Originally published in Ayo Magazine on May 6, 2020

On colorism and anti-blackness in the virtual sphere.

Last week, black British women influencers found themselves embroiled in a Twitter uproar after an anonymous Twitter account unearthed their old tweets dating back from 2012 to 2016, all containing misogynoiristic and colorist rhetoric that many dark-skinned black women like myself are all too familiar with.

The tweets described black dark-skinned women as unattractive, aggressive and rowdy, coupled with xenophobic anti-Somali “jokes” and sexual assault gibes. While some Twitter users chalked it up to teenage ignorance, most were outraged, resulting in a major upheaval on black British Twitter. It is reported that popular online influencer Nella Rose alone lost at least 70,000 Twitter followers since the “exposé,” illustrating the magnitude of people’s anger. “I used to hate black girls, because I used to hate myself,” the Congolese-British Youtuber said in her apology video. 

Misogyny and anti-blackness are pervasive in virtual spaces. Saturated with derogatory misogynoirisitic remarks — ranging from sexual violence and abuse against black dark-skinned women, to seemingly “benign” unsolicited comments on hair and makeup choices that don’t “fit” dark complexions — it is a painful reality that besets dark-skinned women of color. 

Colorism is a global phenomenon. It is an institutionalized form of violence with very real consequences. A progeny of slavery and European colonialism, colorism is a form of color-bias and skin-tone discrimination that privileges light-skinned people and demonizes dark-skinned people. In The Consequences of Colorism, sociologist Margaret Hunter notes that “gaps exist between darker and lighter people of each racial/ethnic group” in various facets of life, such as media, the beauty industry, income-inequality, “education, criminal justice sentencing, housing, and the marriage market.” Where institutional racism and white-privilege prevail, marginalized groups have historically had to assimilate into dominant cultural structures, positioning themselves in close approximation to whiteness. 

Read the full story on Ayo Magazine