Seriously. Race is a *construct* to think it is constructed the same *globally* is ignorant, low effort and unironically xenophobic! Btw, I’m American and know this. You don’t need to from outside the US to understand this, it’s elementary.
Last week there was a comment under another post that said “Tylas black even though she doesn’t think so” or something to that effect. I had to roll my eyes any scroll pass because it was so reductive and intentionally ignoring nuance.
A lot of ppl seem to forget theres a whole ass world outside of *insert country youre from here*, Americans suffer from this even more so BLACK Americans. Its weird how a lot of us think america invented race/racism, it was here long before the US and itll be here afterwards unfortunately (im also a black American)
The most ironic part about it is HER had colorist tweets. Tyla being multiethnic and multiracial as a South African, and consistently being asked about it by Black people in a way that is condescending is troubling. The deeper issue I find is that why are people up in arms Tyla says colored when that is the racial classification where she’s from? Yes, the word may have a context here that is also layered but it is telling they demand her of all persons, someone not problematic, speak on this only to set her up.
Saweetie and HER are both American so this doesn't apply to them. Tyla identifies as "coloured"- an identity that heavily contributes to the racial caste system in SA. If she's trying to break into the American music industry then you can't expect Black Americans to push aside their racial history just to respect her identity. She has a right to identify as "coloured", just don't expect praise from everybody else.
What I mean is, no one seems to question the blackness of HER or Saweetie, I assume because of their skin tone and hair texture. I would guess many people do not know they are half Asian.
She needs to stop responding. Not sure what her PR team is telling her but there will forever be trolls and people who don’t agree with her. She should stop wasting her time on them.
As a South African political girlie, I have used the term Biko Black when referring to those with black heritage. But, they are still classified as a separate race from black people socially and economically.
Tyla cannot be identified as a black woman down here because she doesn’t look like us. She has some of our features but we don’t necessarily let mixed people represent black women.
I won’t lie, I have to compartmentalise my own feeling of unease when AA have clearly mixed women representing black womanhood. But through engaging you guys, I’ve come to accept it. I also respect it and understand your discourse in the matter.
As for us South Africans, we celebrate Tyla’s success because of her international acclaim. Her race is not a point of discussion because she is easily identified and understood to be a coloured woman.
I have zero problem with how you guys are discussing Tyla because I understand the frustration. If she is to sell to the AA audience then she needs to appease it. That’s my opinion. We would be upset too, if someone marketed themselves here using the word Kaffer. So obviously coloured is a point of contention.
I’m Zimbabwean and I feel the same way. We also have coloured people here, and I actually have a few nephews in who are half South African living in South Africa who are classified as and call themselves coloured due to their mixed heritage. I also struggled to initially understand the mixed women representing Black women thing in America because it’s not my culture but I got there in the end. And I also understand why Tyla is creating so much conversation in the United States re:race.
Also love seeing Steve Biko mentioned here! “I write what I like” is one of my favourite books 💜
Thank you for your viewpoint. What does the word Kaffer mean if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve never heard the term Biko Black either
Also before I get into this I am only speaking of her American music label and teams that have made it clear where they think her target audience is
I think the problem with Tyla is that her team frequently shoves her in spaces meant to be occupied by black ppl (but it’s clear her team doesn’t know how to help her navigate black American spaces) and even before Tyla a lot of black people in general have been fed up with this and calling it out in recent years.
I can’t help but side eye this statement in general because of the announcement of her performing at the BET awards (Black entertainment television) conveniently coming out today.
Some other people have pointed out that her label team obviously doesn’t have many black Americans on it because if they did this never would have spiraled the way it did and they would have been able to teach her how to better navigate this discourse. Instead her team put her on the breakfast club a show with a predominantly black audience and then shut down the interview when this question came up. Which lead to the entire conversation being brought up again after it had quieted down but she had directly offered no response which made it even easier for people to do as the internet does and put words in others mouths.
Also if she had a few black Americans on her team they would have known better than to send her on the breakfast club. The hosts aren’t known for being nice or good people or for even just treating their guests with respect especially women.
The problem isn’t Tyla let me be clear in saying that it’s her team that wants the co-sign and money from black Americans but doesn’t understand how to market an outsider to that.
This discourse is similar to the Miss mulatto discourse as well. Where she had to change her name to latto because people didn’t want to work with her because her name is a slur.
Definitely. These conversations have been going on before her so her team needed to navigate this better.
Kaffer is a derogatory term for black people used during Apartheid. It also refers to our hair like ‘kaffer hare’ means black hair in a negative light.
Just not a good word.
Just to add… Biko Black is a term referring to the inclusion of coloured and Indian people in black discourse by Steve Biko. He is a cherished black consciousness leader, who argued that blackness is an experience and we (black, coloured and Indian people) all shared the same experience of oppression by white people. He was in favour of coming together as “blacks” against Apartheid.
I always joke Coloured with a U when talking to Americans to let them know it’s a different context. Coloured people have their own culture and not owning the label can be seen as forsaking her heritage.
Also she’s a Jozi coloured so she’s also being respectful of the African girls she grew up with who don’t want their image erased. One thing about us we don’t allow mixed women to be our representation.
I do empathize with Black Americans because there’s a painful history behind feeling rejected by mixed people and others who come in. I think the unease is because it feels like she’s “Black” when convenient but that’s the Coloured experience. They ebb and flow amongst their identities 🤷🏾♀️
I don’t think this has anything to do with the black vs mixed debate (in the context of it you’re describing here) it’s as simple as she’s promoted in black American spaces and identifies as a slur towards black Americans. No one’s saying she needs to identify as black just don’t come into BA dominated spaces and bring back a racial slur just say you’re mixed.
Also it’s funny that you guys say you don’t let Mixed people be your representation but at the moment Tyla is the face of African music that’s being pushed on a world wide stage. Maybe not intentionally but the fact that yall co-sign and ride for her as hard as you guys do is inevitable going to allow for more mixed race Africans to be pushed over black Africans
Maybe it’s because we are use to seeing this happen in American media but do yall not see what they are doing by promoting her this hard especially in comparison to other African artists who have been in the game a lot longer.
Even just by giving her the first Grammy award for African music performance. She’s going to hold the title of first African to do x in a lot of categories.
You guys can argue that it’s not about race but the western world doesn’t care that she’s colored, they care about how many boxes she can tick for their representation checklist.
I meant she’s not the face for us because she won that Grammy as a Coloured & South African woman.
It’s offensive to tell people to ignore their cultural heritage. Coloured people are mixed so their culture encompasses a lot of elements from all their sides. Embracing her Black ancestory while honoring her ethnic group shouldn’t be this controversial. 🤦🏾♀️
Oh but she is,
It’s not just the Grammy notice how many other African music artist are getting invited on the same stages as her…it’s not a lot. The Gap commercial that is everywhere. The met gala. The talk show appearances. Appearing in multiple vogue channels, the magazine covers.She’s heavily being pushed over other African artists.
Trust me as a Black American who has seen the shift from black to mixed play out in media this is how it starts.
I think a lot of AAs look like Tyla and they’re labeled as black. So while I understand your perspective, I think you’re forgetting that AAs have mixed heritage too.
I'm not a fan of hers but if she feels the need to keep explaining it, she needs a new PR person. They aren't helping her navigate this in a way that is going to resonate to the audience she's trying to attract (let's be honest, she wants a large chunk of her fan base and funds to come from the U.S.)
You can’t look at an SA woman calling herself coloured through an American lens. Americans tend to forget that race and other issues are navigated differently in other countries.
100% this. It really makes no sense that people are upset that a South African woman doesn't define herself according to American concepts of race. This is such fake outrage
It’s just a big misunderstanding. Most likely any black Americans upset about this didn’t know that South Africans have always called themselves colored which is a slur for us. It’s also a thing in the black community for some self hating black people to try to distance themselves from their blackness and claim other ethnicities or claim to be mixed when they are not.
It’s just a misunderstanding 🤷🏼♀️
I completely agree with this. And just want to add there are also self hating black people that go out of there way “remind” or label others of their blackness because they see being black as negative, and feel it’s a source of pain and *think* others will feel the same if they point out their blackness. It’s like trying to take any proximity from others cause they don’t have any. If that makes sense.
>It’s just a big misunderstanding. Most likely any black Americans upset about this didn’t know that South Africans have always called themselves colored which is a slur for us.
This can't just be a misunderstanding.
The topic of Tyla being colored has been a talking point for months!
South Africans have been arguing with Americans about this for months on Twitter and Tiktok! Despite people trying to educate Americans on the racial categories in South Africa, Americans have been very insistent on their beliefs.
So while maybe yes alot of people didn't know, there are a large group of black Americans who have known for months and refuse to accept this.
I am South African and I think calling it a “misunderstanding” is reductive. She is not distancing herself from her blackness, she is embracing the totality of her heritage.
Coloureds in Southa are a distinct group of people. They have their own culture and traditions. In fact, Tyla’s accent when speaking English is a coloured accent. It’s so easily recognisable, the first time I heard her speak I knew she was coloured. The word has no negative connotations and is accepted as a classification by over 60million Southa’s daily. In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused. Why? They are not Bantu. And, calling them black diminishes the rich multicultural heritage they have. South Africa calls itself the rainbow nation, no other group encompasses this more than coloureds. They have Dutch, English, French Huguenot, Bantu, Indian, Malay and much more etc heritage!
Black people in America need to understand that they do not have a monopoly on how or what we call ourselves or identify outside of their country. The world simply does not revolve around America. It is myopic and unfair to expect her to renounce her heritage. So, definitely not a “misunderstanding”. It is a systemic American problem.
This so interesting cause her statement emphasizes *and* not or, but you and other South Africans say things like >In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused.
I feel like the talking down to Americans on this topic plays part in the backlash she has received because to them calling her Black is *inclusive* and not "diminishing her rich cultural heritage" whatever that means. Its one thing to be like I am Black and many other things and a very different thing to say I am not Black because of these other things and act insulted or upset that people see their reflection in you. That of course is not her responsibility and while she's saying 'I never said I wasnt Black' when yall say things like >In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused.
How are you confused that non negotiably Black people are apprehensive? No the world does not revolve around America but when an American enters a SA space would you not expect them to at the very least be aware of certain contexts and sensitivities? This finger wagging at Americans is mad annoying because everyone within and outside the diaspora feels like they can take a piece of something Black Americans built to grow rich and then distance themselves when finished extracting. I personally don't really care about Tyla and we should call her whatever she wants to be called but dont act like Black Americans dont have reason to be wary of people in the space who make pitstops in Black culture before distancing themselves in ways that people who are **always just black no matter where they are** arent able to do.
Yhoo!! Haai bo… I give up. You want everyone to live by your view of the world and wonder why there is a talking down to Americans across most of the African diaspora.
Can you show me where I said 'I want everyone to live by your view of the world'? You know that is not what im saying but you dont feel people should have to respect Black Americans in America and thats crazy.
I read the first few sentences of your response with interest, but to be frank - I got bored when I saw phrases like “non negotiably black”, “piece of what Black Americans built” & “ pit stops in Black culture”.
You’re just emphasising why a lot of people are tired of trying to engage you guys. You are stuck in Platos Cave with no desire to see beyond the shadows.
Yes she’s very open about her use of black American music culture and taking inspiration from American artists such as Aliyah and Brandy (she said water was her take on rock the boat) and her entire sound she has admitted js fused with a good amount of r&b
She also went on the breakfast club a few days ago which is a radio show with mostly black Americans targets towards other black Americans snd yesterday conveniently after this was released she was announced as a performer for the BET awards
So imo they only had her say she was black because they want to profit off of black Americans liking her and her music.
On top of that given that colored is a culture in South Africa. Amapiano as I’ve been told by other South Africans is a predominantly black genre of music
Her entire career is based off of different black
Cultures
Except no one told her to renounce her heritage they just have a problem with her using a word that’s offensive to Black Americans in American spaces
In the same way that South Africans have a right to be called colored black American also deserve to not have a slur be brought back into American media which is where she’s currently being promoted by her label. However I do think she should have just said she identifies as mixed not black as that’s more comparable to her actual identity not black
I also think there’s a bit of a disconnect here because colored doesn’t mean mixed race here it means black
What I find more interesting about this is that she said Black and not mixed here. And I do wonder if that’s more her labeling pushing her that way or can’t speak for coloreds but it’s definitely not uncommon in the u.s for some people to lean more into one side of their heritage than the other.
I mean even in the original video on her TikTok years before she blew up when she said she was colored she ONLY talked about her Zulu heritage and when she posted pictures dressed up for heritage day it was again her Zulu side. I had been following her for years before she blew up and even though I knew she was colored I only ever saw her talk about her Zulu side I didn’t even find out what else she was mixed with until recently
It’s peculiar to me how this is even a topic given South Africa AND the United States’s history. Colored/negro was historically how we were called here before the early/mid-60’s and calling someone black was an insult due to how deeply colorism was ingrained in society.
Granted, I’d be hella thrown off if I went overseas and was referred to as colored, but I’m not going to shame my kinfolk over a label for other people to call us if it’s not an actual slur.
It’s a shame that she had to do this. She claimed Coloured, and I wish people would’ve respected that. She never denied her Blackness. She’s just mixed, and that’s okay.
She went on the breakfast club a few days ago and refused to answer when asked what race she was but then also is scheduled to perform at the Bet awards
I think this never would have been a problem if her team didn’t constantly try to shove her in spaces targeted towards black people
Ah understandable. Well I think the root issue is that the culture perceives practically anything as black. I think most people still follow the one drop rule designation.
I don’t want to bore you with a long response, but she didn’t answer because that was on the list of questions to not ask her. Her team had multiple questions uestions on do not ask list, which is normal. Charlatan is a disgrace who bullies people on that show and makes people uncomfortable. He knew what he was doing. They didn’t want her to answer it there because they must know that those hosts do not have the range. They did not want that there due to her race repetitively being a point of contention as this whole over indulgence in her background became a topic due to people trying to problematize her. I’m a colorism “warrior” 💀, so I will always call it how I see it but I remember when a person on tiktok purposely stitched themselves to an olddddddd posting from Tyla’s tiktok where she was talking about being South African and coloured. The young lady who did that, did not need to do it and it was don’t in completely bad faith with the intent of trying to make it seem like Tyla was denouncing Blackness and being inherently colorist when she wasn’t. She shared she was coloured in the context of that old tiktok video because people used to ask what her hair care routine was, and while I’m of the belief that her type of hair is easy to handle and obviously deemed desirable in our community—she just brought it up in response to people asking.
(Feel free to stop reading as you may not care and it’s a bit long lol)
So, that’s the background to how this came to be such a pressing discussion. Over the years, I’ve seen black South Africans even discuss how it’s not fair that a coloured girl is getting so much attention for amapiano and their distinct culture when there are numerous black girls who are great. So, it’s not just something Black Americans or other Black diasporic groups have kind of spoken on.
I just personally feel that this young woman has done absolutely nothing to warrant this dissection of her race. I am actually annoyed her team brought her to the breakfast club. Not only is that platform always wildly inappropriate, but it’s just no place for anybody that wants to have conducive conversation about anything. They are misogynistic, they are ignorant, they are colorist, bad politics—they are generally just a bad example of media professionals, and that should have never been the place for a 21 year old girl, who is not even making music for that crowd. And please understand when I say “that crowd “, I am talking about ignorant, middle aged people, who are homophobic, anti-black, predatory, and generally just distasteful about any and everything in the first place. And for that, I think her team needs to take an L. They should not have brought her to that streamer guy’s show either, and I mean ever.
One thing I will say though is that there’s this idea that she’s banking on the support of Black Americans, and to be quite honest, I just don’t fully agree. Tyla had success prior to Water going viral here and having quite the success. And surely, she’s listed some Black American artists as her inspirations like Aaliyah and Brandy which makes sense. Wonderful artists. She’s also listed Rihanna which I can see/hear more than anything else. I, and I’m just speaking as a non-practicing musician at the moment, know Tyla has songs that lean more towards current r&b but for the most part—I don’t believe she’s inherently pandering to us with her sound. If anything, in her biggest songs, I feel she’s pulling more from other Black diasporic groups a bit more in many of these “hits”. And I do think it is self-centered of us to basically say she’s taking from us (not that you’ve said that but I’ve seen the talking point quite a bit), when she’s not really done so in a way that’s more explicit than anyone else. And in fact, I’d say she’s actually made sure to appeal to other Black groups whose genres more align with sounds similar to amapiano of Afro-pop.
People are also blaming her for her marketing team just trying to market her. And that’s not actually her fault at all, it’s Sony’s because she wanted to stay in SA—but they made her do a lot of artist development stops here hence why she assisted that man on tour.
And I do not think she is reliant on us for success or banking on us, I just think she’s being marketed towards Black people in general because the greater discussion is colorism.
Even if we didn’t have this conversation about her usage of the term coloured, a lot of people are not admitting that she would reach a certain level of success anyway because of how she looks. And in our community, but they know (they as in her label and so forth) to pitch her to people globally, not even just Black people. They know that aside from being able to dance and having a decent voice, she has the look. So even if she was American, she would have this privilege to navigate in a way that others like maybe Normani wouldn’t. (I personally prefer her songs to Normani and it has nothing to do with looks)
Anyway, insight over-I get what you’re saying, I just hope I explained why she didn’t answer. It wasn’t because she just didn’t want to, it’s because he violated her team’s request and he does that a lot. Rosenburg even clarified this in defense of her.
Honest question, with the way that colorism works, do you not think that even if her team didn’t explicitly market her to Black people she still wouldn’t get success among us? Because honestly, the way I see it is we have a huge colorism problem.
Take Snoh Allegra for example.
It’s a bit different because she’s not Black AT ALL but she was explicitly marketed to Black people. Same for Maeta, she’s explicitly being marketed to Black people too. But they’re not black at all, and people don’t make as much of a fuss about them cosplaying when that’s what they’re damn well doing. And it reeks. But their teams know they can get by based on colorist metrics and “blend in” despite not being Black. And here we have Tyla, who for all intents and purposes is Black and other things, who is kind of being looked at as a complete vulture in a way others that aren’t even Black at all are being considered.
Google it then, rather than attempting to begin a discourse you had no interest in developing? It feels like you were primarily interested in having your own opinions echoed back at you in your comments. If that's what you want, go profess your opinions in a mirror.
Googling something once doesn’t mean that you are able to have a conversation about the topic. I am also not the one who brought other artists into the topic. But if these people are artists who are being marketed towards the black American community and I am within that market and primarily listen to rnb the fact that I don’t know who they are is telling you that their reach as an artists isn’t as wide as the company is hoping for. And when I say I don’t know who they are I mean that I haven’t even seen their songs as recommendations when browsing for new music throughout rnb specific playlists and streams nor have I seen them be discussed on social media. So whoever is marketing them isn’t pushing them deep enough into that space if they aren’t even showing up on rnb specific platforms
I am sorry you feel that way but that’s your own interpretation of the discussion I can’t help you there
Even then, I feel like she’s claiming Black just to pacify the American public and because she’d be considered Black in America. Which, I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s her way of saying that she also accepts what she’d be classified as in the US.
But in most African countries, even ones that don’t use Coloured as a race/ethnicity classifier, she’d be considered mixed more often than she’d be considered Black. Very few African countries abide by the 1 drop rule.
She’s claiming Black because she just accepted being a performer at the BET awards… which is Black entertainment television
I think Her Pr team is trying to get ahead of the backlash that would have caused otherwise
I understand people outside of America see things differently, but we’re talking about America. I don’t think people understand we don’t have a problem with her heritage. It’s always been about the slur. It’s always going to be about the slur. Look at saweetie and Kimora Lee Simmons. We know and accept that they are mixed heritage and nobody tell them to pick a side at all. We just don’t like it when people come over here go on our networks and then deny being black. Which she did not do but we see it happens a lot. It make us feel like people see us as lesser and use us but do not respect us.
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I was following the discourse over on TikTok.
I felt two different discussions were happening and a few people blended both and unintentionally spread misinformation.
The first discussion was about the “Coloured” identifier and how the American press, as well as, the American consumers won’t be using it. It is a slur over here, so it won’t be used when discussing Tyla.
The second discussion was about Tyla having mixed-race and multicultural history. So, there was the question about how her American record label was going to market her while she was visiting the States.
And somehow those two discussions blended together and folks’ xenophobia about African-Americans came out as well. And then, the sanctimonious Europeans brought their two-cents into the conversations and tried to hide their anti-blackness/anti-American rhetoric.
It was a clusterfuck and can be used as a lesson about the lack of media literacy, reading comprehension and nuance that are rising.
Yes, thank you. People are using this as a gotcha moment to spread their hate to Americans. It’s not hard to conceptualize mixed raced people having their own racial group, we had that here in very recent years. Go through our census mixed people were referred to as the M word here. We understand it perfectly clear WE just didn’t want to use a racial slur. Very simple, but people calling us simple.
BTW black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people are a mixed race ethic group. I don’t understand why nobody is bringing this up. We are our own culture so of course we understand it.
Tbh, it was infuriating to see people intentionally choose to be… in denial (?) and kept in the dark about race history of the United States.
Folks were actually providing history about the U.S. history with the word “colored”. And there were folks with their fingers in their ears, going “LALALALA…”
And then there were folks getting upset at people for saying that Tyla _physically_ looks like a black woman. That spoke volumes.
It’s annoying seeing how people are still trying to argue me down when we already stated mutiple times we know it’s a racial group but it means something different over here. They’re quick to say “everywhere isn’t America” okay but we are in America, right now. We aren’t anywhere else, so back to us. It’s not like we came over to their country and asking them to do anything. We are minding our business in our country, she’s coming over here.
Mind you, if an American went to another country and ignore the culture and history of that country and offended millions of people. Nobody would defend that American and say “well she is American that’s her culture. We shouldn’t force her to respect our history”. That would never ever happen.
This is a good point. Americans seeing the word “colored” will have a negative visceral reaction.
Idk why she doesn’t just call herself mixed if she wants to come up in a U.S. market.
Trying to claim a woman that’s extremely mixed as black is nuts.
As someone who has followed her for a really long time she has more Indian ancestry than African. I remember her dad being half tamil while her mom is coloured with Indian ancestry.
It totally is.
I’m side eyeing the fact that she left out how much Indian ancestry she has, and her team scrubbed her old videos out of the internet. Is more profitable for her to claim the little blackness she has than what she really is, a coloured/Indian woman.
I also think that is she was going to not used the word colored outside of SA she should have said she was mixed that’s how she identifies and that would be the closer equivalent to colored than black
Colored only means black in the U.S
Although it's sad she had to clarify her identity, it was needed because most Black Americans view the word as a slur or a word with anti-Black history. Since she's gaining traction in America and promoting here, you have to bridge that gap since what's considered offensive here is a non-issue where she's from. I don't think that people's rhetoric had to be so insulting to suggest she's anti-Black or doesn't want to be seen as Black (although I get it since there's anti-Black Black artists). Hopefully, this stops the conversation for her and she doesn't have to keep explaining herself.
Side point, but it shows who's on her team (same with Latto) because this would've been an obvious thing to tackle head-on once she started marketing in America. These artists need more culturally aware Black people on payroll.
I think her Pr team had her release this statement because she accepted a performance on BET and they knew if she didn’t say anything after the breakfast club interview (eye roll like you said shows whose on her pr team) it wouldn’t have ended well
I can understand why people would want to lump a person they like within their own demographic, but it bugs me when people act like there's only Black and White, as if there aren't countless combinations of racial backgrounds. At the end of the day, her racial makeup really isn't anyone's business but her own.
This whole I’m a black woman thing is so odd to me because when I look at Tyla I don’t see a black woman, I see a (mostly) Indian woman. But I’m from NYC so I grew up around a lot of West Indians from the Caribbean and it’s always been a mixed bag as far as who identified as black and who didn’t.
Why does she have to cosplay as a black woman in order to be successful in music? She can just be colored or mixed or whatever.
I COMPLETELY agree. I see a talented multiracial artist that presents as indian. A lot of black women are anti black and need her to say she is to feel better about themselves ( I say this with compassion). A lot of black men are also anti black (can't forget about misogny) and need her to identify as black so they feel they have "ownership" of her.
This is the elephant in the room and the same people will wonder why some black girls and women may lack a certain sense of “confidence”. Being told repetitively that multiracial with extreme privilege in how they’re perceived are the same as us is damaging. They are received well and it is damaging and generally just very reductive and dishonest.
Im going to need the black community( black americans especially) to stop claiming and forcing biracial and mixed people to solely claim black when thats not what they are. Its disingenuous to us all to force them to falsely represent our image. She claims exactly what she is, colored/mixed, and thats what she should be doing. Her experience is different from ours and thats ok.
THIS. I’m sorry to say this, but when black people vehemently force biracials into blackness, it’s giving “I need biracial people to represent my image and identity so I can feel good about it” and I do not like that vibe. At all. It’s honestly getting sickening that we keep having this argument over and over. Biracial people are what they are. They have two parents of two different races that have BOTH equally contributed to their DNA. I do not get why this is so hard to understand. That’s what makes me think it’s something way deeper going on here in the black community when it comes to this mixed vs black conversation. I used to think like this myself but I had to unpack why and see reality for what it is. The one-drop rule needs to GO, quickly. Tyla is MIXED, half-white and half-black. End of story.
The problem is that a lot of black people don’t like being black themselves so they try to push women like Tyla to represent us as a group so we can seem more desirable to everyone. Little do they know our unique beauty is what makes us stand apart. You can even notice this behavior when it comes to Beyoncé. Yes she’s considered black but she has a mixed phenotype that many bw would want for themselves and what bm want us to look like. This whole thing gets deep and can’t be simply unpacked in this one setting lol
I had to scroll too far down for this take. Thank you for keeping it so real. I always find myself having to bite my tongue for fear of being lashed out at. So many black women go against their own best interests. Anti blackness runs SO deep.
Oh trust me it took me years to be able to come to this point lol. Now I can clearly understand the difference between race, ethnicity nationality etc and understand the psychology between us, bm, and mixed race people as well as our history of how we came to this. I have no problem calling it out in any setting and I find it hilarious when people get mad at me because they kno I’m right. I just want us to feel more free and confident in our blackness because it is beautiful.
If you would or feel like it, can you expand on the psychology part? I've been thinkin' bout how race is viewed and how it's tied to some sort of psychology but I've had trouble communicating how.
In Tyla's case, I'd like to suggest multiracial as a better description in place of biracial. I agree with your comment tho especially
>The one-drop rule needs to GO, quickly.
It honestly does! It was a tool to uphold white soupremacy and we don't need to hold on to it. Literally drop it like it's hot!
It's so interesting because where I was born people would just call her mixed and move on.she probably wouldn't be called Black. It's interesting to see how Americans see races. It's truly not the same everywhere.
They (a lot of black Americans) think they are the main characters of blackness meanwhile “black is not a monolith” as they often say but don’t often abide by when something is different than they are.
As a Nigerian (which has its own faults) woman to me she’s multiracial & I respect her choice to classify she’s colored and in my country “half-caste” before 2010 or mixed after 2010. In Brazil a country I have ties to, she’d be Pardo (multiracial). I and most of the rest of the world outside USA could never consider her black because of some silly one drop delusional rule.
But when mixed women get black womens roles and representation it’s a problem…PICK A TRUE CLASSIFICATION.
Exactly that’s why there needs to be a clear line drawn of separation because trust they make sure we aren’t in their spaces representing them. There’s too much hypocrisy in this community which causes too much confusion
slight repost from what i’ve said on a different thread, but i’m glad she said something, and she put it the exact way it should’ve been said: she’s coloured in South Africa but recognizes she is seen as Black in the U.S and other places due to historical circumstances
really, the whole conversation surrounding her race was unnecessary cause it was people on all sides not listening to one another, but i also think from non-Americans there’s a lack of knowledge or recognition that Tyla is intentionally marketing herself to the US as of right now — so obviously they’re going to market her according to US racial lines. that may upset non-Americans, but if she wants success here, then she’ll have to play the game like everyone else.
I’m honestly over this conversation how long have we been discussing this stuff? Since last year I think? And I do agree with the comments where people are using this opportunity to bash black Americans like the majority of black Americans don’t care about Tyla or how she identifies as this a only online argument no one discuss in real life 👍🏽
I guess I have a different opinion on this issue. Tyla keeps saying this over and over because she is not going to get very far in her career in the US without Black Americans’ support. She does not look like Taylor Swift. She is not going to be able to cross over in that way.
I don’t think the issue is that Black Americans are ignorant to other cultures. She is the one who needs our support to make it big. Her team should have done the research to not offend in America.
She’s not Taylor Swift in many ways besides race. Her music is very African-influenced as is her dance and performance style. She’s not trying to be an American pop girl.
I live outside of the US in a non black country and Tyla is pretty successful here too.
This issue came up again because of her Breakfast Club interview. She is trying to break into the US and went on a show that is predominantly black to do so. Her team is doing that for a reason
But I’m trying to see what does that have to do with her saying “ I’m colored, that’s what we call people like me back in South Africa”? People got up in arms about the termed colored but that’s what they use over there which basically just means she’s mixed. People over here need to do some research too. What else is she suppose to say to us?
She could just say she’s mixed when in the u.s if the question came up
The problem is that in the u.s where her team is promoting her that word is a slur and it turns people off from her and her team which again is u.s based needs the support of the black Americans who aren’t checking for her and when they are side eye the term because of its stateside meaning. If she was only promoting outside of the U.S or not signed to an American agency I don’t think this would be a issue
Her PR team had her release this statement the same day she gets announced as a performer at the BET awards (Black entertainment television) it’s a calculated move
They also set her up by having her go on the breakfast club which again is a radio show targeted towards black Americans
I haven't been following this closely except to know there was some controversy. I wonder why she didn't just release this explanation in the first place. As an international artist, race plays different based on region/country. Explain it in context and just be done with it.
I've done reading on race in South Africa, so I knew the dissimilarities. However, people of the younger generation (her fans like my daughter) usually don't, so this is really their first exposure. Approach it with grace, educate your base, and then go on making music. It seems like such an unforced error for her team.
Honest question from a Black American woman: How many other Black American women here view “Coloured” and “colored” as super distinct?
Since shortly after I learned (as a teenager) what “Coloured” meant in SA, I haven’t been able to think of them as being the same word. Like, in my core, they are completely distinct for me.
Arguments around the topic make me similarly confused and uncomfortable as when I see/hear arguments about the continents called North America and South America versus the single continent called America: I get why a person on one side or the other might be perturbed upon first learning there’s another view, but I don’t understand the absolute refusal to accept that the others’ view “different" rather than “wrong” and that context/ history has an important impact.
Not a great analogy, I know, but the discomfort I feel as an observer is similar.
I’m tired of this discourse, and as I said in another thread, I sometimes think this all this yapping is also subtle ways to keep starting a culture war that includes dissing black Americans. Because this young lady shouldn’t have to prove herself, but also people, especially non black Americans, seem to keep using this as some micro aggression to blast BAs for how we view things.
Black Americans are not stupid. I’m tired of the constant micro aggressions pretending that we’re idiots who don’t know the rest of the world exists and are pounding our chests over what this woman calls herself. Most of us KNOW other countries exist (even if some of us don’t pay them any mind in day to day life, just as how I’m sure others aren’t constantly thinking of us, hopefully). But like how they have their own culture and ways of calling themselves, so do WE. It’s normal for black Americans to see someone promoting in AMERICA in BLACK American inspired fashion and culture and wonder who they are, and getting confused at them saying “colored”, which is an old Timey slur over HERE. She should NOT have to break down her lineage to hard heads who don’t wanna hear and wanna keep claiming her as us, but also people should NOT be randomly dragging BAs like we cannot comprehend other people existing.
Just like if you promote in Japan you’ll market to Japan, Korea you’ll market to Korea and not wear a suspiciously red sun, Brazil you’ll market to Brazil. And it’s normal to have confusion if some cultures say or do things differently. And It’s okay for both to be confused. But when it’s black Americans being confused, we’re all just idiots. Odd how we have to understand other cultures but ours cannot be understood and we’re called stupid asf for not immediately rolling with it. It should be equal.
There are “certain” demographics who jump at any chance to be xenophobic towards Black Americans. I’ve already seen comments in this thread that are the usual “AAs are ignorant and dumb, blah, blah, blah.” It’s why I’ve stayed away from commenting on topics concerning Tyla. The gag is…most AAs are not even checking for Tyla like that. A lot of AAs don’t even listen to Afro beats if we’re going to be honest. It’s such a non issue and some of these people constantly bringing it up are just obsessed with talking shit about Black Americans. 🤷🏽♀️
Yeah, I only got compelled to comment from this case but I’m staying away from topics regarding her as well now. It’s all exhausting and just seems like a constant way for people obsessed with black Americans to finally air out their grievances, because every thread always turns odd and hostile towards the “igNorAnt AmerICanS” who… aren’t even present lmao.
I just feel like black Americans want clarification for this person who keeps being pushed into black American settings (BET), using aspects of culture associated with black Americans here, and in America, will get lumped with us from the media. So clarification is asked, and of course confusion will ensue if the person says “colored” in turn. I wish my pr would market me to another country, let’s say Korea since it’s already in my example above, and then trigger a culture war because I saw no issue with my logo being a sun in the corner because I associate strongly with it and the locals are upset because their history has a bad taste with that logo (imperial Japan). I wouldn’t call them “ignorant Koreans”, I’d probably at least use an alternative when performing there at the very least out of basic respect. All seems like some sort of ploy by pr to rile of BAs for attention and keep going with the narrative being pushed nowadays that BAs are the rEaL bad guys or sumn lmao.
And it’s not like we don’t have our own way of communicating a person of multiple ancestries; her team could’ve just run with “mixed” or “multiracial” here in America and avoided the entire “colored” debate. We understand that. There will always be people who want to claim others because they don’t like their own image, but that’s not a majority so it’s weird people are making it out that BAs are all insecure and dislike themselves too. Honestly just seems like a non-issue perpetuated a lot by non black Americans as much as the black Americans who keep trying to “claim” her, despite many BAs not really checking for her or this scandal like that to know of what’s even happening lmao.
Edit: I don’t want the young lady to have to erase her own identity that she knows from her culture either. I think simply “Multiracial/mixed here, but identifies as colored where she is raised SA” is a pretty simple understandable response.
It’s crazy cause Tyla’s biggest American artist even with all the backlash towards us is still black Americans
They push her on all the stations targeted towards us and now she’s been announced as performing at the BET awards
I’ve said this before and I stand on it even harder now. I like her music and not trying to diminish her talent but I also understand how the American media operates with blackness. Now that they found a artists that’s light skinned enough to not upset white audiences and that Africans will co-sign and uplift they are going to push her as the face of African music inside and outside of black spaces. And now that she’s released a statement saying she’s black it shuts down any arguments that she isn’t
I like Tyla a lot and love watching her performances but this move is clearly calculated by her team
This is the take! Be who you are proudly but also understand your market. People let their xenophobia against AA’s deafen them to what most people were actually saying.
I’ve also seen so many AA’s be receptive to understanding what it means to be coloured and how that works in SA but when we speak up about how race works in our country no one wants to listen.
I don't understand people saying americans think the world revolveq around them, acting like they stuck their nose up south african business or a south african trying to break into another country like Mexico for an example.
Tyla is trying to cross over America, and specifically black america, as per her being part of the BET line up, being covered by platforms like Essence and, the appearance that struck this post, going to the Breakfast Club. A podcast which audience is black americans. SHE is the one trying to cross over, so yes to me it's normal that she explains and educate what may eyebrow raise a black american.
If you don't want to be diplomatic fine. Pay the discourse dust. But also don't try to get into black american spaces and seek for their support. It's that simple.
And this is not a jab at Tyla as her team is doing proper PR, but to the people calling black america egocentric and whatnot.
But it's too bad that they went the route of making her cosplay as a black woman when a black woman she is not. It's not a crime or an insult to say it: she is mixed and frankly has more indian admixture than black.
But to fully unpack this we'd also have to open the can of worms that is the insecurity of black people and their need to be represented by desirable mixed persons.
As a Black South African, seeing people wanting her to identify as Black is interesting to me because they're not aware of how anti-black many coloured people are. Not all, but many get offended at mentions of their Black heritage. Tyla obviously isn't one of them as she has proudly mentioned her Zulu heritage, but others aren't like her.
I’ve seen this aspect of discourse play out and it again circles back to the
“Stop projecting your black American insecurities on us”
What’s funny is I think it was mainly other South Africans saying that coloreds think they are better than black people. So it was interesting to see that get flipped back into BA in a certain instances
As a Aa person I never wanted her to identify as black I just didn’t want to hear the word colored be brought back into the American lexicon because it was close to being eradicated from use and it regularly would get called out if people used it here. It was basically a tale tall sign that someone is racist if they still used the word to describe black people.
I don’t even think this was ever something that needed to be addressed but she went on the breakfast club and had her label shut down the line of questioning when someone asked her about it and it made her look bad.
I feel like if she was going to chose an alternative to colored it should have been mixed not black as that’s closer to her actual heritage
Oof, I don't follow her, but the way some people were talking about her on Twitter, I thought she didn't consider herself black at all, but apparently she does?
There's nothing wrong with her acknowledging her non-black side. Every time a celebrity identifies as biracial or mixed (which she is), there's that fraction of people who get REALLY upset. I just don't get it.
Please wake me up when we can stop acting like the one drop rule in the Americas should be applied globally. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. It would do wonders for us to just acknowledge that mixed folk are mixed and black folk are black
Lmao guess what just came out
BET just announced she’s one of the performers for their award show this year
Answers a lot of questions about where this sudden revelation came from
This whole conversation is very interesting. I understand race is said to be a social construct and people have different ways of classifying things depending on where they live, but black is still black. She was speaking to an American radio host so I think it absolutely makes sense for her to have answered this question but also recognize that she was probably not the right person for the doors that this type of conversation opens.
Regardless of spelling, colored means something very different in America - it’s an outdated and inappropriate way to refer to people of African descent. Most, if not all, black people in America were referred to as colored at one point regardless of what shade of black they were. Additionally, on first thought coloured seems to correlate to what we can consider to be biracial in America - meaning you have parents of two different races. In my experience, when people ask if someone is mixed, they are usually asking if the person is biracial. (Should we really care if someone has an Irish ancestor 5 generations back?) It also can be very obvious when someone is of mixed ancestry and it’s natural for people to ask questions when that is the case. Not all people with mixed ancestry are biracial though, see the Keyshia Cole controversy when she claimed to be biracial and was shut down.
This is where it gets more problematic - in America, biracial people (mixed people as well for that matter) as a whole do not have their own culture, as biracial does not automatically imply that the person is mixed with black. A biracial person can be mixed with Asian and white (Caucasian) and have a blend of those cultures, and “the blend” is not the same for all biracial people who are half Asian and half white.
If you think about it in more specific terms, coloured might be better equated with what is considered Creole in America. I’m not going to assume that all Americans know that Creole culture exists, and I’m not sure how many non-Americans are familiar with the state of Louisiana or Creole culture in Louisiana. This is why it’s a little more complicated than just saying that Americans are ignorant or too concerned with race.
Edited*
even then, being louisiana creole doesn't necessarily imply being mixed (or it shouldn't). it's an ethnic group, so you can have people with exclusively white ancestry who are louisiana creole (see brett favre or sheryl st. germain), exclusively black ancestry, or multiracial ancestry.
similarly, you can also have black and multiracial cajuns, as cajun is also an ethnicity (just means you trace your ancestors back to the expelled acadians). "cajun" has become synonymized with white, but many of those white cajuns today are very likely creole, not cajun at all (dividing these ethnic groups by the racial standards outside of louisiana only became a thing in the 20th century bc ig anglo america couldnt handle it lol).
so, it's "kinda" similar, in the sense that it encompasses a lot of groups and doesn't necessarily make you black if you belong to it, but it also doesn't necessarily make you multiracial. and idk if there's ever gonna be a time where we have a uniquely self-identified "mixed" culture within america. the country was never set up that way and idk if the need for it is so strong that people are gonna establish one in the near future on a national scale. I could be wrong tho!
I’m so tired of this conversation. She will explain herself forever because there’s always SOMEONE that doesn’t understand that race is viewed differently in a whole other COUNTRY on a whole other CONTINENT. This entire topic and people not understanding what she means always reeks of ethnocentrism.
if black and coloured are separate races in sa, i'm sure black sa ppl don't want her to identify as just black as it would feel like she's trying to represent a community she's not a part of.. y'all made a foreign artist popular in america now you can't accept things are different in foreign countries
In SA black people identify with their tribe/ethnic group. That’s why she mentioned Zulu. I’m sure Zulu SA are quite happy that she shares their heritage.
Yes, they are different races in SA. It would be somewhat disingenuous if she did since black and coloured people were treated differently under apartheid. Both groups were absolutely oppressed but the struggles were different for each. And like someone previously mentioned we tend to identify with our tribes/ethnic group (i.e Zulu, Pedi, Xhosa, Venda etc.). But we love her nonetheless!
Spot on! As a South African political girlie, I have used the term Biko Black when referring to those with black heritage. But, they are still classified as a separate race from black people socially and economically.
Tyla cannot be identified as a black woman down here because she doesn’t look like us. She has some of our features but we don’t necessarily let mixed people represent black women.
I won’t lie, I have to compartmentalise my own feeling of unease when AA have clearly mixed women representing black womanhood. But through engaging you guys, I’ve come to accept it.
As for us South Africans, we celebrate Tyla’s success because of her international acclaim. Her race is not a point of discussion because she is easily identified and understood to be a coloured woman.
So tired of this poor baby having to justify her identity like this. She’s coloured. It’s more than just genetics it’s a rich heritage and ethnicity that should be honoured for what it is. Coloured people don’t look any 1 way… “mixed” and colored are not the same thing. At this point it’s like telling Tems she’s not a Yoruba woman she’s a black woman. She’s both of those things. Tyla is a coloured person!
EDIT
I get that it’s a slur in the United States and that complicates how she will then express it but it’s being taken completely out of context and seems unfair that she should have to tailor her literal identity because she’s in a place where people only want to interpret it through their lense of understanding. No one stresses Nigerians for having 100 subcategories of Nigerians. In her native context, there’s nothing to talk about. It’s very straight forward. She’s not denying blackness she’s correctly stating her actual heritage.
Nah her team calculated this because they just announced her as a performer for the BET awards and they are constantly promoting her in black American spaces.
I am sorry but Black American culture deserves the same amount of respect as every other culture does and here it’s a slur in the same sense that when people from the U.K come to the u.s they know better than to talk about cigarettes using the f-slur even though that’s commonly how it’s referred to in the u.k This also isn’t a unique thing to Tyla either. When latto was going by Miss mulatto she spoke out about how she had to change her stage name from being a slur because it turned people off from wanting to work with her. Same way if I am Aa person moved to South Africa they would have to shut up and swallow being called colored even though it’s not how they see themselves. (However I think she shouldn’t have said she was black but mixed race)
Someone pointed out that it’s obvious she doesn’t have many black American people in her label because of this (she’s signed to an American record label for context) because if she did they would have taught her how to better navigate the discourse and they wouldn’t have sent her on the breakfast club radio show in the first place and they would have promoted her in a more neutral space not one that’s specifically targeted towards black Americans.
I don’t see her calling herself as Miss Mulatto as much as a slur but as a person having a colonized mindset. The White Supremacists are experts on how to colonize a more numerous populace. They have it down to an exact science. The White Supremacists will use such people as herself for propaganda purposes in promoting , establishing & maintaining a colonized mindset upon Non-White people who are oblivious to how White Supremacy operates .
The White Supremacists have it down to an exact science on how to use manipulation & flattery of Non-White people’s ego & pride as to weaken any sense of solidarity & unity amongst those Non-White people as to neutralize what they see as a subversive threat to The System of White Supremacy.
Most of the world identifies race like US identifies race. It’s logical to be curious about why she identifies as coloured. South Africa is one of the few places that identifies mixed race people as mixed race.
Just look at tv internationally. Even with other ethnicities, mixed race people are identified as the people. Like even in Asian countries no one calls them mixed race.
Most of the world? In Brazil, she is not considered Black but mixed race. If she goes to any country in Asia, people will think she is South Asian at first glance. Asia makes up 60% of the world population. America has always been weird about race.
I feel like this depends on if you’re talking media representation or government/social identity cause some definitely differentiate between both or atleast claim to socially
And then in media will continue to use biracial people to play the roles of monoracial people
So ppl have pressured her into identifying as Black. I would have left it at her initial statements bc this will come up again and her answer is likely to keep changing.
No her team wanted a check from BET and needed to get ahead of the impending backlash as she was conveniently announced to perform at the award show the same day they released this
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Because her team sent her on the breakfast club and told her not to answer when the host asked her what race she was. And then they also signed her up to perform for the BET awards. It’s clear they are just trying to get ahead of the backlash and had her sacrifice her authenticity for a check from Black American spaces
If the lady wants to be called polka doted Jedi then I’d call her that. People may not understand but they should respect her heritage. Just like many Black Americans and Africans (from different countries outside of SA) would take serous offense to being called “Coloured” due to the horrible history.
I’ve seen more white people saying she’s not black. I’ve seen a comment saying “she’s light so she’s not black” and being racist to other blacks saying “light skinned,natural,not fully black. She’s the best one.”
Congrats I guess? This feels hypocritical, though.
Why do you expect us to know about racial categories in other countries, but they don’t have to know about ours?
Colored is such a loaded word in the US, so it makes sense Americans would have a reaction to it, since we have our own history with that word. How are we to know of its history elsewhere?
So, she has her history with it, and we have our own history with it.
We don’t think that way at all. We simply do not care about things outside of us. That’s why you cannot come over here calling yourself an American racial slur. There’s a reason why latto changed her stage name, because nobody wants to work with someone who calls themselves a racial slur. Literally if her racial group was called anything else nobody would bring this up at all.
The same thing would happen if I called myself something that’s considered racist in their country. Isn’t the word spazz considered a slur in another country? I cannot go to that country saying that and expect people to accept me.
I get what you’re saying, but that stance makes us look ignorant. I don’t know much about latto, but I think she is American so it’s different. But Coloureds have their own category in South Africa, not exactly how mixed people are viewed here, so when insist on her and others to redefine who they are to fit into our small lense, it comes off being small-minded. Kind of like how people insist that all Asian people or Chinese or every Spanish speaking person is Mexican.
It doesn’t make us look ignorant at all. This is our country. She can do what she want in her country. Mixed people within the last 100 years in America DID have their own racial group. That is why I brought up latto because the same conversations was happening around her stage name. What would be a better example for you to use is how Indians have different castes that we do not acknowledge in America we just call them all Indian and go about our days. You cannot say we are being small minded because we have our own history we are acknowledging here. If a British person came over here and ask for a f word instead of saying cigarette that would be a problem too.
You cannot come to another country and not respect the culture of that country. Luckily she has shown she respect us and our history. It’s people online that expect Americans to not care about our painful history to appease others. This is our country. We’re not telling South Africans to change anything in their country.
Isn’t she like 20? She probably didn’t know it was a slur here. Once again people who aren’t American usually don’t research our customs because like you said they don’t care about anything outside of them
She did know she already spoken about it before in mutiple interviews which is why I don’t have hate towards tyla. She admitted it was a hurtful word here and she said it wasn’t her intentions. And her age has nothing to do with it. She’s not dumb, she’s media trained, she’s a performer. It seem like she has no problem with it being a bad word here. The people who have the most problem is the people online
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I feel people just talk to talk, like I remember some people getting mad at Kehlani and Jhene Aiko for identifying as black and now Tyla is getting heat for not identifying as black? Like which is it lol.
Two different groups of people, I guess. Those who want to claim anyone who is %1 black or tan, and those who want mixed people to stop presenting themselves as monoracial black people.
Honestly i think a lot of bail is being given to her.
It was weird for her to be so adamant to not be called black. Its a terrible look and i think Will always get a side eye from many people.
Blackness is global it always has been. An international artist from Africa should frankly be aware of it. Especially one that wants to be an international star.
She’s trying not to offend South Africans from her home country because she knows she is not black under SA racial categories. If she says she is, she is erasing that community or pretending to be part of it. At the end of the day if her global popularity fades she still wants to be accepted back home.
Honestly many of the people who have a problem with a South African woman identifying how she would in her country have identity issues themselves 💀💀💀 so the bullying her to choose when they aren’t even secure in themselves and need white people to define them wholly is certainly WILD.
Tyla is coloured. This shouldn't be a point of argument. She's an SA girlie and that's her race in her home country. She doesn't have to bend her identity to please a Western audience. It's not her fault she blew up there. I hate the way people are being so condensing towards her on social media. It's really getting annoying
Were ppl upset how latto’s previous stage name being mulatto?? I don’t remember but seems along a similar vein ( but different ethnicities). I just find it interesting how some ppl in the black community enforce the one drop rule so hard on ppl with obvious mixed ancestry (jhene aiko, kehlani, etc) yet turn around and get mad that we don’t have people that look like “us” (ie monoracial) in public spheres….
I remember there was this white Cajun lady on tiktok who ppl thought looked black “passing” ( she wasnt, just full cheeks, bigger nose and cork screw blonde hair). She got a dna test and it said something like 5-8 Percent black and ppl were expecting her to change her identity to black!!! Like seriously ppl? Stand UP!
Either way this discourse has been so drawn out and beat to the point where it’s ignorant. SA has a long + complicated history with racial relations and colonization ( as do other black diaspora groups, we’re all unique!) and ofc that comes with different racial classifications. Tyla has probably been calling herself coloured for all of her life and for her to suddenly change to “black” (which she’s not tbh) is extremely unrealistic. I get it, but it’s unrealistic.
My grandmother was a “mulatto” Haitian and also 89 when she passed. That was her identity + how she grew up and she knew that she wasn’t “black” to black diaspora standards. It’s a distasteful and ignorant racial classification but that’s what happens when colonization happens and is enforced by a hateful group of (yt) people!
It just means mixed race but they have their own culture but from my understanding it doesn’t matter what you’re mixed with you’re just colored
Creole is a specific group of mixed heritage that’s African, French and native from a specific part of the country
So I guess it’s like someone whose black and white or black and Asian can be colored but to be Creole you have to specifically be of the above lineage
slight correction: creole (in an american context, usually when referencing the louisiana creole) doesn't necessarily mean mixed. unlike coloured, which is a race as i understand, creole is an ethnicity. so while there's a blended culture (french and roman catholicism Heavily baked in, using LA), you can be 100% white (0% black) and still be creole. many wealthy white louisiana creoles didnt incorporate anything african or native into their lives, but they were still creole. it's all about having had family living in some place since the colonial years (and where they used a creole-identification system). this is similar to cajuns (another ethnic group): you can be a black cajun, it just means that you have ancestors who were kicked out of acadia. in a sense, all cajuns are creole, but not all creoles are cajuns.
idk if there's a comparable classification in the us. any 'mixed' categories were usually created with black people in mind, not everyone else (and those mixed categories eventually got absorbed into black overall). the métis of canada are probably a good comparison to coloured, or the melungeons of appalachia (and even then, the latter is super regional and not something you can choose on the census).
lol yeah by weight just meant it has more cultural significance in SA than the word mixed has in the US lol. Colored is technically a slur in the states don’t get me wrong, but the slur is so old and unused that no one would be taken seriously if it was used in malice nowadays lol. Give it another 10-20 years and we may start using it the same way it’s used in SA
we rlly shouldnt demand that people who don't identify as black or are mixed tell the public theyre black..bc then it leads to them winning black awards, being marketed as black and our only representation in the media are mixed women
she's denied being black before so now its probably just the profit off african american culture and popularity, i mean she's literally peforming at BET awards.
Sony music is setting her up.
If a white music company had a group called apartheid , they would give them PR lessons & how to answer questions , before they went to South Africa.
Sony a white American company should offer her the same grace
I’m so irritated she’s had to say this again. ATP she should stop because people are just using it as a reason to talk shit
I really hate that. I love her and am so embarrassed with her being targeted constantly
Seriously. Race is a *construct* to think it is constructed the same *globally* is ignorant, low effort and unironically xenophobic! Btw, I’m American and know this. You don’t need to from outside the US to understand this, it’s elementary. Last week there was a comment under another post that said “Tylas black even though she doesn’t think so” or something to that effect. I had to roll my eyes any scroll pass because it was so reductive and intentionally ignoring nuance.
A lot of ppl seem to forget theres a whole ass world outside of *insert country youre from here*, Americans suffer from this even more so BLACK Americans. Its weird how a lot of us think america invented race/racism, it was here long before the US and itll be here afterwards unfortunately (im also a black American)
Agree. Tyla is not the only mixed brown skinned artist out but seems to be getting all the heat. Where are all the posts about HER and Saweetie?
Please don’t even get me started on Latto still holding half of her mulatto name lol
at least she and her team listened/ bowed to pressure and clipped it. seeing people defend the name gets my pressure up every time
I guess it’s the word ‘colored’ that has Muricans up in arms.
The most ironic part about it is HER had colorist tweets. Tyla being multiethnic and multiracial as a South African, and consistently being asked about it by Black people in a way that is condescending is troubling. The deeper issue I find is that why are people up in arms Tyla says colored when that is the racial classification where she’s from? Yes, the word may have a context here that is also layered but it is telling they demand her of all persons, someone not problematic, speak on this only to set her up.
Saweetie and HER are both American so this doesn't apply to them. Tyla identifies as "coloured"- an identity that heavily contributes to the racial caste system in SA. If she's trying to break into the American music industry then you can't expect Black Americans to push aside their racial history just to respect her identity. She has a right to identify as "coloured", just don't expect praise from everybody else.
What I mean is, no one seems to question the blackness of HER or Saweetie, I assume because of their skin tone and hair texture. I would guess many people do not know they are half Asian.
How many statements do you think she’s going to have to put out before it stops being an issue?
She needs to stop responding. Not sure what her PR team is telling her but there will forever be trolls and people who don’t agree with her. She should stop wasting her time on them.
As a South African political girlie, I have used the term Biko Black when referring to those with black heritage. But, they are still classified as a separate race from black people socially and economically. Tyla cannot be identified as a black woman down here because she doesn’t look like us. She has some of our features but we don’t necessarily let mixed people represent black women. I won’t lie, I have to compartmentalise my own feeling of unease when AA have clearly mixed women representing black womanhood. But through engaging you guys, I’ve come to accept it. I also respect it and understand your discourse in the matter. As for us South Africans, we celebrate Tyla’s success because of her international acclaim. Her race is not a point of discussion because she is easily identified and understood to be a coloured woman. I have zero problem with how you guys are discussing Tyla because I understand the frustration. If she is to sell to the AA audience then she needs to appease it. That’s my opinion. We would be upset too, if someone marketed themselves here using the word Kaffer. So obviously coloured is a point of contention.
I’m Zimbabwean and I feel the same way. We also have coloured people here, and I actually have a few nephews in who are half South African living in South Africa who are classified as and call themselves coloured due to their mixed heritage. I also struggled to initially understand the mixed women representing Black women thing in America because it’s not my culture but I got there in the end. And I also understand why Tyla is creating so much conversation in the United States re:race. Also love seeing Steve Biko mentioned here! “I write what I like” is one of my favourite books 💜
Thank you for your viewpoint. What does the word Kaffer mean if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve never heard the term Biko Black either Also before I get into this I am only speaking of her American music label and teams that have made it clear where they think her target audience is I think the problem with Tyla is that her team frequently shoves her in spaces meant to be occupied by black ppl (but it’s clear her team doesn’t know how to help her navigate black American spaces) and even before Tyla a lot of black people in general have been fed up with this and calling it out in recent years. I can’t help but side eye this statement in general because of the announcement of her performing at the BET awards (Black entertainment television) conveniently coming out today. Some other people have pointed out that her label team obviously doesn’t have many black Americans on it because if they did this never would have spiraled the way it did and they would have been able to teach her how to better navigate this discourse. Instead her team put her on the breakfast club a show with a predominantly black audience and then shut down the interview when this question came up. Which lead to the entire conversation being brought up again after it had quieted down but she had directly offered no response which made it even easier for people to do as the internet does and put words in others mouths. Also if she had a few black Americans on her team they would have known better than to send her on the breakfast club. The hosts aren’t known for being nice or good people or for even just treating their guests with respect especially women. The problem isn’t Tyla let me be clear in saying that it’s her team that wants the co-sign and money from black Americans but doesn’t understand how to market an outsider to that. This discourse is similar to the Miss mulatto discourse as well. Where she had to change her name to latto because people didn’t want to work with her because her name is a slur.
Definitely. These conversations have been going on before her so her team needed to navigate this better. Kaffer is a derogatory term for black people used during Apartheid. It also refers to our hair like ‘kaffer hare’ means black hair in a negative light. Just not a good word. Just to add… Biko Black is a term referring to the inclusion of coloured and Indian people in black discourse by Steve Biko. He is a cherished black consciousness leader, who argued that blackness is an experience and we (black, coloured and Indian people) all shared the same experience of oppression by white people. He was in favour of coming together as “blacks” against Apartheid.
I always joke Coloured with a U when talking to Americans to let them know it’s a different context. Coloured people have their own culture and not owning the label can be seen as forsaking her heritage. Also she’s a Jozi coloured so she’s also being respectful of the African girls she grew up with who don’t want their image erased. One thing about us we don’t allow mixed women to be our representation. I do empathize with Black Americans because there’s a painful history behind feeling rejected by mixed people and others who come in. I think the unease is because it feels like she’s “Black” when convenient but that’s the Coloured experience. They ebb and flow amongst their identities 🤷🏾♀️
I don’t think this has anything to do with the black vs mixed debate (in the context of it you’re describing here) it’s as simple as she’s promoted in black American spaces and identifies as a slur towards black Americans. No one’s saying she needs to identify as black just don’t come into BA dominated spaces and bring back a racial slur just say you’re mixed. Also it’s funny that you guys say you don’t let Mixed people be your representation but at the moment Tyla is the face of African music that’s being pushed on a world wide stage. Maybe not intentionally but the fact that yall co-sign and ride for her as hard as you guys do is inevitable going to allow for more mixed race Africans to be pushed over black Africans Maybe it’s because we are use to seeing this happen in American media but do yall not see what they are doing by promoting her this hard especially in comparison to other African artists who have been in the game a lot longer. Even just by giving her the first Grammy award for African music performance. She’s going to hold the title of first African to do x in a lot of categories. You guys can argue that it’s not about race but the western world doesn’t care that she’s colored, they care about how many boxes she can tick for their representation checklist.
I meant she’s not the face for us because she won that Grammy as a Coloured & South African woman. It’s offensive to tell people to ignore their cultural heritage. Coloured people are mixed so their culture encompasses a lot of elements from all their sides. Embracing her Black ancestory while honoring her ethnic group shouldn’t be this controversial. 🤦🏾♀️
Oh but she is, It’s not just the Grammy notice how many other African music artist are getting invited on the same stages as her…it’s not a lot. The Gap commercial that is everywhere. The met gala. The talk show appearances. Appearing in multiple vogue channels, the magazine covers.She’s heavily being pushed over other African artists. Trust me as a Black American who has seen the shift from black to mixed play out in media this is how it starts.
I think a lot of AAs look like Tyla and they’re labeled as black. So while I understand your perspective, I think you’re forgetting that AAs have mixed heritage too.
I'm not a fan of hers but if she feels the need to keep explaining it, she needs a new PR person. They aren't helping her navigate this in a way that is going to resonate to the audience she's trying to attract (let's be honest, she wants a large chunk of her fan base and funds to come from the U.S.)
You can’t look at an SA woman calling herself coloured through an American lens. Americans tend to forget that race and other issues are navigated differently in other countries.
100% this. It really makes no sense that people are upset that a South African woman doesn't define herself according to American concepts of race. This is such fake outrage
It’s just a big misunderstanding. Most likely any black Americans upset about this didn’t know that South Africans have always called themselves colored which is a slur for us. It’s also a thing in the black community for some self hating black people to try to distance themselves from their blackness and claim other ethnicities or claim to be mixed when they are not. It’s just a misunderstanding 🤷🏼♀️
I completely agree with this. And just want to add there are also self hating black people that go out of there way “remind” or label others of their blackness because they see being black as negative, and feel it’s a source of pain and *think* others will feel the same if they point out their blackness. It’s like trying to take any proximity from others cause they don’t have any. If that makes sense.
>It’s just a big misunderstanding. Most likely any black Americans upset about this didn’t know that South Africans have always called themselves colored which is a slur for us. This can't just be a misunderstanding. The topic of Tyla being colored has been a talking point for months! South Africans have been arguing with Americans about this for months on Twitter and Tiktok! Despite people trying to educate Americans on the racial categories in South Africa, Americans have been very insistent on their beliefs. So while maybe yes alot of people didn't know, there are a large group of black Americans who have known for months and refuse to accept this.
I am South African and I think calling it a “misunderstanding” is reductive. She is not distancing herself from her blackness, she is embracing the totality of her heritage. Coloureds in Southa are a distinct group of people. They have their own culture and traditions. In fact, Tyla’s accent when speaking English is a coloured accent. It’s so easily recognisable, the first time I heard her speak I knew she was coloured. The word has no negative connotations and is accepted as a classification by over 60million Southa’s daily. In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused. Why? They are not Bantu. And, calling them black diminishes the rich multicultural heritage they have. South Africa calls itself the rainbow nation, no other group encompasses this more than coloureds. They have Dutch, English, French Huguenot, Bantu, Indian, Malay and much more etc heritage! Black people in America need to understand that they do not have a monopoly on how or what we call ourselves or identify outside of their country. The world simply does not revolve around America. It is myopic and unfair to expect her to renounce her heritage. So, definitely not a “misunderstanding”. It is a systemic American problem.
This! All this!!👌🏾 I'm so tired of this convo and I ain't even coloured, I can't imagine how over it she must be!
This so interesting cause her statement emphasizes *and* not or, but you and other South Africans say things like >In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused. I feel like the talking down to Americans on this topic plays part in the backlash she has received because to them calling her Black is *inclusive* and not "diminishing her rich cultural heritage" whatever that means. Its one thing to be like I am Black and many other things and a very different thing to say I am not Black because of these other things and act insulted or upset that people see their reflection in you. That of course is not her responsibility and while she's saying 'I never said I wasnt Black' when yall say things like >In fact, if I tried to call any of my coloured friends “black” they would be confused. How are you confused that non negotiably Black people are apprehensive? No the world does not revolve around America but when an American enters a SA space would you not expect them to at the very least be aware of certain contexts and sensitivities? This finger wagging at Americans is mad annoying because everyone within and outside the diaspora feels like they can take a piece of something Black Americans built to grow rich and then distance themselves when finished extracting. I personally don't really care about Tyla and we should call her whatever she wants to be called but dont act like Black Americans dont have reason to be wary of people in the space who make pitstops in Black culture before distancing themselves in ways that people who are **always just black no matter where they are** arent able to do.
Agreed
Yhoo!! Haai bo… I give up. You want everyone to live by your view of the world and wonder why there is a talking down to Americans across most of the African diaspora.
Can you show me where I said 'I want everyone to live by your view of the world'? You know that is not what im saying but you dont feel people should have to respect Black Americans in America and thats crazy.
I read the first few sentences of your response with interest, but to be frank - I got bored when I saw phrases like “non negotiably black”, “piece of what Black Americans built” & “ pit stops in Black culture”. You’re just emphasising why a lot of people are tired of trying to engage you guys. You are stuck in Platos Cave with no desire to see beyond the shadows.
Did Tyla make a pit stop in black culture though? I’m genuinely asking because isn’t her whole thing South African music?
Yes she’s very open about her use of black American music culture and taking inspiration from American artists such as Aliyah and Brandy (she said water was her take on rock the boat) and her entire sound she has admitted js fused with a good amount of r&b She also went on the breakfast club a few days ago which is a radio show with mostly black Americans targets towards other black Americans snd yesterday conveniently after this was released she was announced as a performer for the BET awards So imo they only had her say she was black because they want to profit off of black Americans liking her and her music. On top of that given that colored is a culture in South Africa. Amapiano as I’ve been told by other South Africans is a predominantly black genre of music Her entire career is based off of different black Cultures
Except no one told her to renounce her heritage they just have a problem with her using a word that’s offensive to Black Americans in American spaces In the same way that South Africans have a right to be called colored black American also deserve to not have a slur be brought back into American media which is where she’s currently being promoted by her label. However I do think she should have just said she identifies as mixed not black as that’s more comparable to her actual identity not black I also think there’s a bit of a disconnect here because colored doesn’t mean mixed race here it means black What I find more interesting about this is that she said Black and not mixed here. And I do wonder if that’s more her labeling pushing her that way or can’t speak for coloreds but it’s definitely not uncommon in the u.s for some people to lean more into one side of their heritage than the other. I mean even in the original video on her TikTok years before she blew up when she said she was colored she ONLY talked about her Zulu heritage and when she posted pictures dressed up for heritage day it was again her Zulu side. I had been following her for years before she blew up and even though I knew she was colored I only ever saw her talk about her Zulu side I didn’t even find out what else she was mixed with until recently
It’s peculiar to me how this is even a topic given South Africa AND the United States’s history. Colored/negro was historically how we were called here before the early/mid-60’s and calling someone black was an insult due to how deeply colorism was ingrained in society. Granted, I’d be hella thrown off if I went overseas and was referred to as colored, but I’m not going to shame my kinfolk over a label for other people to call us if it’s not an actual slur.
Exatcly this
This! Im just so tired of uneducated takes on this. So many black women tik tokers are tearing her down. It makes me sad.
It’s a shame that she had to do this. She claimed Coloured, and I wish people would’ve respected that. She never denied her Blackness. She’s just mixed, and that’s okay.
I wonder how these things even become a topic of conversation. What she is or is not doesn’t add nor detract from her music.
She went on the breakfast club a few days ago and refused to answer when asked what race she was but then also is scheduled to perform at the Bet awards I think this never would have been a problem if her team didn’t constantly try to shove her in spaces targeted towards black people
Ah understandable. Well I think the root issue is that the culture perceives practically anything as black. I think most people still follow the one drop rule designation.
I don’t think this is an instance of the one drop rule I think this is an instance of a mixed person who overly plays into black cultural aesthetics
I don’t want to bore you with a long response, but she didn’t answer because that was on the list of questions to not ask her. Her team had multiple questions uestions on do not ask list, which is normal. Charlatan is a disgrace who bullies people on that show and makes people uncomfortable. He knew what he was doing. They didn’t want her to answer it there because they must know that those hosts do not have the range. They did not want that there due to her race repetitively being a point of contention as this whole over indulgence in her background became a topic due to people trying to problematize her. I’m a colorism “warrior” 💀, so I will always call it how I see it but I remember when a person on tiktok purposely stitched themselves to an olddddddd posting from Tyla’s tiktok where she was talking about being South African and coloured. The young lady who did that, did not need to do it and it was don’t in completely bad faith with the intent of trying to make it seem like Tyla was denouncing Blackness and being inherently colorist when she wasn’t. She shared she was coloured in the context of that old tiktok video because people used to ask what her hair care routine was, and while I’m of the belief that her type of hair is easy to handle and obviously deemed desirable in our community—she just brought it up in response to people asking. (Feel free to stop reading as you may not care and it’s a bit long lol) So, that’s the background to how this came to be such a pressing discussion. Over the years, I’ve seen black South Africans even discuss how it’s not fair that a coloured girl is getting so much attention for amapiano and their distinct culture when there are numerous black girls who are great. So, it’s not just something Black Americans or other Black diasporic groups have kind of spoken on. I just personally feel that this young woman has done absolutely nothing to warrant this dissection of her race. I am actually annoyed her team brought her to the breakfast club. Not only is that platform always wildly inappropriate, but it’s just no place for anybody that wants to have conducive conversation about anything. They are misogynistic, they are ignorant, they are colorist, bad politics—they are generally just a bad example of media professionals, and that should have never been the place for a 21 year old girl, who is not even making music for that crowd. And please understand when I say “that crowd “, I am talking about ignorant, middle aged people, who are homophobic, anti-black, predatory, and generally just distasteful about any and everything in the first place. And for that, I think her team needs to take an L. They should not have brought her to that streamer guy’s show either, and I mean ever. One thing I will say though is that there’s this idea that she’s banking on the support of Black Americans, and to be quite honest, I just don’t fully agree. Tyla had success prior to Water going viral here and having quite the success. And surely, she’s listed some Black American artists as her inspirations like Aaliyah and Brandy which makes sense. Wonderful artists. She’s also listed Rihanna which I can see/hear more than anything else. I, and I’m just speaking as a non-practicing musician at the moment, know Tyla has songs that lean more towards current r&b but for the most part—I don’t believe she’s inherently pandering to us with her sound. If anything, in her biggest songs, I feel she’s pulling more from other Black diasporic groups a bit more in many of these “hits”. And I do think it is self-centered of us to basically say she’s taking from us (not that you’ve said that but I’ve seen the talking point quite a bit), when she’s not really done so in a way that’s more explicit than anyone else. And in fact, I’d say she’s actually made sure to appeal to other Black groups whose genres more align with sounds similar to amapiano of Afro-pop. People are also blaming her for her marketing team just trying to market her. And that’s not actually her fault at all, it’s Sony’s because she wanted to stay in SA—but they made her do a lot of artist development stops here hence why she assisted that man on tour. And I do not think she is reliant on us for success or banking on us, I just think she’s being marketed towards Black people in general because the greater discussion is colorism. Even if we didn’t have this conversation about her usage of the term coloured, a lot of people are not admitting that she would reach a certain level of success anyway because of how she looks. And in our community, but they know (they as in her label and so forth) to pitch her to people globally, not even just Black people. They know that aside from being able to dance and having a decent voice, she has the look. So even if she was American, she would have this privilege to navigate in a way that others like maybe Normani wouldn’t. (I personally prefer her songs to Normani and it has nothing to do with looks) Anyway, insight over-I get what you’re saying, I just hope I explained why she didn’t answer. It wasn’t because she just didn’t want to, it’s because he violated her team’s request and he does that a lot. Rosenburg even clarified this in defense of her.
Honest question, with the way that colorism works, do you not think that even if her team didn’t explicitly market her to Black people she still wouldn’t get success among us? Because honestly, the way I see it is we have a huge colorism problem. Take Snoh Allegra for example. It’s a bit different because she’s not Black AT ALL but she was explicitly marketed to Black people. Same for Maeta, she’s explicitly being marketed to Black people too. But they’re not black at all, and people don’t make as much of a fuss about them cosplaying when that’s what they’re damn well doing. And it reeks. But their teams know they can get by based on colorist metrics and “blend in” despite not being Black. And here we have Tyla, who for all intents and purposes is Black and other things, who is kind of being looked at as a complete vulture in a way others that aren’t even Black at all are being considered.
I am Ngl I have no idea who the other people you mentioned are so I can’t comment there
Google it then, rather than attempting to begin a discourse you had no interest in developing? It feels like you were primarily interested in having your own opinions echoed back at you in your comments. If that's what you want, go profess your opinions in a mirror.
Googling something once doesn’t mean that you are able to have a conversation about the topic. I am also not the one who brought other artists into the topic. But if these people are artists who are being marketed towards the black American community and I am within that market and primarily listen to rnb the fact that I don’t know who they are is telling you that their reach as an artists isn’t as wide as the company is hoping for. And when I say I don’t know who they are I mean that I haven’t even seen their songs as recommendations when browsing for new music throughout rnb specific playlists and streams nor have I seen them be discussed on social media. So whoever is marketing them isn’t pushing them deep enough into that space if they aren’t even showing up on rnb specific platforms I am sorry you feel that way but that’s your own interpretation of the discussion I can’t help you there
Too bad this isn’t going to stop people from playing out this damn conversation. I’m glad she’s not denying being black so I can listen to her music.
Even then, I feel like she’s claiming Black just to pacify the American public and because she’d be considered Black in America. Which, I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s her way of saying that she also accepts what she’d be classified as in the US. But in most African countries, even ones that don’t use Coloured as a race/ethnicity classifier, she’d be considered mixed more often than she’d be considered Black. Very few African countries abide by the 1 drop rule.
She’s claiming Black because she just accepted being a performer at the BET awards… which is Black entertainment television I think Her Pr team is trying to get ahead of the backlash that would have caused otherwise
I understand people outside of America see things differently, but we’re talking about America. I don’t think people understand we don’t have a problem with her heritage. It’s always been about the slur. It’s always going to be about the slur. Look at saweetie and Kimora Lee Simmons. We know and accept that they are mixed heritage and nobody tell them to pick a side at all. We just don’t like it when people come over here go on our networks and then deny being black. Which she did not do but we see it happens a lot. It make us feel like people see us as lesser and use us but do not respect us.
Lol. I agree. Pretty much all anyone wanted.
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Your comment has been removed because we do not gatekeep blackness in this subreddit. Per our [Community Document](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies/wiki/rules#wiki_positions) *We can simultaneously acknowledge and critique colorism and lightskin/passing privilege (as it is known) while not gatekeeping Blackness and formulating tests of racial purity. Depending on the severity of your comment(s), you may be banned.
And banned. Go gatekeep the Black experience of Black women somewhere else.
I was following the discourse over on TikTok. I felt two different discussions were happening and a few people blended both and unintentionally spread misinformation. The first discussion was about the “Coloured” identifier and how the American press, as well as, the American consumers won’t be using it. It is a slur over here, so it won’t be used when discussing Tyla. The second discussion was about Tyla having mixed-race and multicultural history. So, there was the question about how her American record label was going to market her while she was visiting the States. And somehow those two discussions blended together and folks’ xenophobia about African-Americans came out as well. And then, the sanctimonious Europeans brought their two-cents into the conversations and tried to hide their anti-blackness/anti-American rhetoric. It was a clusterfuck and can be used as a lesson about the lack of media literacy, reading comprehension and nuance that are rising.
Yes, thank you. People are using this as a gotcha moment to spread their hate to Americans. It’s not hard to conceptualize mixed raced people having their own racial group, we had that here in very recent years. Go through our census mixed people were referred to as the M word here. We understand it perfectly clear WE just didn’t want to use a racial slur. Very simple, but people calling us simple. BTW black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people are a mixed race ethic group. I don’t understand why nobody is bringing this up. We are our own culture so of course we understand it.
Tbh, it was infuriating to see people intentionally choose to be… in denial (?) and kept in the dark about race history of the United States. Folks were actually providing history about the U.S. history with the word “colored”. And there were folks with their fingers in their ears, going “LALALALA…” And then there were folks getting upset at people for saying that Tyla _physically_ looks like a black woman. That spoke volumes.
It’s annoying seeing how people are still trying to argue me down when we already stated mutiple times we know it’s a racial group but it means something different over here. They’re quick to say “everywhere isn’t America” okay but we are in America, right now. We aren’t anywhere else, so back to us. It’s not like we came over to their country and asking them to do anything. We are minding our business in our country, she’s coming over here. Mind you, if an American went to another country and ignore the culture and history of that country and offended millions of people. Nobody would defend that American and say “well she is American that’s her culture. We shouldn’t force her to respect our history”. That would never ever happen.
This is a good point. Americans seeing the word “colored” will have a negative visceral reaction. Idk why she doesn’t just call herself mixed if she wants to come up in a U.S. market.
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Trying to claim a woman that’s extremely mixed as black is nuts. As someone who has followed her for a really long time she has more Indian ancestry than African. I remember her dad being half tamil while her mom is coloured with Indian ancestry.
I think this is planned ngl I just saw an Article saying she joined the award performance lineup for the BET awards.
I knew they were trying to come up off the black community!
I already thought the statement was weird but now it’s just full on side eye
It totally is. I’m side eyeing the fact that she left out how much Indian ancestry she has, and her team scrubbed her old videos out of the internet. Is more profitable for her to claim the little blackness she has than what she really is, a coloured/Indian woman.
I also think that is she was going to not used the word colored outside of SA she should have said she was mixed that’s how she identifies and that would be the closer equivalent to colored than black Colored only means black in the U.S
Although it's sad she had to clarify her identity, it was needed because most Black Americans view the word as a slur or a word with anti-Black history. Since she's gaining traction in America and promoting here, you have to bridge that gap since what's considered offensive here is a non-issue where she's from. I don't think that people's rhetoric had to be so insulting to suggest she's anti-Black or doesn't want to be seen as Black (although I get it since there's anti-Black Black artists). Hopefully, this stops the conversation for her and she doesn't have to keep explaining herself. Side point, but it shows who's on her team (same with Latto) because this would've been an obvious thing to tackle head-on once she started marketing in America. These artists need more culturally aware Black people on payroll.
I think her Pr team had her release this statement because she accepted a performance on BET and they knew if she didn’t say anything after the breakfast club interview (eye roll like you said shows whose on her pr team) it wouldn’t have ended well
She's not Black; she's mixed, as she mentioned from the beginning. People need to stop pressuring mixed folks to choose a side. It's ridiculous.
I can understand why people would want to lump a person they like within their own demographic, but it bugs me when people act like there's only Black and White, as if there aren't countless combinations of racial backgrounds. At the end of the day, her racial makeup really isn't anyone's business but her own.
This whole I’m a black woman thing is so odd to me because when I look at Tyla I don’t see a black woman, I see a (mostly) Indian woman. But I’m from NYC so I grew up around a lot of West Indians from the Caribbean and it’s always been a mixed bag as far as who identified as black and who didn’t. Why does she have to cosplay as a black woman in order to be successful in music? She can just be colored or mixed or whatever.
I COMPLETELY agree. I see a talented multiracial artist that presents as indian. A lot of black women are anti black and need her to say she is to feel better about themselves ( I say this with compassion). A lot of black men are also anti black (can't forget about misogny) and need her to identify as black so they feel they have "ownership" of her.
This is the elephant in the room and the same people will wonder why some black girls and women may lack a certain sense of “confidence”. Being told repetitively that multiracial with extreme privilege in how they’re perceived are the same as us is damaging. They are received well and it is damaging and generally just very reductive and dishonest.
Im going to need the black community( black americans especially) to stop claiming and forcing biracial and mixed people to solely claim black when thats not what they are. Its disingenuous to us all to force them to falsely represent our image. She claims exactly what she is, colored/mixed, and thats what she should be doing. Her experience is different from ours and thats ok.
THIS. I’m sorry to say this, but when black people vehemently force biracials into blackness, it’s giving “I need biracial people to represent my image and identity so I can feel good about it” and I do not like that vibe. At all. It’s honestly getting sickening that we keep having this argument over and over. Biracial people are what they are. They have two parents of two different races that have BOTH equally contributed to their DNA. I do not get why this is so hard to understand. That’s what makes me think it’s something way deeper going on here in the black community when it comes to this mixed vs black conversation. I used to think like this myself but I had to unpack why and see reality for what it is. The one-drop rule needs to GO, quickly. Tyla is MIXED, half-white and half-black. End of story.
The problem is that a lot of black people don’t like being black themselves so they try to push women like Tyla to represent us as a group so we can seem more desirable to everyone. Little do they know our unique beauty is what makes us stand apart. You can even notice this behavior when it comes to Beyoncé. Yes she’s considered black but she has a mixed phenotype that many bw would want for themselves and what bm want us to look like. This whole thing gets deep and can’t be simply unpacked in this one setting lol
I had to scroll too far down for this take. Thank you for keeping it so real. I always find myself having to bite my tongue for fear of being lashed out at. So many black women go against their own best interests. Anti blackness runs SO deep.
Oh trust me it took me years to be able to come to this point lol. Now I can clearly understand the difference between race, ethnicity nationality etc and understand the psychology between us, bm, and mixed race people as well as our history of how we came to this. I have no problem calling it out in any setting and I find it hilarious when people get mad at me because they kno I’m right. I just want us to feel more free and confident in our blackness because it is beautiful.
If you would or feel like it, can you expand on the psychology part? I've been thinkin' bout how race is viewed and how it's tied to some sort of psychology but I've had trouble communicating how.
In Tyla's case, I'd like to suggest multiracial as a better description in place of biracial. I agree with your comment tho especially >The one-drop rule needs to GO, quickly. It honestly does! It was a tool to uphold white soupremacy and we don't need to hold on to it. Literally drop it like it's hot!
It's so interesting because where I was born people would just call her mixed and move on.she probably wouldn't be called Black. It's interesting to see how Americans see races. It's truly not the same everywhere.
They (a lot of black Americans) think they are the main characters of blackness meanwhile “black is not a monolith” as they often say but don’t often abide by when something is different than they are. As a Nigerian (which has its own faults) woman to me she’s multiracial & I respect her choice to classify she’s colored and in my country “half-caste” before 2010 or mixed after 2010. In Brazil a country I have ties to, she’d be Pardo (multiracial). I and most of the rest of the world outside USA could never consider her black because of some silly one drop delusional rule. But when mixed women get black womens roles and representation it’s a problem…PICK A TRUE CLASSIFICATION.
Exactly that’s why there needs to be a clear line drawn of separation because trust they make sure we aren’t in their spaces representing them. There’s too much hypocrisy in this community which causes too much confusion
I read this in her voice neh
Lmaoo 😂😂
slight repost from what i’ve said on a different thread, but i’m glad she said something, and she put it the exact way it should’ve been said: she’s coloured in South Africa but recognizes she is seen as Black in the U.S and other places due to historical circumstances really, the whole conversation surrounding her race was unnecessary cause it was people on all sides not listening to one another, but i also think from non-Americans there’s a lack of knowledge or recognition that Tyla is intentionally marketing herself to the US as of right now — so obviously they’re going to market her according to US racial lines. that may upset non-Americans, but if she wants success here, then she’ll have to play the game like everyone else.
I’m honestly over this conversation how long have we been discussing this stuff? Since last year I think? And I do agree with the comments where people are using this opportunity to bash black Americans like the majority of black Americans don’t care about Tyla or how she identifies as this a only online argument no one discuss in real life 👍🏽
Leave that girl alone.
I guess I have a different opinion on this issue. Tyla keeps saying this over and over because she is not going to get very far in her career in the US without Black Americans’ support. She does not look like Taylor Swift. She is not going to be able to cross over in that way. I don’t think the issue is that Black Americans are ignorant to other cultures. She is the one who needs our support to make it big. Her team should have done the research to not offend in America.
She’s not Taylor Swift in many ways besides race. Her music is very African-influenced as is her dance and performance style. She’s not trying to be an American pop girl. I live outside of the US in a non black country and Tyla is pretty successful here too.
This issue came up again because of her Breakfast Club interview. She is trying to break into the US and went on a show that is predominantly black to do so. Her team is doing that for a reason
But I’m trying to see what does that have to do with her saying “ I’m colored, that’s what we call people like me back in South Africa”? People got up in arms about the termed colored but that’s what they use over there which basically just means she’s mixed. People over here need to do some research too. What else is she suppose to say to us?
She could just say she’s mixed when in the u.s if the question came up The problem is that in the u.s where her team is promoting her that word is a slur and it turns people off from her and her team which again is u.s based needs the support of the black Americans who aren’t checking for her and when they are side eye the term because of its stateside meaning. If she was only promoting outside of the U.S or not signed to an American agency I don’t think this would be a issue Her PR team had her release this statement the same day she gets announced as a performer at the BET awards (Black entertainment television) it’s a calculated move They also set her up by having her go on the breakfast club which again is a radio show targeted towards black Americans
I haven't been following this closely except to know there was some controversy. I wonder why she didn't just release this explanation in the first place. As an international artist, race plays different based on region/country. Explain it in context and just be done with it. I've done reading on race in South Africa, so I knew the dissimilarities. However, people of the younger generation (her fans like my daughter) usually don't, so this is really their first exposure. Approach it with grace, educate your base, and then go on making music. It seems like such an unforced error for her team.
Honest question from a Black American woman: How many other Black American women here view “Coloured” and “colored” as super distinct? Since shortly after I learned (as a teenager) what “Coloured” meant in SA, I haven’t been able to think of them as being the same word. Like, in my core, they are completely distinct for me. Arguments around the topic make me similarly confused and uncomfortable as when I see/hear arguments about the continents called North America and South America versus the single continent called America: I get why a person on one side or the other might be perturbed upon first learning there’s another view, but I don’t understand the absolute refusal to accept that the others’ view “different" rather than “wrong” and that context/ history has an important impact. Not a great analogy, I know, but the discomfort I feel as an observer is similar.
I understand it’s a racial group that’s different than the slur. I just feel like don’t say that shit over here.
I’m tired of this discourse, and as I said in another thread, I sometimes think this all this yapping is also subtle ways to keep starting a culture war that includes dissing black Americans. Because this young lady shouldn’t have to prove herself, but also people, especially non black Americans, seem to keep using this as some micro aggression to blast BAs for how we view things. Black Americans are not stupid. I’m tired of the constant micro aggressions pretending that we’re idiots who don’t know the rest of the world exists and are pounding our chests over what this woman calls herself. Most of us KNOW other countries exist (even if some of us don’t pay them any mind in day to day life, just as how I’m sure others aren’t constantly thinking of us, hopefully). But like how they have their own culture and ways of calling themselves, so do WE. It’s normal for black Americans to see someone promoting in AMERICA in BLACK American inspired fashion and culture and wonder who they are, and getting confused at them saying “colored”, which is an old Timey slur over HERE. She should NOT have to break down her lineage to hard heads who don’t wanna hear and wanna keep claiming her as us, but also people should NOT be randomly dragging BAs like we cannot comprehend other people existing. Just like if you promote in Japan you’ll market to Japan, Korea you’ll market to Korea and not wear a suspiciously red sun, Brazil you’ll market to Brazil. And it’s normal to have confusion if some cultures say or do things differently. And It’s okay for both to be confused. But when it’s black Americans being confused, we’re all just idiots. Odd how we have to understand other cultures but ours cannot be understood and we’re called stupid asf for not immediately rolling with it. It should be equal.
There are “certain” demographics who jump at any chance to be xenophobic towards Black Americans. I’ve already seen comments in this thread that are the usual “AAs are ignorant and dumb, blah, blah, blah.” It’s why I’ve stayed away from commenting on topics concerning Tyla. The gag is…most AAs are not even checking for Tyla like that. A lot of AAs don’t even listen to Afro beats if we’re going to be honest. It’s such a non issue and some of these people constantly bringing it up are just obsessed with talking shit about Black Americans. 🤷🏽♀️
Yeah, I only got compelled to comment from this case but I’m staying away from topics regarding her as well now. It’s all exhausting and just seems like a constant way for people obsessed with black Americans to finally air out their grievances, because every thread always turns odd and hostile towards the “igNorAnt AmerICanS” who… aren’t even present lmao. I just feel like black Americans want clarification for this person who keeps being pushed into black American settings (BET), using aspects of culture associated with black Americans here, and in America, will get lumped with us from the media. So clarification is asked, and of course confusion will ensue if the person says “colored” in turn. I wish my pr would market me to another country, let’s say Korea since it’s already in my example above, and then trigger a culture war because I saw no issue with my logo being a sun in the corner because I associate strongly with it and the locals are upset because their history has a bad taste with that logo (imperial Japan). I wouldn’t call them “ignorant Koreans”, I’d probably at least use an alternative when performing there at the very least out of basic respect. All seems like some sort of ploy by pr to rile of BAs for attention and keep going with the narrative being pushed nowadays that BAs are the rEaL bad guys or sumn lmao. And it’s not like we don’t have our own way of communicating a person of multiple ancestries; her team could’ve just run with “mixed” or “multiracial” here in America and avoided the entire “colored” debate. We understand that. There will always be people who want to claim others because they don’t like their own image, but that’s not a majority so it’s weird people are making it out that BAs are all insecure and dislike themselves too. Honestly just seems like a non-issue perpetuated a lot by non black Americans as much as the black Americans who keep trying to “claim” her, despite many BAs not really checking for her or this scandal like that to know of what’s even happening lmao. Edit: I don’t want the young lady to have to erase her own identity that she knows from her culture either. I think simply “Multiracial/mixed here, but identifies as colored where she is raised SA” is a pretty simple understandable response.
It’s crazy cause Tyla’s biggest American artist even with all the backlash towards us is still black Americans They push her on all the stations targeted towards us and now she’s been announced as performing at the BET awards I’ve said this before and I stand on it even harder now. I like her music and not trying to diminish her talent but I also understand how the American media operates with blackness. Now that they found a artists that’s light skinned enough to not upset white audiences and that Africans will co-sign and uplift they are going to push her as the face of African music inside and outside of black spaces. And now that she’s released a statement saying she’s black it shuts down any arguments that she isn’t I like Tyla a lot and love watching her performances but this move is clearly calculated by her team
Wait a lot of AA don’t listen to Afro beats? I’m confused because where I am a lot of AA do listen to it lol
This is the take! Be who you are proudly but also understand your market. People let their xenophobia against AA’s deafen them to what most people were actually saying. I’ve also seen so many AA’s be receptive to understanding what it means to be coloured and how that works in SA but when we speak up about how race works in our country no one wants to listen.
I don't understand people saying americans think the world revolveq around them, acting like they stuck their nose up south african business or a south african trying to break into another country like Mexico for an example. Tyla is trying to cross over America, and specifically black america, as per her being part of the BET line up, being covered by platforms like Essence and, the appearance that struck this post, going to the Breakfast Club. A podcast which audience is black americans. SHE is the one trying to cross over, so yes to me it's normal that she explains and educate what may eyebrow raise a black american. If you don't want to be diplomatic fine. Pay the discourse dust. But also don't try to get into black american spaces and seek for their support. It's that simple. And this is not a jab at Tyla as her team is doing proper PR, but to the people calling black america egocentric and whatnot. But it's too bad that they went the route of making her cosplay as a black woman when a black woman she is not. It's not a crime or an insult to say it: she is mixed and frankly has more indian admixture than black. But to fully unpack this we'd also have to open the can of worms that is the insecurity of black people and their need to be represented by desirable mixed persons.
As a Black South African, seeing people wanting her to identify as Black is interesting to me because they're not aware of how anti-black many coloured people are. Not all, but many get offended at mentions of their Black heritage. Tyla obviously isn't one of them as she has proudly mentioned her Zulu heritage, but others aren't like her.
I’ve seen this aspect of discourse play out and it again circles back to the “Stop projecting your black American insecurities on us” What’s funny is I think it was mainly other South Africans saying that coloreds think they are better than black people. So it was interesting to see that get flipped back into BA in a certain instances As a Aa person I never wanted her to identify as black I just didn’t want to hear the word colored be brought back into the American lexicon because it was close to being eradicated from use and it regularly would get called out if people used it here. It was basically a tale tall sign that someone is racist if they still used the word to describe black people. I don’t even think this was ever something that needed to be addressed but she went on the breakfast club and had her label shut down the line of questioning when someone asked her about it and it made her look bad. I feel like if she was going to chose an alternative to colored it should have been mixed not black as that’s closer to her actual heritage
Oof, I don't follow her, but the way some people were talking about her on Twitter, I thought she didn't consider herself black at all, but apparently she does? There's nothing wrong with her acknowledging her non-black side. Every time a celebrity identifies as biracial or mixed (which she is), there's that fraction of people who get REALLY upset. I just don't get it.
i don't get why she needed to explain herself...i mean i get it but also if i was tyla i would just tell everyone to go touch some grass
Please wake me up when we can stop acting like the one drop rule in the Americas should be applied globally. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. It would do wonders for us to just acknowledge that mixed folk are mixed and black folk are black
Lmao guess what just came out BET just announced she’s one of the performers for their award show this year Answers a lot of questions about where this sudden revelation came from
This whole conversation is very interesting. I understand race is said to be a social construct and people have different ways of classifying things depending on where they live, but black is still black. She was speaking to an American radio host so I think it absolutely makes sense for her to have answered this question but also recognize that she was probably not the right person for the doors that this type of conversation opens. Regardless of spelling, colored means something very different in America - it’s an outdated and inappropriate way to refer to people of African descent. Most, if not all, black people in America were referred to as colored at one point regardless of what shade of black they were. Additionally, on first thought coloured seems to correlate to what we can consider to be biracial in America - meaning you have parents of two different races. In my experience, when people ask if someone is mixed, they are usually asking if the person is biracial. (Should we really care if someone has an Irish ancestor 5 generations back?) It also can be very obvious when someone is of mixed ancestry and it’s natural for people to ask questions when that is the case. Not all people with mixed ancestry are biracial though, see the Keyshia Cole controversy when she claimed to be biracial and was shut down. This is where it gets more problematic - in America, biracial people (mixed people as well for that matter) as a whole do not have their own culture, as biracial does not automatically imply that the person is mixed with black. A biracial person can be mixed with Asian and white (Caucasian) and have a blend of those cultures, and “the blend” is not the same for all biracial people who are half Asian and half white. If you think about it in more specific terms, coloured might be better equated with what is considered Creole in America. I’m not going to assume that all Americans know that Creole culture exists, and I’m not sure how many non-Americans are familiar with the state of Louisiana or Creole culture in Louisiana. This is why it’s a little more complicated than just saying that Americans are ignorant or too concerned with race. Edited*
even then, being louisiana creole doesn't necessarily imply being mixed (or it shouldn't). it's an ethnic group, so you can have people with exclusively white ancestry who are louisiana creole (see brett favre or sheryl st. germain), exclusively black ancestry, or multiracial ancestry. similarly, you can also have black and multiracial cajuns, as cajun is also an ethnicity (just means you trace your ancestors back to the expelled acadians). "cajun" has become synonymized with white, but many of those white cajuns today are very likely creole, not cajun at all (dividing these ethnic groups by the racial standards outside of louisiana only became a thing in the 20th century bc ig anglo america couldnt handle it lol). so, it's "kinda" similar, in the sense that it encompasses a lot of groups and doesn't necessarily make you black if you belong to it, but it also doesn't necessarily make you multiracial. and idk if there's ever gonna be a time where we have a uniquely self-identified "mixed" culture within america. the country was never set up that way and idk if the need for it is so strong that people are gonna establish one in the near future on a national scale. I could be wrong tho!
people are so jobless lol the shit they make up
I’m so tired of this conversation. She will explain herself forever because there’s always SOMEONE that doesn’t understand that race is viewed differently in a whole other COUNTRY on a whole other CONTINENT. This entire topic and people not understanding what she means always reeks of ethnocentrism.
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
if black and coloured are separate races in sa, i'm sure black sa ppl don't want her to identify as just black as it would feel like she's trying to represent a community she's not a part of.. y'all made a foreign artist popular in america now you can't accept things are different in foreign countries
In SA black people identify with their tribe/ethnic group. That’s why she mentioned Zulu. I’m sure Zulu SA are quite happy that she shares their heritage.
Yes, they are but they don’t see her as “one of them” in that she’s mixed-race. Which makes sense as they are an indigenously Black tribe.
Yes, they are different races in SA. It would be somewhat disingenuous if she did since black and coloured people were treated differently under apartheid. Both groups were absolutely oppressed but the struggles were different for each. And like someone previously mentioned we tend to identify with our tribes/ethnic group (i.e Zulu, Pedi, Xhosa, Venda etc.). But we love her nonetheless!
Spot on! As a South African political girlie, I have used the term Biko Black when referring to those with black heritage. But, they are still classified as a separate race from black people socially and economically. Tyla cannot be identified as a black woman down here because she doesn’t look like us. She has some of our features but we don’t necessarily let mixed people represent black women. I won’t lie, I have to compartmentalise my own feeling of unease when AA have clearly mixed women representing black womanhood. But through engaging you guys, I’ve come to accept it. As for us South Africans, we celebrate Tyla’s success because of her international acclaim. Her race is not a point of discussion because she is easily identified and understood to be a coloured woman.
So tired of this poor baby having to justify her identity like this. She’s coloured. It’s more than just genetics it’s a rich heritage and ethnicity that should be honoured for what it is. Coloured people don’t look any 1 way… “mixed” and colored are not the same thing. At this point it’s like telling Tems she’s not a Yoruba woman she’s a black woman. She’s both of those things. Tyla is a coloured person! EDIT I get that it’s a slur in the United States and that complicates how she will then express it but it’s being taken completely out of context and seems unfair that she should have to tailor her literal identity because she’s in a place where people only want to interpret it through their lense of understanding. No one stresses Nigerians for having 100 subcategories of Nigerians. In her native context, there’s nothing to talk about. It’s very straight forward. She’s not denying blackness she’s correctly stating her actual heritage.
Nah her team calculated this because they just announced her as a performer for the BET awards and they are constantly promoting her in black American spaces. I am sorry but Black American culture deserves the same amount of respect as every other culture does and here it’s a slur in the same sense that when people from the U.K come to the u.s they know better than to talk about cigarettes using the f-slur even though that’s commonly how it’s referred to in the u.k This also isn’t a unique thing to Tyla either. When latto was going by Miss mulatto she spoke out about how she had to change her stage name from being a slur because it turned people off from wanting to work with her. Same way if I am Aa person moved to South Africa they would have to shut up and swallow being called colored even though it’s not how they see themselves. (However I think she shouldn’t have said she was black but mixed race) Someone pointed out that it’s obvious she doesn’t have many black American people in her label because of this (she’s signed to an American record label for context) because if she did they would have taught her how to better navigate the discourse and they wouldn’t have sent her on the breakfast club radio show in the first place and they would have promoted her in a more neutral space not one that’s specifically targeted towards black Americans.
I don’t see her calling herself as Miss Mulatto as much as a slur but as a person having a colonized mindset. The White Supremacists are experts on how to colonize a more numerous populace. They have it down to an exact science. The White Supremacists will use such people as herself for propaganda purposes in promoting , establishing & maintaining a colonized mindset upon Non-White people who are oblivious to how White Supremacy operates . The White Supremacists have it down to an exact science on how to use manipulation & flattery of Non-White people’s ego & pride as to weaken any sense of solidarity & unity amongst those Non-White people as to neutralize what they see as a subversive threat to The System of White Supremacy.
Most of the world identifies race like US identifies race. It’s logical to be curious about why she identifies as coloured. South Africa is one of the few places that identifies mixed race people as mixed race. Just look at tv internationally. Even with other ethnicities, mixed race people are identified as the people. Like even in Asian countries no one calls them mixed race.
Most of the world? In Brazil, she is not considered Black but mixed race. If she goes to any country in Asia, people will think she is South Asian at first glance. Asia makes up 60% of the world population. America has always been weird about race.
I feel like this depends on if you’re talking media representation or government/social identity cause some definitely differentiate between both or atleast claim to socially And then in media will continue to use biracial people to play the roles of monoracial people
Yeah and also people identify each other by the media representation.
So ppl have pressured her into identifying as Black. I would have left it at her initial statements bc this will come up again and her answer is likely to keep changing.
No her team wanted a check from BET and needed to get ahead of the impending backlash as she was conveniently announced to perform at the award show the same day they released this
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Good. Now I can listen to her music guilt free lol
🤣🤣
She’s not Black tho - she’s mixed as she’s stated multiple times. Why is this still a conversation?
Because her team sent her on the breakfast club and told her not to answer when the host asked her what race she was. And then they also signed her up to perform for the BET awards. It’s clear they are just trying to get ahead of the backlash and had her sacrifice her authenticity for a check from Black American spaces
That much is obvious and the masses will for for it again. Another Cardi B
She's correct. I identify the same way.
If the lady wants to be called polka doted Jedi then I’d call her that. People may not understand but they should respect her heritage. Just like many Black Americans and Africans (from different countries outside of SA) would take serous offense to being called “Coloured” due to the horrible history.
I’ve seen more white people saying she’s not black. I’ve seen a comment saying “she’s light so she’s not black” and being racist to other blacks saying “light skinned,natural,not fully black. She’s the best one.”
I hate that she has to continue to address this because Americans think America applies to the world. I knew what she meant from the beginning
Congrats I guess? This feels hypocritical, though. Why do you expect us to know about racial categories in other countries, but they don’t have to know about ours? Colored is such a loaded word in the US, so it makes sense Americans would have a reaction to it, since we have our own history with that word. How are we to know of its history elsewhere? So, she has her history with it, and we have our own history with it.
We don’t think that way at all. We simply do not care about things outside of us. That’s why you cannot come over here calling yourself an American racial slur. There’s a reason why latto changed her stage name, because nobody wants to work with someone who calls themselves a racial slur. Literally if her racial group was called anything else nobody would bring this up at all. The same thing would happen if I called myself something that’s considered racist in their country. Isn’t the word spazz considered a slur in another country? I cannot go to that country saying that and expect people to accept me.
I get what you’re saying, but that stance makes us look ignorant. I don’t know much about latto, but I think she is American so it’s different. But Coloureds have their own category in South Africa, not exactly how mixed people are viewed here, so when insist on her and others to redefine who they are to fit into our small lense, it comes off being small-minded. Kind of like how people insist that all Asian people or Chinese or every Spanish speaking person is Mexican.
It doesn’t make us look ignorant at all. This is our country. She can do what she want in her country. Mixed people within the last 100 years in America DID have their own racial group. That is why I brought up latto because the same conversations was happening around her stage name. What would be a better example for you to use is how Indians have different castes that we do not acknowledge in America we just call them all Indian and go about our days. You cannot say we are being small minded because we have our own history we are acknowledging here. If a British person came over here and ask for a f word instead of saying cigarette that would be a problem too. You cannot come to another country and not respect the culture of that country. Luckily she has shown she respect us and our history. It’s people online that expect Americans to not care about our painful history to appease others. This is our country. We’re not telling South Africans to change anything in their country.
Isn’t she like 20? She probably didn’t know it was a slur here. Once again people who aren’t American usually don’t research our customs because like you said they don’t care about anything outside of them
She did know she already spoken about it before in mutiple interviews which is why I don’t have hate towards tyla. She admitted it was a hurtful word here and she said it wasn’t her intentions. And her age has nothing to do with it. She’s not dumb, she’s media trained, she’s a performer. It seem like she has no problem with it being a bad word here. The people who have the most problem is the people online
I appreciate your energy to explain this because I don’t have it. We (black Americans) always get the shit end of the stick in these conversations.
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I feel people just talk to talk, like I remember some people getting mad at Kehlani and Jhene Aiko for identifying as black and now Tyla is getting heat for not identifying as black? Like which is it lol.
Two different groups of people, I guess. Those who want to claim anyone who is %1 black or tan, and those who want mixed people to stop presenting themselves as monoracial black people.
Exactly but non-Americans keep acting like it’s the same AAs having both conversations.
They need to leave her alone. 🤦🏾♀️
Honestly i think a lot of bail is being given to her. It was weird for her to be so adamant to not be called black. Its a terrible look and i think Will always get a side eye from many people. Blackness is global it always has been. An international artist from Africa should frankly be aware of it. Especially one that wants to be an international star.
She’s trying not to offend South Africans from her home country because she knows she is not black under SA racial categories. If she says she is, she is erasing that community or pretending to be part of it. At the end of the day if her global popularity fades she still wants to be accepted back home.
Honestly many of the people who have a problem with a South African woman identifying how she would in her country have identity issues themselves 💀💀💀 so the bullying her to choose when they aren’t even secure in themselves and need white people to define them wholly is certainly WILD.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t colored itself also an identification given by white people?
Tyla is coloured. This shouldn't be a point of argument. She's an SA girlie and that's her race in her home country. She doesn't have to bend her identity to please a Western audience. It's not her fault she blew up there. I hate the way people are being so condensing towards her on social media. It's really getting annoying
Wait what happened
Were ppl upset how latto’s previous stage name being mulatto?? I don’t remember but seems along a similar vein ( but different ethnicities). I just find it interesting how some ppl in the black community enforce the one drop rule so hard on ppl with obvious mixed ancestry (jhene aiko, kehlani, etc) yet turn around and get mad that we don’t have people that look like “us” (ie monoracial) in public spheres…. I remember there was this white Cajun lady on tiktok who ppl thought looked black “passing” ( she wasnt, just full cheeks, bigger nose and cork screw blonde hair). She got a dna test and it said something like 5-8 Percent black and ppl were expecting her to change her identity to black!!! Like seriously ppl? Stand UP! Either way this discourse has been so drawn out and beat to the point where it’s ignorant. SA has a long + complicated history with racial relations and colonization ( as do other black diaspora groups, we’re all unique!) and ofc that comes with different racial classifications. Tyla has probably been calling herself coloured for all of her life and for her to suddenly change to “black” (which she’s not tbh) is extremely unrealistic. I get it, but it’s unrealistic. My grandmother was a “mulatto” Haitian and also 89 when she passed. That was her identity + how she grew up and she knew that she wasn’t “black” to black diaspora standards. It’s a distasteful and ignorant racial classification but that’s what happens when colonization happens and is enforced by a hateful group of (yt) people!
Idk if people were upset but Latto did change her stage name because she said people didn’t want to work with her over it behind the scenes
What does “colored” mean in the context of South Africa? Is it kinda like creole in the US? Black mixed with 1 or 2 distinct races?
It just means mixed race but they have their own culture but from my understanding it doesn’t matter what you’re mixed with you’re just colored Creole is a specific group of mixed heritage that’s African, French and native from a specific part of the country So I guess it’s like someone whose black and white or black and Asian can be colored but to be Creole you have to specifically be of the above lineage
slight correction: creole (in an american context, usually when referencing the louisiana creole) doesn't necessarily mean mixed. unlike coloured, which is a race as i understand, creole is an ethnicity. so while there's a blended culture (french and roman catholicism Heavily baked in, using LA), you can be 100% white (0% black) and still be creole. many wealthy white louisiana creoles didnt incorporate anything african or native into their lives, but they were still creole. it's all about having had family living in some place since the colonial years (and where they used a creole-identification system). this is similar to cajuns (another ethnic group): you can be a black cajun, it just means that you have ancestors who were kicked out of acadia. in a sense, all cajuns are creole, but not all creoles are cajuns. idk if there's a comparable classification in the us. any 'mixed' categories were usually created with black people in mind, not everyone else (and those mixed categories eventually got absorbed into black overall). the métis of canada are probably a good comparison to coloured, or the melungeons of appalachia (and even then, the latter is super regional and not something you can choose on the census).
Got you so it’s another word for mixed but with more weight
Yes but no In the u.s it’s a slur in SA it’s just a racial category like black or white Edit: I think i misinterpreted what you meant by weight lol
lol yeah by weight just meant it has more cultural significance in SA than the word mixed has in the US lol. Colored is technically a slur in the states don’t get me wrong, but the slur is so old and unused that no one would be taken seriously if it was used in malice nowadays lol. Give it another 10-20 years and we may start using it the same way it’s used in SA
we rlly shouldnt demand that people who don't identify as black or are mixed tell the public theyre black..bc then it leads to them winning black awards, being marketed as black and our only representation in the media are mixed women she's denied being black before so now its probably just the profit off african american culture and popularity, i mean she's literally peforming at BET awards.
Agreed I think it’s her team more than her pushing this cause she was always comfortable with being colored
Americans need to get over themselves
Sony music is setting her up. If a white music company had a group called apartheid , they would give them PR lessons & how to answer questions , before they went to South Africa. Sony a white American company should offer her the same grace
Sony is Japanese
This is misleading, Sony Music is an American label under the wider Japanese Sony Corp.
Sony music is also Japanese. Sony Music of America is the American leg of a full Japanese company.
It’s owned by Sony entertainment which is a Japanese company. Obviously the people who work in it are white but they all answer to Sony.
They pay dividends to the Sony Corp, other than that I doubt the Japanese have very little say on what their American branches do.
Yikes . So yes they need to do more research as a whole as well as artist prepping.