Is Your Pro-Blackness an Extension of White Supremacy?

Photo courtesy of AceSpencer

I first heard of the connection between Black people “behaving badly” and white acceptance from Janicia or J from the podcast Tea with Queen and J. The idea is that we should discourage Black people from “behaving badly” in front of white people in order to get their acceptance and improve our race. We see this today with talk of Black excellence, laid edges, and proper English.

This past weekend, social media erupted over this image of a young Black model who had “undone” hair and the injustice that H&M caused her.

Photo courtesy of H&M

Many believed that she was ignored — that this was another case of Hollywood neglecting Black hair because of their own ignorance to properly care for it. Upon further investigation, every child model had messy hair. Why did this particular girl cause more disruption than the other?

“Black edges matter more than Black excellence.”

On The Grapevine, businesswoman Ayesha K. Faines shared the observation, “Black edges matter more than Black excellence.” Although Faines was addressing the Gabby Douglas controversy, the same can be applied here. Here, we have a young…