CULTURE

"Looking Like a Rottweiler": Ari Lennox Takes on Internalized Racism

Another day on Twitter, comparing black women to dogs.

Ari Lennox at OneMusic Festival

Photo by Franklin Sheard Jr (Shutterstock)

Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor are very familiar with backhanded compliments.

Recently, one user tweeted, "Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor's ability to have dangerously high sex appeal while simultaneously looking like rottweilers will always amaze me." To which, both singers responded by calling out the cultural toxicity that still attacks black identity. Lennox retweeted the post with the reply, "People hate blackness so bad." Taylor shared Lennox's response, commenting, "No lies detected."


But the discussion launched thereafter delved much deeper than the persistent scourge of cyberbullying celebrities. By comparing the two black women to dogs, the passive aggressive attack drew from a history of anti-black sentiment that's particularly targeted black women.

Lennox took to her Instagram livestream in angry tears to address the history of prejudice, systemic racism, and oppression behind the remark: "How people hate black people so much, how black people can sit up here and say, 'that's not my problem' or 'she does look like a Rottweiler'–that's fine–but you want to talk about being so sensitive?"

Most cuttingly, Lennox addresses the internalized racism behind the comment. In response to the argument shared by many that more culturally sensitive and inclusive language limits freedom of speech, she rejoined: "That's fine…but… Why is this your speech? Why are you so comfortable tearing down black women and no other race?" She called out the prevalence of racism and prejudice within the black community compared to other identities: "When are Hispanic women ever compared to dogs? When do they do that to white women? When are Hispanic men doing that to Hispanic women?"

Unfortunately, intra-racism, or internalized racism, occurs regularly among all groups (let's put aside, for now, the problematic issues with the word 'Hispanic').

Hence, we've tried to adopt a term to address such complex layers of misogyny, racism, bigotry, and all forms of oppression: "intersectionality." While the word's been badly misinterpreted among groups all along the political spectrum, the casual comparison between black women and dogs exemplifies the heart of its meaning. Simply, an individual is "impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues," to the point that even conservative writer David French calls it "common sense": "An African American man is going to experience the world differently than an African American woman," French told Vox. "Somebody who is LGBT is going to experience the world differently than somebody who's straight. Somebody who's LGBT and African American is going to experience the world differently than somebody who's LGBT and Latina. It's sort of this commonsense notion that different categories of people have different kinds of experience."

All too often, those layers of different experiences produce particular forms of prejudices. The original poster, @WinEverUWantIT, was inundated with replies calling out the hypocrisy and misogyny of him, a young black man, criticizing the appearance of two successful black women. "Black men are the weak link in the black community," reads a top comment, followed by, "Let me clarify. Black men like YOU are the weak link in our community."

Lennox then tweeted, "Moms and Dads please love on your beautiful black children. Tell them they're beautiful constantly. Tell them Black people are beautiful. Tell them black features are beautiful." This past summer, Lennox told Buzzfeed she'd had many experiences with social pressure and prejudice to change her features, from her natural hair to her nose. "I would never get surgery and I love my nose," she said. "I just feel this is a conversation that needs to be had. There are black babies that have insecurities 'cause culture says it's funny to insult black features." She uses her platform to denounce the notion that black women's features exist outside society's standards of beauty: "Rocking my natural nose, hair, and skin — that makes me feel so empowered, because there's so many people out there that would rather me not do that," she says. "I refuse to change for them. Knowing that I can encourage someone else to rock their natural self really empowers me, as well."

CULTURE

Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes Might Be Perfect for Each Other Because They're Both Racists

Or, at the very least, they both posted some pretty racist things as teenagers.

Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello47th Annual American Music Awards, Press Room, Microsoft Theater, Los Angeles, USA - 24 Nov 2019

Photo by Matt Baron/Shutterstock

Camila Cabello has been doing damage control for a series of racist Tumblr posts that re-emerged from her teenage years.

The Havana singer came under fire yesterday for using the "n-word" and reblogging racist posts on her since-deleted Tumblr blog, "vous-etess-belles." The revelation came from an eviscerating thread posted by a Twitter user named @motivatefenty and revealed that when Cabello was around 14 and 15, she reblogged a multitude of posts that contained racist slurs as well as racist sentiments about Mexicans, Asians, and Black people, and parodied Rihanna for being a victim of domestic violence.

Cabello responded with a tearful apology. "I'm an adult and I've grown and learned and am conscious and aware of the history and the pain it carries in a way I wasn't before," the 22-year-old concluded. "Those mistakes don't represent the person I am or a person I've ever been. I only stand and have ever stood for love and inclusivity, and my heart has never, even then, had any ounce of hate or divisiveness."

While she expressed sorrow at her actions, some panned her reaction as a "non-apology." Upon a closer look, the apology technically doesn't even express regret or a concrete desire to change. Instead, it attempts to excuse what she did, wrapping it up with a typical "I'm not racist and I was never racist because I'm a good person!" response.

Cabello, as The Daily Beast writes, "is one of many of celebrities who, after being confronted with indisputable receipts, have 'apologized' for past incidents of racism without actually holding themselves accountable."


If this all sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Shawn Mendes, Cabello's current boyfriend and duet partner who—back in August—was forced to offer a similar apology to the public when racist tweets surfaced. Like Cabello's posts, the tweets were posted when he was about fourteen and contained the "n-word" as well as other disparaging comments about people of color.

Like Cabello, his apology attempted to excuse his actions rather than distance himself from them. "I apologize for everything insensitive that I said in the past. But with that being said, I think that's not my personality," he wrote at the time. His response was slammed by fans and critics, so you would think that Camila could have at least tried to learn from her boyfriend's mistakes.

For a while, many of us have thought that Cabello and Mendes' relationship was a PR stunt designed to promote their single "Señorita," which, as one Twitter user wrote, would likely play on loop in Hell. But actually, they probably have a lot more in common than most of us thought. Most likely, they make racist jokes in private while lauding each others' innocence, goodness, and sense of humor, all while expressing no desire to actually change or take ownership of their actions.

Excusing racism with humor and clinging to the idea that it doesn't exist because "you're a good person" is how racism gets perpetuated, but not in Shawn and Camila's world. For now, all we can do is pray to every God we know that we won't get a cheeky "Sorry"-type apology duet.