Blavity, which fashions itself as a hub of Black culture by and for millennials, has risen to become one of the best-known brands of churning out high-quality content. However, the website publication is facing scrutiny for embracing an unpopular social media figure who has been accused of being an apologist for street harassment and other questionable acts.
It began first with author and media personality Feminista Jones calling out the website for publishing a link to Tariq Nasheed’s Hidden Colors documentary, which examines the role of white supremacy and its impact on people of color. Nasheed has been a notorious figure among those who might consider themselves part of Black Twitter, and he has been accused of misogyny and divisiveness in droves.
Feminista Jones expressed in a series of tweets:
Blavity associating itself in any way with Hidden Colors makes me want to vomit and block every channel/account they have. But…
I’m giving there benefit of the doubt and assuming someone really young and out-of-touch with TN’s obsession with publicly denigrating BW
Because there’s no way they can host an empowerment conference for Black women and turn around and give that vile misogynist ANY publicity
It went on from there, and it caught the attention of the wider Twitter audience who began dumping on Blavity for giving Nasheed’s work attention. They’ve since taken down the post, apologizing for putting it up and says they’ll review their editorial process.
That wouldn’t be enough for Black Twitter, who unleashed a tirade of hate towards the site and revealed that the popular and allegedly well-funded site doesn’t pay its content writers. It certainly isn’t a banner day for the site. Hopefully, they’ll bounce back better from this.
See more of how this played out on the following pages.
https://twitter.com/eveewing/status/739993172760244224
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Photo: Blavity
