Water's still wet, and once again, emcee Azealia Banks has sniped at someone from her Twitter gattling gun. Her latest victim: Zayn Malik.
This all started over an Instagram post by Banks last Tuesday showing similarities between Zayn's music video for his "Like I Would" single and one of her own videos.
When Zayn tweeted, "My @'S too good for you" later that day, Banks interpreted that as an attack. What followed was her digital hate torrent at Malik, calling him "punjab" and "curry-scented bi**h," among other things. She also added a heaping helping of "Yo Mama"-isms when she called Malik's mother "a dirty refugee who won't be granted asylum."
Alright, pause for a sec. Banks, if you're going to go xeno-mode on this handsome hunk, at least do your due diligence. Malik's father is Pakistani; his mother is English and Irish. When racists are too lazy to practice proper racist etiquette. Sigh.
We don't need to go into the rest of AB's comments on Malik, but following a much deserved campaign from South Asian women over her "curry-scented" comments, Twitter has officially shut down Banks' firing weapon.
I was fixing to rip Banks a new one after this shiznit. Especially considering her cyber-bullying rep. But then I looked up her history and felt that I needed to lower my snark guns.
Banks had a rough childhood, peeps. Fistfights with her mom and even dodging baseball bats defined her earlier Harlem years.
Speaking a few years ago, Banks revealed as a child that she wished “that I would become famous and be on Nickelodeon and have all these handlers and then I’d never have to deal with my mother. She would beat me and abuse me, but then buy me stuff." Banks had material things, "but I was such an unhappy kid."
Look, I'm not even a poor man's Dr. Phil, but I feel like Banks' Twitter rants might just be her coping mechanism for her tragic upbringing.
Maybe there's something deeper behind Bruja Del Bloque's faux Black nationalistic steelo, mixed with her dark-skinned hate. Latent emotions under her calling LBGT people the F-word, all the while forgetting she repsthe "B" in that acronym. A hard shell covering her hatred of white men while declaring she'll be looking "for the whitest man I can find," dating-wise.
What she parades around as telling it like it is might just be emotional vulnerability masking as bravado. Behind each nasty social media post could be someone yearning for recovery.
I'm not letting Banks off the hook. She definitely deserves this most recent downfall, even though I emphatically agree with some of her arguments. But in-between all that, maybe someone needs to extend a hand to Banks. A person who can get around her defenses and just tell her, "It's okay to feel hurt, to feel wounded."
Then maybe her healing process can begin. Or she'll just find a new target on a new platform.
Can Disney keep Skai Jackson on standby, just in case?