BuzzFeed BuzzFails with ’27 Questions Black People Have For Black People’

[MEDIAITE]

Apparently, having a black person say it doesn’t always make it okay. In just under three minutes, BuzzFeed managed to spark a furious backlash by posting a video entitled “27 Questions Black People Have For Black People,” which features questions like “Why are we more likely to get involved in a new dance trend than we are to get involved in politics or open a new business?” and “Why do you protest Black Lives Matter and then tear each other down in the next breath?”, mixed in with obvious contradictions like “Why do we say that we don’t want to be seen as a monolith?”

As advertised, these and other headscratchers are all posed by Black people, to, I guess, BuzzFeed’s Black audience:

I guess Dave Chapelle already answered the one about the menthols.

The backlash has been furious and near-unanimous, both on #BlackTwitter and the Black Internet, as folks rushed to answer the questions and drill down on what was really going on here.

So… that @BuzzFeedVideo. A forgotten question: “Why do the Black people in this video seem like they only hang around others in the video?

— April (@ReignOfApril) April 13, 2016

Pls rename this: “Questions White People Have For Black People but Are Too Afraid to Ask” https://t.co/NbDPgtvNxZ

— Janet Mock (@janetmock) April 13, 2016

VSB’s Damon Young identifies a similar dynamic, chalking it up to , and explains why he sees the video as not just awful, but dangerous:

But how many of those millions are young Blacks who already believe these logical and emotional fallacies about Black culture and will use this as proof their beliefs are right? And yes, it is dangerous for a Black person in 2016 — as it was in 1916 and will be in 2116 — to possess that thought; to convince themselves that Black culture is somehow specifically malignant. Because that belief doesn’t just stop there. It permeates their general beliefs about Black people and eventually metastasizes into a subconscious and pervasive self-loathing. If you believe Blackness possesses an inherent pathology, this belief is either an extension of your feelings on the Blackness you currently possess or will eventually extend to it.

Finish reading the story here.