Azealia Banks has defended her decision to begin bleaching her skin, which some fans have claimed is “hypocritical”.
In the past, the ‘212’ rapper has called for better representation of black women in the media, and criticised Iggy Azalea and Miley Cyrus for appropriating elements of black culture in their music and styling.
In a Facebook Live video, 25-year-old rapper insisted that there is no disconnect between her championing of black women and her decision to lighten her skin tone.
“What’s the difference between getting a nose job and changing your skin colour? What’s the difference between wearing a hair weave and changing your skin colour?” she said. “Nobody was upset when I was wearing 30-inch weaves and tearing out my edges and doing all that type of shit like that. You guys loved it.”
She also argued that it is no longer “important to discuss the cultural significance of skin bleaching”.
“As a black person in this world you assimilate. There are things you accept. This has become the norm because it’s happening all the time,” she argued. Watch a clip from Banks’ Facebook Live video courtesy of @WORLDSTAR below.
Azealia Banks speaks out on bleaching her skin. pic.twitter.com/Zw6Mj8DyQG
— WORLDSTARHIPHOP (@WORLDSTAR) July 2, 2016
Banks, who is currently banned from Twitter, also addressed the controversy caused by her skin bleaching in a written Facebook post over the weekend.
“I told you all two years ago that as a black woman I stand for reparations and autonomy. All of the rest of the shit is petty,” she wrote. “Cultural appropriation, who wears what, natural hair, relaxed, bleached or not, NONE of us will be getting any real respect until we’ve been given what we are owed. And I think it’s unfair to the cause to negate all of the very IMPORTANT things I’ve said in regards to that, just because I like to relax my hair and lighten my skin.”
SOURCE: NME
