Just one day after Azealia Banks had her Twitter account suspended—thus providing fodder for the #AzealiaBanksSuspendedParty hashtag—the Harlem-born rapper promised payback via her Instagram account. In a post Thursday, Banks said she would follow up with a penned essay regarding her take on "black people's mental health" and the conditioning of white privilege in the music industry.
In a series of Instagram posts, Banks described her experiences with black people—namely black men—who have berated her from the time that she first entered the music scene.
She stated:
"From the minute I appeared on the scene I was told by black men in black media that I was ugly, skinny, had bad hair, was weird, made music for white people etc... And those messages penetrated the social consciousness of black America very quickly. I've been belittled, berated, stolen from, called crazy when making clear and true observations about the world we live in only to then have all of those things reveal themselves to be truths. I'm not blaming anyone or anything for any of my actions, but I think it's really important to for people outside of us (black folk) to understand the detrimental effects of whiteness and white supremacy/white cultural pervasiveness on black peoples MENTAL HEALTH as a whole and the MENTAL HEALTH of black individual herself."
Banks also defended her "racist" tweets against ZAYN, who she said she feels is pandering to "whiteness" in hopes of benefiting from white privilege in the music industry. Those remarks followed comments from the One Direction singer claiming he was "too good" to respond to her scathing tweets directed (no pun intended) at him. She also mentioned that "in the racial-social construct of the pop world he is STILL beneath Justin [sic] Beiber."
