Update: Thanks to the combined efforts of anti-racists across both Twitter and Instagram, Kelechi’s Instagram account has been restored.
Recently, news broke that Clemmie Hooper, a midwife and mummy-blogger with just shy of 700,000 Instagram followers used a burner social media account to attack her rivals. I had no idea about any of this because the world of mummy blogging foreign to me.
All this was brought to my attention yesterday when Kelechi Okafor laid out the details in succinct but scathing thread. While all of this is truly perplexing, the most disturbing aspect of Hooper’s revelations is her targeting of fellow mummy blogger Candice Brathwaite with naked misogynoir. Hooper’s burner account posted several times about Braithwaite, a black mummy blogger with over 47,000 instagram followers, attempting to leak stories about Brathwaite’s past, accusing her of being a “aggressive” (white women’s go-to description for confident and outspoken black women), “social climbing” and “using her race as a weapon”. The irony of that last point is not lost on me.
Kelechi Okafor, first of her name, took to social media both on Instagram and Twitter to denounce Hooper’s targeted harassment of Brathwaite. Using her social media platforms she advocated for Brathwaite, a fellow hyper-visible black woman in the media, and ensured that the story of Hooper’s bullying didn’t completely erase Hooper’s misogynoir (the intersection of racist and sexist bigotry). Side note: take a look at the reporting around Hooper’s situation, somehow it’s only the Daily Mail (as unbelievable as this sounds) that even acknowledges there was a racial element to Hooper’s comments regarding Brathwaite.
Okafor was, as always, unambiguous in her assessment of the situation; clearly detailing the facts accompanying them with receipts. The point that scares the living daylights of out me is that Hooper is a midwife. Hooper is charged with the delivery of other women’s babies. Knowing what we know now that discrimination in medicine disproportionately affects black women in Britain with black women being five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, why wouldn’t we call into question the employment of a racist in this profession? “Now, Dani, that sounds awfully hyperbolic,” nah fam; it doesn’t. Black women die every day because of the apathy, conscious and unconscious bias of healthcare professionals. Here is Clemmie Hooper, a white woman, offended that Candice Brathwaite speaks openly about her race so much so that she created a burner account to lament about it. What does she do when black mothers in her care speak about their pain? Does she ignore them? Does she berate them? Does she ridicule them? Kelechi Okafor did what black women often are forced to do- fight for ourselves and each other before anyone else will take notice. In doing so, she called for Hooper to lose her job as a midwife.
Fans of Clemmie Hooper, unimpressed by Okafor’s fulsome defence of Brathwaite, in a coordinated strike mass-reported Okafor’s Instagram account for bullying. Instagram reminded us that they are their mother’s child and the protection and preservation of white supremacy is more important than black women’s voices. Instagram deleted Kelechi Okafor’s Instagram on the whim of white women who didn’t seek out the same protection for Candice Brathwaite in the face of Clemmie Hooper’s racist harassment. Instagram told racist white people that their offence is more important than the truth.
This post isn’t as poetic as I normally like them but I’m angry. Those who worked in concert to have Kelechi removed from Instagram did so because Okafor made it clear that Hooper was unfit for her role as a midwife. In doing so, Okafor “jeopardised” Hooper’s livelihood, according to these people who don’t realise that with 700,000 instagram followers Hooper’s livelihood is not reliant on her midwife money. Whereas Okafor’s is in part supported by the work she does promoting her dance studio on Instagram. This is another way in which white women are seen as innocent where black women are seen as aggressive. White women, regardless of their intellectual and/or physical racist violence against black women are extended the benefit of doubt and protected from the consequences. White supremacy cannot thrive without the support of white women and Clemmie Hooper’s situation is an evergreen reminder of that sad fact. In deleting Kelechi Okafor’s account, Instagram have made it clear they uphold and value the tenets of white supremacy more than black women. I am heartbroken for Kelechi.
Click here to pay Kelechi and shower her in money.
Click here to follow Kelechi on Twitter.