during one of her last encounters with OG, which happened when the ladies went to Costa Rica last season, her controversial co-star almost snatched off her face. Footage played back showed a moment during the failed girls’ trip where Kristen tells OG to stop touching her, to which O.G. steps up to her to say she didn’t touch her, but if she did, she basically wasn’t going to do anything about it. Jennifer, in response, reminds her that one has to prepare themselves for all of the ladies as they’re prone to throw tables and be unpredictable. It was a dig at Malaysia and the hypocrisy of being worried solely about OG when there are some wild chicks all up and through “the group.” Despite that reality check, Kristen sidesteps any acknowledgment of such a point and focuses on not being pleased with the prospect of reuniting with OG.

Knowing Evelyn won’t be pleased either, Kristen later calls her to let her know that Jackie has invited some “questionable” people to their mansion getaway. And even though she says in the confessional that she’s open to letting OG speak “her piece” about her experience with colorism, Kristen then simultaneously negates that experience. It didn’t happen to her so she’s having a hard time believing it happened at all.

“Being a brown-skinned, dark brown-skinned woman, I don’t what she’s talking about,” she told Evelyn over the phone. “I never witnessed the things she said. And I can’t stand by for her to use something so important to her advantage.”

That’s what you can’t stand by and witness?

Really Kristen? This is what we’re doing now? CeCe Gutierrez and Byron Scott are gone so now you’re going to make it your mission to not allow OG to use colorism “to her advantage” or “for her benefit”? How is experiencing being treated differently by your castmates as the lone dark-skinned woman on the show (they are not the same type of “brown” girl, sorry) and then speaking up about it an advantage? What perk has OG received in calling out the unfair treatment? Her co-stars have denied it to the point where they don’t want to film with her and she’s facing a lawsuit. And as previously mentioned, I don’t believe she’s using her experience for a storyline, but rather, trying to get her co-stars, who’ve isolated her, to see what the majority of the Internet witnessed last season. I don’t think there’s truly been a benefit to that, and I’m sure when her contract ends, OG will run for the hills like CeCe did to get away from the women. So to hear Kristen join in trying to make OG seem delusional was tiring. It was also disappointing. She still hasn’t learned.

If you’ll recall, the whole reason Kristen’s relationship with CeCe and Byron tanked, which impacted her family, is because sis went around pouring out tea from place to place. She heard Evelyn and Jennifer disparage CeCe and her business, and when she went back and told her about it, she somehow gave CeCe a hard time for not standing up for herself and putting the girls in check for their comments. These were the same girls she was simultaneously trying to find her in with. CeCe didn’t want to be brought that kind of drama to have to confront and go back and forth with the ladies about in the first place. Had Kristen just stuck up for CeCe instead of running back with the mess, perhaps they’d all be in a much better place.

But here we are, two seasons later, and she’s still collecting and sharing bones, playing both sides to what she believes is her benefit. Kristen simply wants to be messy to stay in the good graces of the O.G.s, and if reality TV has taught us anything, there’s not a substantial future in that. Suzie Ketcham is long gone from the franchise and being bone collector couldn’t keep Sheree Whitfield’s peach on the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

That being said, this could have been a fresh start for Kristen. An opportunity for her to have a much different storyline, committed to family and social justice. I get that being involved in the drama is inevitable, but Kristen is determined to have an actual hand in it. And how can you say you commit to calling out racism and then be so quick to deny colorism and featurism because it hasn’t been your experience? Imagine if people used the same “I didn’t see it so I don’t know what you’re talking about” stance she mentioned when it comes to the racism she says she’s trying to fight against…

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