Beyoncé & The Snatching of Edges

April 15, 2018 Danielle Scott-Haughton

The common misconception is the BeyHive are collectively insane. The media would have you believe our support is disproportionate considering the object of our affection is a performer. On Saturday April 14th 2018 at approximately 11:18pm PST (woulda been 11:10 had dry head Post Malone hurried tf up) Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter delivered unto us evidence further justifying the depths of our fandom. The first black woman and only the third woman in the festival’s nineteen year history, Beyoncé took to Coachella’s main stage for a two hour tour de force banging out hit after hit after hit. I don’t know ‘bout you, but she’s left my scalp tender having snatched my edges clean from their roots.

Mo'Nique & Rampant Misogynoir

February 25, 2018 Danielle Scott-Haughton

You lot hate black women who you do not find attractive. You will go to any lengths to deny “misbehaved” black women their due. You heard Viola Davis well well when she told you to pay her what her white counterparts are getting. You cried for Octavia Spencer when she told you Jessica Chastain helped her get her things. But Mo’Nique, with her “misbehaved”, non-conforming fat black womanhood, you can’t hear her. You don’t want to hear her. A hearty, soul deep fuck you all to everyone choosing to ignore her calls for equality. She’s fighting for me. Mo’Nique is telling other black women they are worth more than they’ve been offered. She is worth more than she was offered.

Stefflon Don & Colourism

January 28, 2018 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Alice Walker coined the term colourism which David Knight on tolerance.org describes as “within-group and between-group prejudice in favor of lighter skin color…” The idea is that people with lighter skin complexion have a closer proximity to whiteness and therefore are more desirable. In old tweets that have resurfaced today, British multi-hyphenate musician Stefflon Don, displayed the kind of colourism that is ingrained in the consciousness of not just those with light skin but is planted in the minds of those with dark skin who in turn learn to believe they are less than. “All you dark-skinned hating on light skin bitches like if God gave you a choice you wouldn’t change your colour lool…” tweeted Stephanie Allen, the singer’s real name in 2013. I believe Stefflon is as much a victim of this societally entrenched prejudice as she is a past perpetrator and should she simply hold her hands up and say “rah, you know what? I said stupid, hurtful, informed shit back in the day. I’ve learned and I’ll do better.” I’d be inclined to say ignore this, but this “I never ever tweeted that” nonsense denial as if we’ve all lost the plot and didn’t see the tweet from her account with our own eyes, before she deleted it, but simply decided to come for her out of the blue is jarring. So, let’s talk about this. Follow me into the kitchen, I’m serving tea.

Meghan Markle & Unrestrained Black Glee

November 27, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Today started like any other Monday; a drone trudge towards the office, bones weary of another week and its growing lists of tasks. See, after the terrorist attack at The Ariana Grande concert in Manchester earlier this year, I had thought it wise to turn off my news notifications on my phone. I’d grown tired of the only news alert being bombings, stabbings and mass shootings. It wasn’t until Biz Pears liked tweets we’d sent each other last year that I realised something very important was going on. Prince Harry had proposed to Meghan Markle. The announcement of the impending Royal Wedding was just the grease needed to get my cogs into action. The race was on! Thinking of witty yet nuanced hot takes was a joy and it early enough in the morning our American friends weren’t yet awake to wield their more imposing Twitter presence. The field was open for Black British Twitter™ to stake their claim on news that was both heart-warming and brim-full of meme worthy content.

Stormzy & The Complexity of Apologies

November 22, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Yesterday prominent LGBTQIA publications Attitude Magazine and Pink News, exhibiting journalism skills to rival Pulitzer Prize winners, unearthed six-year-old tweets from British rapper Stormzy in which he used homophobic language on several occasions. Fans berated the publications for their targeting of the musician, believing it was a blatant attempt to tarnish not only his image but by extension the image of his partner (super babe) Maya Jama, currently a guest of I’m A Celebrity’s sister programme Extra Camp on ITV2. Reading both articles, they serve no clear purpose other than to expose his past conduct, align Stormzy with YouTube star Zoella, whose old tweets were also recently uncovered, and label him a hypocrite for his criticism of the BBC’s representation of young black men.

Lena Dunham & Weaponised White Feminism

November 18, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

The Hollywood Reporter broke news last night that Aurora Perrineau, star of The Carmichael Show, Passengers and four films currently in post production, had filed a report with the West Hollywood Police Department claiming screenwriter Murray Miller had raped her when she was 17 years old. Murray Miller’s screenwriting credits include The Tracy Morgan Show, American Dad! and Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, on which he also served as the executive producer for two years. Lena Dunham, the feminist icon you lot keep foisting on us, didn’t miss a beat in condemning Perrineau. Along with Girls’ co-showrunner, Jenni Konner, Dunham issued a statement no one asked for, but one they felt duty bound to deliver. “….during every time of change there are also incidences of the culture, in its enthusiasm and zeal, taking down the wrong targets. We believe, having worked closely with him for more than half a decade, that this is the case with Murray Miller. While our first instinct is to listen to every woman’s story, our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year.” In their statement to The Hollywood Reporter Dunham and Konner use well-chosen words and statistics to call Aurora Perrineau a liar because they have information the public do not and Miller is their friend.

Logan Sama, Over Familiarity & Misogynoir

November 11, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

On Wednesday 8th November, BBC Radio announced Logan Sama had been dropped as the host of a new weekly Grime show on BBC Radio 1xtra, the network’s home for Black British music. The decision was made following a public Twitter discussion between Sama and another 1xtra DJ Twin B regarding Sama’s 2013 and 2015 tweets about black women. According to Twin B, the tweets in question “had been floating around the last few weeks more than ever since the show announcement.” I hear you asking, what exactly did the tweets in question say that would warrant being stripped of BBC show?

Rose McGowan & Unitersectional Feminism

October 15, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

After years of a concerted effort by news organisations to suppress the truth, The New York Times broke the story that has rocked the entertainment industry for going on weeks now, the man they once called ‘God’ (ha) had been sexually harassing women for decades. Rose McGowan led the charge of women accusing Harvey Weinstein, calling out any and everyone who enabled him and naming names. She didn’t come to play. Women the world over rallied behind her cause because those of us with sense know women have more to lose coming out against their abusers. For her unwavering commitment to ensuring we all understood the pervasively insidious reach of the conspiracy to protect Weinstein from justice or at the bare minimum scrutiny, McGowan was rewarded by being suspended from Twitter. Immediately a hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter started, asking women to down tools for a day in support of McGowan and many prominent black women were not having it. “Calling white women allies to recognise the conflict of #WomenBoycottTwitter for women of colour who haven’t received support on similar issues.” Tweeted the prophet Ava DuVernay In response to the myopia of the hashtag, April Reign, creator of the #OscarsSoWhite movement (which forced The Academy to make sweeping changes to its membership and voting roles) created the hashtag #WOCAppreciation. Its aim was to affirm the efforts of women of colour so often ignored when women’s issues are a part of the zeitgeist- it succeeded and saw the resistance against erasure and silencing trending before the day was over.

Cardi B & Performative Cancellations

August 13, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

I’m cautious to cancel people when they’re problematic.

Lady Gaga & The Dishonesty of #ThisIsNotUs

August 13, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Saturday morning, I woke up to a timeline full of pictures of angry white people misappropriating Tiki torches during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Organised by white nationalist Jason Kessler, who according to the Sothern Poverty Law Centre “relies on familiar tropes of “white genocide” and “demographic displacement””, the Unite The Right march brought together white men and white women so comfortable with their right to be hateful, they didn’t even don the hoods of their Klu Kulx Klan forefathers. I mean, even tight face skin owner and former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke arrived at the rally and was thankful to you lot’s president as the event fulfilled his election campaign promises. The rally was organised to protest the removal of a statue of confederate civil war leader Robert E Lee. Cos God forbid one of the one thousand confederate monuments, honouring those who fought for the preservation of slavery, in thirty-one states in the United States is torn down.

Violence erupted at regular intervals throughout the two-day rally between anti-fascist protestors and those decrying imagined oppression and escalated until James Fields rammed his car into peaceful protestors, killing an, as of writing, unidentified 32 year-old woman and injuring nineteen others. News organisations floundered, failing to call the atrocity what it is, an act of white, Christian terrorism and somehow documented simpleton Melania Trump was quicker off the mark to denounce the violence than the meat filled balloon she married who has clearly forgotten the divisive campaign he ran to get elected calling for everyone to be united.

Right on time like her collaboration with R Kelly no one asked for and was taken to task for, here comes Lady Gaga claiming what’s happening in Charlottesville is “Anti-American” , encouraging her followers to use the hashtag #ThisIsNotUs. Lady Gaga is not uneducated about the mechanisms of racism and how it manifests as her fans remind those critiquing her about the star’s relationship with Black Lives Matter and the song she wrote for Trayvon Martin so I’m going to address this with unfettered passion- you’re wrong, sis and your hashtag is the very reason white supremacy is able to live and breathe out in the open.

#ThisIsNotUs is a lie. It is the same as the lie Toupee Fiasco told in his press conference when he claimed there was “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” Akwugo Emejulu’s side by side of the pictures of Elizabth Eckford walking into the first desegregated high school in 1957 pursued by a hateful mob and Charlottesville’s white supremacists proves this is you, everything that happened in Virginia is a representation of who American has is established itself as in the world. And let’s stretch imagination to its outer limits and pretend it isn’t you, who is it then?

According to senior fuck-head Julian Assange James Fields “is a suspected white supremacist picking up terrorism tips from ISIS (crowd ramming).” To claim #ThisIsNotUs is to co-sign the deception that white supremacy, white nationalism and neo-nazis are a fringe element of American life and not occupying key positions in the current White House administration. To entertain #ThisIsNotUs works to deflect accountability for the fact the people participating freely in that rally are everyday people, with families, neighbours and co-workers, who have been radicalised into believing the lies of white supremacy, that America belongs to white people and white people alone. #ThisIsNotUs stops white people doing the work of dismantling white supremacy in their homes, in their schools and allows white people fearful of the prospect of the labour and heavy lifting necessary to engage with the people they love and know who harbour hatefulness, expecting to leave this very real, very hard work to black and brown people.

You lot’s favourite trope in times of violence Dr Martin Luther King Jnr warned against lukewarm responses in times of racial crisis. In ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ on April 16th 1963, Dr King wrote “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"…” I propose, along with many others on Twitter, white people finally reconcile with the reality every single act of violence that took place in Charlottesville is American. Denial will only allow the hatefulness to thrive. To continue to ease your collective consciousness with empty hashtags instead of actively combatting white supremacist beliefs your loved ones hold dear will see California’s food crops rot in perpetuity because your president’s hate speech and immigration policies alienate the migrant workers you need to farm your land. Be honest about the history of racialised violence in America; it’s as old as the birth of your nation.

Why am I so passionate about #ThisIsNotUs when I live in Britain? As Kelechi said on Twitter early Saturday morning “to all the white Brits watching what's happening in Charlottesville and saying "at least we're not that bad!" Spoiler alert: you are.” Fifty-two percent of Britain voted to leave the European Union after a campaign based on fear, racism and xenophobia. According to the Independent “The number of hate crimes recorded by regional police forces rose by up to 100 per cent in the months following the Brexit vote…” And guess who the victims were? That’s right folks, brown and black people. So, excuse me Lady Gaga I cannot afford to be complacent, blindly retweeting #ThisIsNotUs. And I get it, I really do, Holy books speak of covering hatred with love but in this instance, you are inadvertently disallowing your nation room to dig up the this rotting tree, investigate the roots in order to locate the issue and genuinely pursue the effective combination of solutions you so desperately seek. There is hope for the rehabilitation of those with these racist mind-sets. Shazia Awan of the BBC interviewed Arno Michaelis, a former white supremacist who now works to change those who, like him, bought into the lie. Do not stand in the way of the de-radicalisation and re-education work that needs to take place in order for this cycle to end.

Own it. Then pass the mic and use your platform to boost the voices of those equipped with the solutions.

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Girls Trip & Celebrating Black Women's Joy

July 30, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Black women have long deserved a celebration as bold, colourful and debauched as Girls Trip since John was a boy. Girls Trip, written by Tracy Oliver and Malcolm D Lee, serves to upend the cinematic status quo that sees black women ignored, abused or absorbing the ills of society by ensuring friendship, love, joy and sexual desire are our focus in the comedy hit of the summer. Hollywood royalty Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Regina Hall and silver screen newcomer (my new personal obsession) Tiffany Haddish take us on the craziest journey as their friendships are tested and romances blossom. It’s well measured medicine for the battered psyche, taught for decades black women are beasts of burden, gifted at shouldering the pain inflicted upon us.

Beyoncé & How Stylist Magazine Failed

July 16, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Since the release of Beyoncé’s only photo of her children, one she released on her Instagram account and didn’t sell to People like a myriad of stars before her, white women across the Twittersphere have made wild claims about the mother of three. Danielle Ryan, a journalist with a slew of credits, asserted “Beyoncé is literally a female version of Kanye West. Full blown narcissist. I can't understand the insane reverence around her.” Twitter verified white supremacy account, Wife With A Purpose tweeted a photo of the Madonna & Child next to a photo of Beyoncé with the caption “Tubillardine Whiskey (1952) vs Kool-Aid” . These women (tbh the gender of the latter is suspect) and their tweets are easy to dismiss as twitter fodder, coded racist dog whistles written for attention at a time when it was wholly fixed on a black woman and the bold, beautiful display of her motherhood. What I will not ignore is Stylist Magazine’s institutionalisation of the coded language surrounding Beyoncé’s photo. The women behind the popular magazine thought it wise to commission one Lucy Paget to write an ill-conceived, poorly executed ‘think’ piece entitled “The problem with Beyonce’s impossibly perfect baby announcement.” “Oh Bey. We expected nothing less, but we deserved so much more…” starts the article.

Stormzy & The Individuality of Black Identity

July 11, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

The driving rain of racism was inescapable on July 10th 2017, from unseasoned Anne Marie Morris’ “the real nigger in the woodpile” comment (that slithered of her tongue too expertly to be any kind of mistake) to top dry head Emmanuel Macron declaring Africa’s problems are “civilisational” as if France didn’t played a direct role in the destabilisation of the continent and her hands aren’t awash with the blood of those they violently colonised. These are both explicit examples of racism and someone more well versed in politics can unpick the wider socio-political implications of these politicians’ comments; I’m here to talk about Stormzy.

Diane Abbott & Unrelenting Misogynoir

June 5, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Diane Abbot was the first black woman elected to the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament in 1987. Bridget Minamore’s article on The Pool outlines clearly and succinctly “racism and misogyny explains why there are so few black women in politics.” Minamore details Abbott’s experiences of misogynoir (the intersection of racism and sexism) as an example of the challenges all black women politicians face “all Members of Parliament (especially the female ones) get online abuse. But still, I’ve never seen a white female MP get abuse at the scale Abbott does.” The online abuse Minamore’s article focuses on isn’t from your average, backwater troll. It is public figures “journalists who write about her and her parliamentary peers” and so confident are they in the acceptance of misogynoir by the British public, they do not even seek the protection of anonymity online trolls enjoy.

Mo'Nique & The Policing of Black Women's Anger

May 27, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

For Tobi, whose tweet inspired this post and whose tireless work championing black, British women has directly, positively influenced my writing career.

My mum curated my experience of blackness on television and in film by directing me to the channels on Sky that represented me when I was younger. My mum, in her infinite wisdom, also collected a vast array of videos and DVDs starring black actors but had a penchant for comedy specials. We had the whole Def Comedy Jam collection and all of Walter Latham’s titles including The Queens of Comedy. It was in that special, showcasing the talents of Adele Givens, Sommore and Laura Hayes, that I was first introduced to Mo’Nique’s no holds barred brand. Unshackled from her TV-safe turn as Nikki Parker in Moesha and The Parkers, I was shocked, delighted and in awe by her, and her colleagues; their ability to be just as raw, equally as funny- if not more hilarious than The Original Kings of Comedy.

Riz Ahmed & The Political Blackness Myth

May 21, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

On April 18th Tresemmé, you lot’s Prime Minister, called a snap General Election to strengthen the Conservative Party’s grasp on power during the country’s impending exit from the European Union (and off a cliff to a Thatcher like doom.) At the time, the opposition Labour party, who swing to the left of the Conservative’s right wing political stance, was in disarray and many assumed Labour would be easily defeated. However, in the last month campaigns like #GrimeforCorbyn have helped galvanise previously disillusioned young voters. Grime artists Stormzy and most prominently JME have come out publicly in favour of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party Leader. The BBC reported of the 100,000 people who’ve registered to vote in the last seven days, 40% are under 25 years old and warn of a spike in numbers as the deadline to register to vote grows closer.

Jamelia & The Fallacy of Reverse Racism

May 5, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” -Zora Neale Hurston.

I was ten years old when I first saw a fresh faced Jamelia dressed in a mantua literally waltzed across MTV Base declaring she was no prima donna while Beenie Man zaga zow, ziggy zowed his way through his feature. She was a vision I would often don my mother’s net curtains trying to recreate. Jamelia’s visibility in the early noughties was important to me as a dark skinned black girl because I was able to see myself in popular culture and her existence validated mine. During the early noughties, the trifecta of women who I could look to as representations that reflected how I saw myself in popular music were Jamelia, Kelly Rowland and Sabrina Washington in British girl group Misteeq.

Serena Williams & Black Pregnancy

April 23, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Serena Jameka Williams, First of Her Name and Queen of the Grass Court announced her pregnancy on Wednesday 12th April and exultations erupted across the Twittersphere. Sports pundits quickly pointed out Williams was with child when she held the winner’s trophy aloft at the Australian Open and very quickly Very Smart Brothas prophesied that in 16 years time Williams’ progeny would also beat Maria Sharapova.

Pepsi, Kendall & Black Women's Erasure

April 8, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

Three years after Alecia Moore, better known as P!NK, made it clear she wasn’t a racially ambiguous woman of colour (because come on, Can’t Take Me Home bamboozled me), she, Beyoncé and Britney Jean Spears formed the trifecta, the Trinity if you will, of Pop to star in Pepsi’s 2004 iconic “We Will Rock You” commercial. Ridley Scott’s 2000 triumph Gladiator heavily influenced the ad and saw the musical juggernauts combine forces to defeat Emperor Enrique Igeslias with the power of Queen. Vibe.com chronicling Beyoncé’s relationship with Pepsi quote her as her saying “I remember Michael Jackson’s commercial …and to think that I’m getting a chance to do this. I know that it’s gonna be perfect.” For the last decade and a half Beyoncé’s Pepsi ads have been just that, evolving in style as she evolved musically. Starting with a spot to accompany her role in MTV’s Carmen: A Hip Hopera, and most recently her 2013 retrospective “Grown Woman”, her “unconventional” $50million deal renewing her relationship with Pepsi in 2012 included the stipulation they “fund to support the singer’s chosen creative projects.” The superstar ensured that not only would they pay her to use her likeness but also financially support her future endeavours. The deal was a stroke of genius.

Newsnight, Rachel Dolezal & The Centring of Imagined Blackness

March 28, 2017 Danielle Scott-Haughton

For John, Tanya and Ronke who first paid me to write.

I made sure I was home, front and centre to witness first hand and in real time Rachel Dolezal’s interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Two’s Newsnight. Astounded, I watched mouth agape as Dolezal spoke about her horrific, violent childhood and unapologetically continued to claim she was, despite the naysayers and indisputable facts, a black woman. Dolezal lamented her inability to gain employment since the revelation she was a white woman darkening her skin and wearing curly hair lost her job as the president of Spokane, Washington’s NAACP chapter. After the interview, Maitlis was joined in the studio by Guilane Kinouani to discuss Dolezal’s claims “race is a lie. How can you lie about a lie?” Kinouani spoke with truth and power clearly articulating “I remain sceptical in her inability to recognise her privilege as a white woman being able to occupy or inhabit the lived experience of a black woman.”