Sigh. Collectively, we really need to talk about the way we deal with Black women on reality tv. Love Island (LI) is back and to be honest, after the year we’ve had, post an Oprah Interview, BLM protests and George Floyd, I didn’t want to see another Black woman be dragged for merely existing.
Kazana Kamwi is probably one of the best LI contestants ever cast. She’s bubbly, bright, sexy, intelligent and articulate. Her skin is smooth as cocktail ice and her bold choice of colours in her mini dresses and bikinis set off the richness of melanin in her skin. And yet, here come the critiques. She’s too happy. She’s too excited for other people. She can’t read that someone is not interested in her and obviously using her. She should say what’s on her mind with her chest. She’s doing too much. She’s not that attractive and the worst of all “she needs to go home coz the crying is too much.”
The lack of grace that is extended to Black women is just disgusting and disappointing. We are not a monolith. We don’t all react to situations the way that someone else would and certainly not always as we should.
LI is an intense vacuum. You’re spending 24 hours a day with people very attractive people with NOTHING ELSE TO DO so of course feelings will naturally develop faster, like bacteria in a Petri dish in warm conditions. Four days to you and me in the LI villa is equivalent to months. So if someone is laying it on Factor 50 thick, selling you dreams about the outside world, how there’s no one else for them except you, wouldn’t you believe it? Apparently Kaz should have had her guard up on level ten and judge all men that enter by the standards of previous contestants. “Play the game!” The game is to find love, you bunch of bellends!
The same people complained about Yewande being too quiet and not making an effort. Worst of all, Kaz is being accused of “embarrassing us” as in the Black collective. I’m questioning how? Has she bullied anyone? Been violent to any other persons? Shown aggression? No! Not even remotely, despite obvious microaggressions. Her composure and restraint will become legend when this series is finished, I promise you. “Kaz would never!” will be the values by all future cast members will abide by!
It’s perfectly acceptable to cry when someone upsets you. Why hold it in or back? It will make you unwell and is never good for your mental peace. The villa is a never ending void where you’re stuck with the persons or people who have hurt you in one way or another and those persons more than likely don’t have the range to communicate appropriately how they feel and acknowledge how they’ve made you feel. Can you imagine having no escape from that and then having armchair psychologists tweeting “it’s not what I’d have done.”
Really? Let’s see your dating profile at 24? Tell me who was selling you the world wrapped up in a Metro newspaper? Share with the class! No?
What’s really sticking in my craw is the intense judgement that is laid on Kaz’s head for being upset at what we perceive to be manipulation - a man seeing a woman happy and deciding he doesn’t like it and needs to be a part of that happiness. Whatever decisions she makes now will be critiqued and theorised and dissected in the way that no other contestants will be. It won’t be admitted because this country is so fucking backward still but it’s misogynoir. Always misogynior. Legitimately just say you hate Black women and go! It’s simpler and I can block you!
The “be kind” rhetoric never covers Black women, does it? It’s always “she’s a lost cause.” (For not picking a Black man during Casa Amor week.) Why is she still crying!” (Because the boy she coupled up with tried to gaslight her on his return) “She’s doing too much!” (Because she told said gaslighter about himself with savage precision) “She’s moving mad!” (For being exactly who she is!)
I am relieved there were no cameras around when I was 24 years old; making insane decisions and crying over people I didn’t need to waste a tear over! I swear to God, I don’t know how I’m alive with the shit I pulled. I’m giddy that I’ve got the perspective of age and distance to be able to judge my actions and not live vicariously through a girl who hasn’t lived through what I have and shouldn’t be hardened by the mill the world runs women through before Black women are sent off to the harsher grinder to be drained of any lightness and positivity and confidence. It’s clear to me that Kaz is a gorgeous woman of her convictions in an environment that has the most beautiful of girls doubting themselves.
Because she is a dark skinned Black woman, Kaz absolutely deserves even more of our patience and our care and our understanding. Why should we be so quick to wash our hands of her, as if we’re her parents twenty years ago and she only got 98% on her English exam? It’s “support Black women!” Until it’s actually time to do so.
The time is right here, right now. And before you say, it’s just TV, remember that the presenter, Caroline Flack and two contestants committed suicide and previous Black cast members received death threats. Even the most recent evictees have had awful messages of hate and racism. It’s just TV, but these are still people. Human beings, not SIMS characters.
Give Kaz and the Black women you see on TV some grace; some patience and most of all some damn kindness! In a world that’s not going to do that for her, you do it! Do for her what wasn’t done for you and if you can’t, go to therapy and stop projecting the mistakes you wish you could undo onto her. I beg.
https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/find-a-therapist/
BetterHelp | Professional Counseling With A Licensed Therapist
