The ‘Emo Girl’ singer is lambasted for depicting the Amazigh, an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, as ‘dangerous’ in her upcoming debut fantasy novel.
AceShowbiz –Willow Smith is about to release her debut novel, but it has been plagued with criticism. The singer/actress has been called out over the representation of Muslims in her upcoming book “Black Shield Maiden”.
The book, which she co-wrote with Jess Hendel, is scheduled to be released this October. It follows a young African warrior who was stolen from her home and brought to the world of the Vikings, where she meets a princess.
An excerpt of the book was recently unveiled by publishing company Penguin. The article states that “the Amazigh are dangerous on their best day. They have little regard for anyone who doesn’t worship the Muslim god – and even their own tribes are always at war with one another.”
Upon reading it, social media users have expressed their dismay at how the Amazigh people are depicted in the book. “Tell me I’m not crazy for being horrified by how the Amazigh (indigenous North African group) & Muslims are portrayed,” one person tweeted. “I saw EXPLICIT Muslim rep & thought omg so cool! Then I read on [a crying emoji].”
A second user complained, “The representation of Amazigh people in Willow Smith and Jess Hendel’s forthcoming fantasy novel is unacceptable. @PenguinUKBooks should have hired sensitivity readers before publishing this book.” Another baffled user added, “Why do we get portrayed YET AGAIN as savages?”
“I’d just like to know why Willow Smith is depending on such racist and Islamophobic stereotypes for her new book. It’s 2022. We are not playing into this bs still. We know better so we should be doing better,” someone stated.
Another person wrote, “i saw willow smith wrote a fantasy novel called black shield maiden about a ghanaian woman who becomes a viking and got briefly interested and then i saw the excerpt and it was like insanely racist to amazigh people.”
There’s also one person who called it “dehumanising,” referencing the French colonisation of Algeria. “ahhh yes a fantasy novel using two marginalized ethnic groups as interchangeable to reinforce racist and islamphobic stereotypes… bravo keep up the good,” another sarcastically tweeted.
Willow has not responded to the backlash.
Source: Read Full Article
