As she was accepting her moonman for the VMA’s Best Hip Hop Video of the Year, Nicki Minaj interrupted herself and directed the attention to Miley Cyrus by saying “Now back to this bitch that had a lot to say about me in the press the other day. Miley, what’s good?” With just a few words on live television, she instantly became the face that launched a thousand memes.
The next morning, I found that virtually every media outlet had the feud as the top story. Wading through the countless posts I noticed a trend. The words used to describe Nicki were always “livid”, “aggressive” or some other variation of the word angry. Miley Cyrus’ name, on the other hand, was accompanied with the phrases like “former Disney star” or “former child star.”
Nicki Minaj was consistently being portrayed as the angry black woman stereotype while Miley Cyrus was painted as the innocent bystander despite the fact that the entire feud started the week before when she bad-mouthed Nicki in an interview with The New York Times.
Nicki’s statement was entertaining and made for good television, but the racially biased backlash from the media revealed a dark side of the entertainment industry that is usually well-hidden. People of color, especially blacks, are villainized and seen as the aggressor in the majority of situations in the media.
We are force-fed harmful stereotypes and inaccurate depictions that are too often masked by comedy in order to be more easily adopted by the public. The result is a subconscious attitude that these labels are not only accurate, but also acceptable. Black men, no matter their profession are now seen as the hard thug and outspoken black women such as Nicki Minaj are easily aligned with the sassy black woman stereotype.
Although this instance probably didn’t affect Nicki Minaj’s life or even music sales in any real way, not every person of color has the perks and luxuries a celebrity like her has.
Strip the security guards, celebrity status and millions of viewers away and suddenly the racism is amplified. People of color experience racial bias as part of their everyday lives. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times store managers have followed me around convenience stores for fear of me stealing something while there were at least two other customers in the store.
I am fortunate enough to live in a place with a relatively high level of diversity where a store manager following me is pretty much the upper limit of the racism I experience. Racism also poses little to no threat to my life, but I recognize that not everyone has the same opportunity to live in the safe comfortable bubble that is Temple City.
While most of us do a good job at speaking out against the larger, more violent acts of racism, we should also make it our responsibility to combat the attitudes and social norms that promote it.
TCHS School Newspaper