South Asian Women Shut Down Azealia Banks’s Hateful Comment by Sharing Beautiful Selfies

South Asian women are taking to social media in response to an Azealia Banks Twitter rant. (Photo: Instagram/anchalmua)

Rapper Azealia Banks went on a pretty horrendous Twitter rant aimed at Zayn Malik earlier this week. It was all to do with her believing his video “Like I Would” was a rip-off of her own work.

The posts contained some pretty nasty comments, including one particularly tasteless remark referring to Zayn’s part-Pakistani lineage by calling him a “hairy curry scented bitch.” Yes, really.

But instead of reacting with hate, the desi community (persons of Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi birth or descent) who saw Azealia’s unpleasantries decided to flip it around and turn it into a sort of celebration of their heritage. Suddenly the phrase that was meant to be a slur became a source of pride, and the hashtag #CurryScentedBitch trended globally as people used it to proudly caption their beautiful selfies.

Photo: Instagram/apoomathur

Photo: Instagram/hennaabella

Photo: Instagram/xxmariyag

Photo: Instagram/jettzy

Photo: Instagram/akeelahussain

This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, Azealia (Twitter doesn’t think so either, as her account has been suspended), but this has to be a better way of responding to racial slurs than hitting back with hate.
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