Ari Lennox is calling out trolls who have the nerve to tear down Black women.
The R&B singer took to Instagram last week to respond after Twitter user King Kwasii wrote, “Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor’s ability to have dangerously high sex appeal while simultaneously looking like rottweilers will always amaze me.”
The anti-Black comment sparked tons of backlash, leading to a response from both women. Lennox tweeted, “People hate blackness so bad.” To which Taylor responded, “No lies detected.”
Lennox later followed up with an emotional Instagram live in which she asked why people were “so comfortable tearing Black women down?”
“I’m not f–king with that s–t,” Lennox continued, “how people hate Black people so much, how Black people can sit up here and say, ‘That’s not my problem.’ Or, ‘She does look like a rottweiler.’ And you want to talk about, ‘Oh, people are so sensitive, they want us to cancel freedom of speech.’ Why is this your speech?”
The now-viral incident is just one recent example of anti-blackness throughout society and within the Black community.
Another example of anti-blackness came during New Year’s celebrations when Vanity Fair film critic K. Austin Collins and Harper’s Bazaar editor Violet Lucca insulted Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter after images of the 7-year-old celebrating 2020 went viral. The two later apologized.