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Pop star Halsey had people talking on Twitter after joking online about the sprinkle of superhuman powers she’d receive on what some are calling the #NegroSolstice.
Just over two weeks ago, “December 21” started to trend on Twitter as a result of one user’s (now deleted) thread where they alleged the coronavirus was created specifically to control the Black population globally. On December 5, @lottidot said, “As black people, genetically we are stronger and smarter than everyone else, we are more creative, on December 21 our Real DNA will be unlocked and majority will be able to do things that we thought were fiction. Learn who u are as a people… they wanna make us average.”
Once the screengrab of this tweet circulated, the masses ran with the idea with comical memes and videos of Black people showing off their “superpowers” under the #December21 hashtag. There was everything from Dr. Manhattan in Kente cloth to Black boys shooting blue lasers from their eye sockets.
Halsey decided to join in on the fun early Monday morning (Dec 21), with the biracial, or multiracial singer tweeting out a GIF of a man tapping two sprinkles of seasoning into a bowl: “the gods giving me my ration of powers.”
It was a joke, but Twitter dragged her anyway.
“U gonna be flying and lose your powers mid air don’t get too comfy,” said one Twitter user. “Yeah okay miss 25%” wrote another.
One user replied: “Bae they gon come for your neck,” to which she replied of her joke, “I did it to myself before they could.”
Shortly after, Halsey followed up with: “imma tattoo ‘my daddy is black’ on my forehead and then never make another joke ever again. It’s been a fun 6 years y’all.”
To be fair, Halsey is a quarter Black — her father is bi-racial, African-American and Irish. She has talked about identifying as a Black woman while passing as a white one.
“I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about Black culture that’s not mine,” she said on Twitter in 2017. “I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair.”
“Every now and then I experience these racial blips. I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one,” she added. “I’m a Black woman. So it’s been weird navigating that. When I was growing up I didn’t know if I was supposed to love TLC or Britney.”
All that being said, those on Twitter can be wildly unforgiving. One user remarked on her harmless attempt to join in on the #December21 fun, “you clinging on to that 25% like your life depends on it.”
