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Kindly note: If you’re the sea trash who’ve been spreading your diseased, zombie-infested drool & drivel since Halley was cast as Ariel, I kindly hope and ask you to go catastrophically implode like that Titanic submarine did. Do so cell by cell, starting at the atomic level. And feel it, eternally.
I was on Facebook and I even told this guy I’d pay for his ticket to the next Titanic submarine excursion.
Black Mermaids are Older then The Little Mermaid
Rather ancient, are the spiritual beliefs, historical significance, and artistic creations of Black mermaids, Black water spirits, Black mythical creatures, Black sea goddesses and so on. Thus, the pairing of a woman’s beauty with the Earth, and in this case, the water, is a cultural, spiritual and historical phenomena that goes deeper than a single man who wrote just one mermaid story.
Barbarism (not the nicely labeled “backlash”)-but call it what it is, barbarism is coming from various living things who have no significance, civilization, or soul beyond the surface level, the very top layer of the sea. How would they know about any creatures that live deep in the sea, when they themselves don’t have the ability to think, empathize, or imagine deeply. They have no depth and are not connected to anything divine; therefore, they are unqualified and unworthy to speak about a whole new world that is a deep, dark mysterious world that takes soul to imagine.
They are loud, numerous and are never held accountable by the powers that be. Looking at you Disney, speak up! Though they are virulently vocal, and have been taught that the world revolves around them…they are still not part of my world.
Bottom (of the sea–I know I know) line: Black mermaids are older than The Little Mermaid.
The Little Mermaid: Big Steps Disney Should Have Taken to Honor Its Star
1)Delete the hate speech. From their YouTube Channel, to their Twitter page, Instagram, Facebook and so on, Disney has remained silent and thus complicit in the targeted terrorism against the young and talented Halle Bailey.
The hate speech, as with any other type of terrorism or hate crime, is not only about the actress but about inciting fear in all Black people, particularly Black children.
The hate speech over a fictional character, has the same exact roots as the hatred that the took the lives of Black children such as Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Aiynna Stanley-Jones and countless other Black children and adults. Ariel is fictional, but the hatred and deadly consequences are very real.
Halle Bailey is very real.
By all of Disney’s platforms allowing historical levels of hate speech to remain on their platforms, they have further emboldened a system of inhumane power imbalances,
2) Condemn Horrific Behavior.
Disney executive Rob Marshall made the absolute genius decision to cast Halle Bailey as Ariel. There’s no one on Earth (or under the sea) who has the magical, once-in-a-lifetime combination of natural beauty, an angelic voice, strong swimming skills, excellent acting ability, and an overall fairytale spirit as Halle Bailey.
After deleting ravenous comments and thus, showing users that Disney has some level of “Community Standards” against bigots, Disney should have created a tsunami level of content that made it clear that they do not tolerate hate-mongers on their platforms. Disney should have ferociously criticized, chastised and condemned the horrific behavior of people with inhumane ideologies that have no basis in fact.
No one can control what type of hate a person chooses to believe, but you sure can control where they express and promote that hatred.
Tragically, this is a world and nation where fatal brutality videos against Black people are unjustifiably released by police departments, exploited by the media, and voraciously viewed for pleasure by the general public. Thus, it is tragically fitting that Disney would allow its platforms to be a microcosm of such a globally anti-black world.
3. Post Historical Truths
So, finally, colorism and racism are based on lies, yet have still held up against the test of time, for centuries and in fact, thousands of years. Since Ariel is a fictional character and Disney-type mermaids don’t exist, Disney could have fought for, protected and honored Halle Bailey, not just as an actress but as a whole person who does exist.
They could have done this by commandingly posting all types of historical facts about mermaids, specifically as it relates to mermaids in Black and African cultures.
“It is believed that all of ancient Africa possessed a multitude of water-spirit traditions before the first contact with Europeans. Most of these were regarded as female. Dual natures of good and evil were not uncommon, reflecting the fact that water is an important means of providing communication, food, drink, trade, and transportation, but it can drown people, flood fields or villages, and provide passage to intruders.
The existence and spiritual importance of Mami Wata is deeply rooted in the ancient tradition and mythology of the coastal southeastern Nigerians (Efik, Ibibio, Igbo, Bahumono and Annang people).”
This mermaid information wouldn’t be given to educate racists, as anti-black racism is based on a millennia worth of lies that are passed on a culturally global level from generation to generation like a parasitic virus that zombifies the minds of those who center their existence around their supposed superiority. They should have posted factual, educational information simply because it was the responsible thing to do.
Some sources that I copied from Wikipedia but feel free to read the original information in the library. Wikipedia is just a starting point.
- Drewal, Henry John (2008). Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and other divinities in Africa and the diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35156-2.
- Drewal, Henry John (2008a). “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas”. African Arts. 41 (2): 60–83. doi:10.1162/afar.2008.41.2.60. JSTOR 20447886. S2CID 57570377.
- Ogboro-Cole, Oluwgbemiga (2009). “Mami Wata – Short Stories in Nigerian Pidgin English” Athena Verlag, Germany. ISBN 978-3-89896-354-1
- Nicholson, Paul and Ian Shaw. British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press, 1995. ISBN 0-7141-0982-7.
- van Stipriaan, Alex (2005). “Watramama/Mami Wata: Three centuries of creolization of a water spirit in West Africa, Suriname and Europe”. Matatu: Journal for African Culture and Society. 27/28 (1): 323–37. doi:10.1163/18757421-90000459. ISSN 0932-9714.
This Storm Won’t Last Forever, but the Rainbows Will
2 thoughts on “From the Storm to Rainbows”