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| Repost of the mess tweeted on Twitter: "Let’s pray Beyoncé’s genes kick in as B.I.C. gets older. All the money and talent in the world won’t take away from having Jay-Z’s features"Source |
Many bloggers, including this one, focused on Bey's hair --lovely box braids in a top knot -- but folks on Twitter went HAM about Baby Blue's feature. Let me repeat -- B-A-B-Y Blue. Twitter (Read: mostly Black folks) was in an uproar over how much Blue Ivy Carter looks like her Daddy, Sean "Jay Z" Carter.
And it wasn't a compliment.
This was believed to be the first time that unauthorized photos of the Baby Blue have surfaced. Earlier, the Carters released personal photos of their newborn baby but the nasty backlash had started before Blue was out of the womb.
Now, it's gotten even uglier.
Sigh.
This Ish Again, Really?
Let the in-fighting begin. I knew this was only a matter of time, but I kept hoping that perhaps we wouldn't clown. But, clown, we did. We didn't just clown, we showed our asses -- and showed how far we have to go when it comes to things like our hair, skin complexion, self love and the acceptance of African features in our community -- since all of these things were the topics of discussion when it came to Baby Blue.
None of this is new. While Blue was still in Bey's womb, bloggers and folks on social media debated about how she'd look: Would she look like Jay or Bey? All the while, folks wished in no uncertain terms that the baby take after Bey's Creole (Read: Anything but all Black, whatever that means) lineage.
I don't know why I expected us to do better. Maybe, just maybe, because the baby is here on earth, I thought folks might give it a rest. It's a lot harder to talk mess to a cooing, drooling baby that's no longer an inanimate object. Well, folks, we really lived "down" to expectations this time, didn't we? Just takes a photo on Twitter for us to really write how we feel deep down inside.
Why I Didn't Even Want to Post This
I don't know what 'isms to call all of this mess; it's definitely colorism, but what do you call it when you hate African phenotypes? I hate using my blog as a forum for self hate and I hate even more to repost these images, but sometimes ish has got to be said. You can't heal unless you recognize your mistake, commit to do better, do it, and then move on.
I'm ashamed to repost what folks said about a CHILD and their ugly criticism of her parents. Folks not only blasted the child's looks and her parents, but they doctored up Photoshopped images and tweeted mess like this on Twitter:
“Beyoncé really screwed up, having a baby by Jay-Z. His nose and lips are never going to look right on a girl,” read one Twitter post about Blue Ivy. Other posts called Blue Ivy "nappy headed" and yet another said this:
"Let’s pray Beyoncé’s genes kick in as B.I.C. gets older. All the money and talent in the world won’t take away from having Jay-Z’s features."
Know Better, Do Better?
Don't like Jay Z's looks? That's fine; that's your God-given right to not like a grown ass man. We all have preferences and what we thimk is attractive. But to talk about an innocent child online?
Seriously? We've gone too far.
But you do realize that you can't talk about the looks of a child's father without hurting that child, right? That would be a cause for a fight in just about any neighborhood, city, country or nation that I know of. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Folks need to stop talking about children on social media.
I'm sure most of us were taught that if we don't have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all. The same rule applies here. Don't say anything at all if you don't have anything nice to say. Punks love to get on Twitter and flex, saying things they'd never say to a person a foot away.
Half of those folks who went in on Baby Blue -- yes, a 7-month old child -- would do nothing but coo and aww if they saw Jay and Bey in real life holding their daughter. They'd definitely never say any of the vile, malicious and evil things they tweeted about Jay and Bey's offspring.
Yet, from behind their iPhone or laptop, they feel emboldened to say things that we'd never say in person (hmm, or would we?) about someone else's child. Funny, I thought baby pictures were "safe" from most forms of criticism. Guess I was wrong about that.
The Problem is Us
I get it. You don't like our features and White is right. God help us -- and you.
But don't spread your brand of self hate to an innocent child who hasn't had the chance to gain any self esteem yet. I'm sure she'll need a healthy dose of it, thanks to those ignorant comments on Twitter. Hate Jay all you want, but please spare their child.
In case you didn't get the memo, Blackness isn't ugliness, as writer Akiba Solomon eloquently pointed out months back in her article for Color Lines. Hell, for all the "Black is beautiful" slogans, T-shirts, earrings and jewelry, I'm not sure we really believe any of it.
I'd hate to be Baby Blue in a few years, reading some folks' ugly online comments about my thick nose and my full lips. I'd get plastic surgery already. You know, to make my features look more Eurocentric and more like my mother's, since that's what everyone tweeted about.
What Year is This?
We are our own worst enemy. And we do a damn good job at it. This isn't 1922. This is 2012. We can have a Black man as a president but yet our opinions about ourselves are so far behind. Self hate and self loathing are hard to get rid of, but I thought we'd advance.
All of this backlash says a lot about us -- and it ain't a good look.
There's the Internet, books, really we have no excuse. After all, I thought we were decades past the paper bag test in which Black social clubs wouldn't let folks in with complexions darker than a paper bag, the "good" hair crap, Black folks praying their babies would keep their "baby hair" and examining the folds of their ears to see how dark the child would turn out, admonishing kids to stay out of the sun because they'll be too Black and all of that nonsense.
You know, all of the stuff that screams, Black -- or anything that even closely resembles it -- is wrong and must be avoided at all costs. For all of our talk about mainstream magazines not putting Black folks on the covers of magazines, in commericals or nedia representations of us, we seem to do an excellent job of putting our own culture down -- better than any White person ever could.
Just shows how far we really have come -- and how far we've got to go. I cringed when I read many of these comments -- comments that we'd yell for heads to roll if a person who wasn't Black dared to utter them.
Please, can we all get some home training? Leave the baby alone. And, if we don't have any home training, please take a damn seat when it comes to an opinion about a baby that isn't yours.
What do you think about the comments about Baby Blue Ivy Carter?
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