Why black consumers are boycotting TikTok

Who would have thought that in the year 2020, black people would still be targeted to the point of boycotting an entertainment platform. If you are yet to catch up on...whatever the hell is happening on TikTok, then let me fill you in. Over the past few months (and probably even before that), there has been outrage over TikTok's incapability to monitor racism. There has been countless amounts of videos circulating that depict racial stereotypes, slurs, and just general blatant racism.

Now, this all could have been resolved months ago. Tiktok could have taken down all offensive videos and released an apology at the least. But of course, that was never going to happen. The videos stayed up. Quite a few racist videos targeted towards black people are still available to watch on the app. The fact that really got a lot of people mad was that many responses to these videos, where the creators were called out for being racist, were reported or taken down whilst the videos remained up. This is despicable. As a young black woman, I shouldn't be worried to log onto Tiktok; waiting in dread for a video bashing black girls or using them for 'clout'. It really is sad that at this age, and with all that has been done to fight against racism, people still feel the need to be racist. I honestly don't understand. What ignites this desire to hate a minority group so much? What is it about the N-word that makes people desire it?

I'm not saying that black people are the only minority ethnic group targeted on this app, but they sure do seem to get the worst of it. What is truly shocking, is that the people creating this offensive content in the first place, are not just white people (yes, I know. Not all white people are racist), but Black men towards Black women, people of Asian and Latin background. The abuse that Black women receive on this app is just plain awful. We can't even speak up about black-fishing, or colourism without receiving backlash. A specific example that I remember is a video where a black girl had responded to a video in which a White girl was singing and dancing along to a song with lyrics such as "brown skin" - which she clearly didn't have. In retaliation, the black girl was referred to as "that black thing", and also received comments such as her hair looked like it had been "dragged through a bush backwards", and how her melanin couldn't wash off.

Who is to blame for this rising trend? Well the answer to that is, there is no one person that can be blamed. We can blame society and how it has depicted black people in the media and how children have been raised. We can blame blame black people who may have in the past looked past this type of behaviour. But I guess the blame at this point in time is focusing on TikTok itself, and the people behind it. We have to remember that most of the creators posting racist content and young people. Teenagers. Children. They probably would never actually say what they say online, in person. It is the idea that there is a community, a platform where this type of content is liked and created, is enough to draw in those who long for fame and attention. I would say that, the app and some of its consumers are to blame for this. This whole thing could have been avoided by TikTok following basic safeguarding procedures.