• What's Trending
  • Posts
  • Azealia Banks Banned from Twitter Over Racist Rant at Zayn Malik

Azealia Banks Banned from Twitter Over Racist Rant at Zayn Malik

May 14, 2016

  • I think we can all agree that Azealia Banks needs to step away from the Twitter sometimes – and now that her account’s been suspended, she doesn’t have much of a choice. If you missed the pop star drama over the last few days, the controversial rapper suggested in an Instagram post that former One Direction star Zayn Malik’s “Like I Would” video was copying her video for “Chasing Time,” saying, “Damn Zayn be mood boarding the fuck out of me.” He seemed to subtweet her soon afterward, though he later insisted he wasn’t talking about her:

  • Source: twitter.com / Via: twitter.com

  • Source: twitter.com / Via: twitter.com

  • That was enough to send Azealia on a tirade of pretty horrible racist tweets toward Zayn that went on for most of the night.

  • Source: twitter.com / Via: twitter.com

  • Huffington Post rounded up a string of the worst ones, which include phrases like “curry scented,” “paki,” “token brown boy” and “eat sand,” along with other words I don’t care to repeat. Several days later, her account has been suspended to the cheers of millions of 1D fans, her upcoming appearance at the Born & Bred Festival in London has been canceled, it appears she’s been dropped by her UK booking agency, and she’s reportedly under investigation by the British Home Office which could lead to her being banned from entering the UK.

  • Source: twitter.com / Via: twitter.com

  • It’s hard to argue that she doesn’t deserve these consequences, given how ugly those tweets were. Of course, there are plenty of other people on Twitter who do even worse things and are free to keep right on tweeting. Carol Hood writes in The Establishment that she’s almost tempted to defend Azealia’s inexcusable actions because of the double standard between the singer and the internet trolls – largely white men – who fling racist slurs every day: During the entire Banks fiasco, major outlets reported her actions with such glee, branding her “racist” and “homophobic.” Meanwhile, these stories ran concurrent with the of news George Zimmerman auctioning off the very gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin. Those articles are written in grossly neutral language, at most referring to Zimmerman’s actions as “racially insensitive”—I mean, really? Then of course there’s Donald Trump and his followers, about whom thinkpiece after thinkpiece surfaces: is he really racist, or is he just passionate? Because his ugly comments, perpetuation of ugly stereotypes, and pervasive encouragement to his followers to physically attack black and brown ethnic groups are apparently not enough to universally condemn his actions. Where’s Azealia’s benefit of the doubt? What do you think – did Azealia deserve to be banned? Should Twitter be banning more people for racist language? Let us know in the comments.