The Blackness of the #GhanaVsZambia Twitter War

In the aftermath of the loss to Ghana that all but resigned us to watch the World Cup from our television screens, I am in no mood to get into the blame game at this moment. The disappointing results the Chipolopolo have garnered so far have smeared any faith I had in them. So much was my unbelief in them that I honestly did not watch the game. I did not want a bunch of 11 chaps to wreck my weekend. I just feel sorry for my sisters. They have been denied the chance to get Brazilian hair straight from the source. However, even before Zambia was embroiled in the football match on Friday. Some Zambians already took the battle to twitter using the hash tag #GhanaVsZambia. You know it was serious when it makes BBC news.

The twitter war between Ghanaians and Zambians began just after it was reported that the Ghanaians refused Zambia to land their chartered plane in Kumasi. Kumasi was the town that was to host the decisive game. In no time, the Zambians took to twitter to air their frustrations. When I first read the tweets, I thought of them as humourous and I will admit some left me in stitches. I do not mind some harmless banter, and if that was the case, I doubt if I would have written about the twitter war. This fiasco developed into some form of racial stereotyping. It was not about white folks thinking that blacks were inferior. Oh no, this sadly was blacks on blacks.

Nearly all the disses that were thrown Ghana's way were about how black they were and for some absolutely idiotic belief, the notion that because of their darker blackness, they were inferior. At the moment, when I thought, we were burying such ideas they reared their ugly head again in the most public way. It appears that there is quite a lot of work that needs to be done. There are still some sections of our society that think that because they are lighter skinned are more superior than the darker skinned individuals. By superior, I mean lighter toned individuals are viewed as more handsome, beautiful, prettier, vava voom while the "inferior" darker toned are seen as uglier, unpretty, average and lower than the other blacks.

 

If you are an individual who habours such retrogressive and uncouth beliefs, my suggestion is that you need help. It is not like when we are created, we go into a boutique and choose what skin colour to be. There is definitely nothing inferior and degrading about being black and let alone dark toned black. And I dare you to challenge me on that. I am even ashamed to even think that it was just sheer banter. When you have hundreds of the same tweets about how black a certain group of people are, it is just plain wrong.   

This issue of blackness is perhaps further perpetuated by men who think that having a fairer skinned girlfriend that they have landed the jackpot. Darker skinned ladies are often frowned upon and not perceived as beautiful. It is no wonder that skin bleaching companies are still in business.  The media should also bear their portion of the blame. The unfair majority of advertisements that market lotions and makeup typically use fairer skinned women. Tell me how many darker toned women have you seen? It could be this bombardment of advertisements that subconsciously engrain into the minds the view that lighter skinned blacks are better.

No one has the right to feel that they are a better human being because of their skin colour. There are many different shades of black and whatever shade you are, it does not make you any worser or better than the next person. When fellow blacks perceive other darker toned blacks as lesser than they are then we are in serious trouble. It is time that societies get talking and breaking down some of these stereotypes. In the words of James Brown, “Say it Loud,  I'm BLACK, and I'm PROUD!"