So, About Nicki's Tweets.... And More

Описание: **The thumbnail = My face reading those tweets**

So, the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards nominees were announced yesterday, and after an awards season where both film and music were extremely whitewashed, MTV followed the trend with a list of nominations that was overwhelmingly white and headed by Taylor Swift (with multiple nominations for her cameo-heavy video for ‘Bad Blood’).

Rapper Nicki Minaj was not pleased, and late last night, she released a series of tweets about the VMA nominations, where she spoke on the lack of nominations for her record-breaking videos for hits ‘Anaconda’ and ‘Feeling Myself.’ She mentioned the fact that Black women are often the influencers of popular culture without any recognition, and also vented her feeling that if she were a ‘different’ (aka white) artist, her videos and music would be more recognized. She essentially blasted structural racism in the music industry.

VMA frontrunner Swift, feeling some type of perceived slight at Minaj’s words, directly replied with a statement on how Nicki was being ‘divisive’ instead of happy for the women on the list (regardless of race), and also implied that perhaps ‘one of the men’ on the list took her spot. The two ended up in a war of words that, in addition to Minaj’s tweets on structural racism, also highlighted the issues within white feminism, wherein white women often ask Black women to ignore race in favor of gender.

When Minaj airs her grievances with an industry that does not recognize her influence because of her race and Swift asks Minaj to just be happy so many women were nominated, even if they were all white, she is essentially telling Minaj to shut up and take one for the team. She is asking Nicki to ignore structural racism, which Swift only has the power to do because structural racism in the music industry doesn’t affect her as a white person. Her accusations of ‘divisiveness’ are a prime example of the way white feminists flex their white privilege against women of color, and Black women in particular.

As if this weren't enough, this entire back-and-forth also occurred at the same time arrest footage of the recently-deceased Sandra Bland was released. The dash-cam video reveals a violent confrontation between the young Black woman and her arresting officer, which resulted in her face-down on the ground, and many found their social media accounts split between Nicki’s tweets and the arrest footage, arguing on which was more important.

This is silly and annoying because, in my opinion, both are important. We all care about what happened to Sandra. But what happened to Nicki was ALSO violence against black women, and that's the bigger picture. It is not about the award.

This is about systems that reward whiteness and overlook, erase, and punish Blackness. This is about violence against Black women, whether we are being arrested and killed, OR being overlooked and discriminated against in artistic endeavors or our workplaces- like Nicki Minaj. It's about the consistent lack of recognition of Black women's contributions to culture. And it’s about narratives that are pushed when Black women even dare to stand up for ourselves.

The media jumped in on both the Sandra Bland and Nicki Minaj situations, with many attempting to paint Bland as a belligerent Black woman resisting arrest, and Nicki as a crazed, hysterical attacker attacking the innocent Swift. Same racism, different levels, with both utilizing the ‘Angry Black Girl' narrative, wherein Black women are not even allowed the autonomy to express themselves.

Racism is like an octopus with many tentacles, and the same thing that killed Sandra Bland is what we are discussing with Nicki Minaj. People have to understand that it's all the same system, and each of these instances are tentacles on the same monster.

Thanks for watching.

Links:

'Taylor Swift's response to Nicki Minaj was faux-feminist and tone deaf:'
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015...

'Nicki Minaj Already Won Something Bigger Than a Video Music Award:'
http://time.com/3967118/nicki-minaj-t...

'Twitter defends Nicki Minaj after Taylor Swift feud:'
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/enterta...

'Dashcam Video Of Sandra Bland's Arrest Released:'
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-wa...

'What The Hell Is Going On In The Dashcam Video Of Sandra Bland's Arrest?'
http://gawker.com/what-the-hell-is-go...

'Sandra Bland Death: Officials Say Glitch, Not Editing, Caused Video Irregularities:'
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/s...