Struggling to understand your argument here tbh. How do I know? She literally says the discussion can’t go on until darker skinned people own what they do to lighter skinned people like her/us because she’s pissed about it. That’s how she demonstrates her pain is more important. I’m not being deliberately obtuse, are…

The pain is undeniable, I reference my own experiences of people suggesting I’m not my father’s daughter (in the most unimaginable circumstances), not black enough etc and how much that hurt. I absolutely empathise with her, that does mean I cannot critique. My objection to her comments is that she believes her pain…

Yikes. I was going to systematically dismantle your argument. Pointing out your shifting goalposts, logical leaps and utterly unfounded generalisations. But then you did all the work for me. With the following conclusion you demonstrated the futility of my engaging any further:

Who is excusing that behaviour or denying it happens? ‘Tend to perpetuate?’ That’s quite a radical interpretation of the single data point of wife’s anecdotes. If lighter skinned people were actually treated worse than darker skinned people, they simply would not access the benefits they do within our communities. As…

Imagine she did smh.

I’m African, not American. I’m considered light-skinned where I’m from but perhaps wouldn’t be by American standards. (Not that Africans are particularly dark which is an annoying fallacy I hear constantly in African-American press, there are after all quite a few of us on our sprawling continent. See Nilotic vs…

Lol this tho: I interpreted the King of the Shade’s words as the driest of sarcasm like straight gin.

Good point, the Beeb being dismantled from inside really chimes with the output tbh. 

I don’t know. I feel like it really did occupy a particular space in terms of blackness even then. I mean neo-soul was always held up as a more authentic and complex expression of the black experience compared to the rest of oughties mainstream R&B. And while the turn of the century was in many ways as oppressive as…

Ready for Love.

Me too! And some more research would not have gone amiss in this article to be honest. It’s way off base. Especially in articulating that the complaints are actually from people (white) who are mad that at the idea that the so-called PC Police are suggesting it’s not ok for white people to dominate or entirely occupy…

That facial hair requires it’s own post. But yeah absolutely, I think C4 producers are pretty excellent too. Compare their defence of him in this to the Beeb’s incessant gaslighting when they’re called out on race. E.g. Fiona Bruce vs Diane Abbott. It’s a tragedy but I feel BBC can no longer claim the global respect…

Jon Snow is our finest newsman by far. We don’t have cookouts here, as such, but if we did his standing invite would have been guaranteed. This is a man who had, presumably platonic, sleepovers with Maya Angelou. Walked the talk on Apartheid. Challenged Idi Amin. Called out Prince Harry’s participation in Afghanistan…

Preach.

This is precisely why I have a four episode rule. If a show is coming out that I am looking forward to and or feel I should support i.e. by black creatives I like, I give it four episodes. My friends say this is an over investment but I love TV so I don’t care. I never force myself if I just don’t like something, but…

Ooh I’m gonna try that, I got the brush and it worked well but I discovered prefer it as a Kabuki brush for my face so wasn’t sure if I was gonna recommit it to the lava. I’ll try this first. 

Wow I’m surprised by my own ignorance about this. Thank you for the list. I pride myself on being up on black women leading their fields, but this is a glaring blind spot for me. And I care about fashion.

I still have so much Brown Sugar from last summer cos it’s such good value and honestly I can’t be extra af in grey Blighty any other time of the year. It’s divine. I’m still gonna need this tho 😩

Thank you SO MUCH for doing this. Been lurking all month but had comment and say what an amazing journey it’s been. Have been introduced to so many new brands (not all available here in UK :( ) and found a lot of my experiences reflected in yours. It’s been a blast. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Maybe a minor thing but the application of #themtoo here is a bit of a misnomer. The point of #metoo, as I’m sure you know, is to centre the experience of the survivor. Employing the conceit to describe those who are complicit in the crimes that fuelled that movement feels uncomfortable, at least to be, at best.