If we take Piers Morgan's word for it, Nicki Minaj is a whiny brat who's less talented than Taylor Swift and doesn't like losing, and Black Twitter is a "very large, vocal, and aggressive social media group of mainly Black Americans who collectively leap on any perceived racial insult or bias to expel their indignation."
Morgan — whose poorly performing CNN program was cancelled in March 2014 — has plenty of other criticisms to lobby against Ms. Minaj, who's been embroiled in a Twitter scandal since MTV's Video Music Award nominees were announced earlier this week. In a post for the Daily Mail Online, the divisive British journalist lobs all manner of insults Minaj's way, many of which have little to do with the subject at hand.
Opening his piece with a reminder to readers that the "Anaconda" star once worked at a Red Lobster in the Bronx, Morgan goes on to defend Taylor Swift while smearing Minaj's name at every possible opportunity. "Her tweets exploded like toxic firecrackers," he writes of the rapper's social media posts this week, in which she shared two theories about why she was left out of the race for Video of the Year — namely for being Black and full-figured.
But Morgan makes a critical error at the outset by assuming that Minaj ever meant her comments to be construed as digs at Taylor Swift, who received a VOTY nomination for "Bad Blood."
Minaj has consistently tried to clarify that her comments were directed toward the media and the powers-that-be within the industry. She never even mentioned Taylor Swift prior to the "Shake It Off" star's first tweet in response. Morgan must have missed that part. "The target of her tempestuous tirade was self-evidently Taylor Swift, who did get nominated in the Video of the Year category, along with 8 other nominations, and is both white and skinny."
Of course, we can't ignore the fact that Morgan decided to take this opportunity to deride Black Twitter both for its very existence and for making him out to be a bigoted white supremacist after he answered a #blacklivesmatter tweet with the hashtag #ALLlivesmatter. The entirety of his poorly constructed tirade can be read here, but be forewarned: It will be the most frustrating instance of mansplaining that you'll encounter all day, no matter what side of the Minaj vs. Swift line you fall on.
So, just to recap:
A disgraced British news anchor attacks a young, Black American female singer, spewing thinly veiled racist remarks and telling her that she wasn't good enough to make the cut. He also comes to the aid — unasked — of a young, white female musician, singing her praises despite the fact that he is totally uninvolved in the situation. Last, but not least, he questions the relevance of Black Twitter and minimizes the importance of recognizing and addressing intersectionality.
That's about all the mansplaining we can handle today.
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