Source: Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty
On Thursday, two linked discussions targeted the anti-Blackness spewed on singers Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor, as well as towards Blue Ivy, the seven-year-old daughter of Beyoncé Knowles and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter.
Black women rallied around all three, by turning back the clock and changing their Twitter profiles to photos of themselves as young Black girls. Black women also took the opportunity to openly discuss their first dalliances with anti-Blackness, uncovering that many of us share the same stories in the pursuit to unraveling self-hate and owning the features we are outcast over.
The call was made on Thursday by @thepbg, the inventor of the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic.
The discussion began after an internet troll compared Lennox and Taylor to a Rottweiler, wrongfully stating that although their features were deemed masculine, they were aesthetically pleasing.
https://twitter.com/AriLennox/status/1212460546210975744?s=20
At the same time a Black male journalist named K Austin Collins who writes for Vanity Fair and a white female journalist from Harper’s Bazzar named Violet Lucca, took to Twitter to have an unprovoked and inappropriate “ki” on Blue Ivy’s features after rapper Meg The Stallion posted two fun-loving pictures of herself with Blue and Beyoncé on New Years Eve.
Collins and Lucca also disgustingly suggested that because she is the daughter of rich parents, she will more than likely rectify the situation by getting plastic surgery. After being called out, Collins ave a half-a***ed apology and Lucca doubled down on her original tweets. They both still remain employed by two major outlets that comment on news and culture, which speaks volumes.
Both takes rightfully angered Black women on social media who used the time to discuss the poison of anti-blackness, colorism and featurism, all deeply rooted in the false glorification of white supremacy.
Neither Beyoncé nor Jay-Z have responded to the recent attacks on their child which began during Blue Ivy’s infancy. Ari Lennox took to Instagram live on Thursday, giving and eloquent and emotional read on the subject by asking why Black women receive these types of criticisms regarding their features, while women from other races do not. Taylor responded by sharing Lennox’s tweet.
The threads also dissected how and why some Black men and white women are sometimes the biggest perpetrators of this form of “othering,” against Black women, due to the shared race and/or gender with white men, while also aspiring to be held in the same categories of power white men enjoy.
In total, the discussion is one that is hurtful but necessary. In 2020 we won’t allow any form of anti-Blackness to override, especially when the target is Black women.
