Sorry but the discourse around Tyla’s identity has exposed something that deserves to be called out: expecting Africans to understand themselves primarily through a Black American racial framework, while refusing to engage with African’s countries’ racial hierarchies and colonial histories, is a form of xenocentrism that has already become xenophobic in this case.
At some point there has to be intellectual curiosity from
BA. Black Americans are not the only Black people with histories of racialisation, colonialism or oppression. South Africa’s racial classifications for example emerged from a distinct colonial and apartheid system with its own categories, meanings and consequences. Those histories cannot simply be overwritten by an American understanding of race, simply because Tyla wants to market herself to the BA audience. It doesn’t work like that.
Tyla did not invent South Africa’s racial hierarchy any more than Black Americans invented Jim Crow or the one-drop rule. Both are products of white supremacy, but they developed differently in different places. Expecting her to reject the identity that was historically imposed, negotiated and understood within her own country simply to satisfy an American racial framework is insane.
I don’t wanna hear shit from you niggas that care about hit songs & vibes over lyricism.. this is the product yall created with yall dumbass philosophy now enjoy it
are we ready to acknowledge us, black americans, telling her she needs to assimilate & resign her SA culture term of “colored” to be marketable to black american’s is xenophobic? or we still need time? i’m ready whenever we’re ready to talk 😊
You guys are rooting and supporting someone who was complicit in identity theft.
There’s a South African mother who’s identity was stolen and could not register their own child in their own country.