Bob Marley’s granddaughter Selah responds to critics after wearing Kanye’s ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt
Selah Marley, the granddaughter of reggae legend Bob Marley, has hit back at critics who raked her over the coals for participating in Kanye West’s Yeezy fashion show which featured models, such as Selah, wearing ‘White Lives Matter’ shirts designed by West.
In a statement published on her Instagram Story on Tuesday, the 23-year-old daughter of singer Lauryn Hill and businessman Rohan Marley upbraided the ‘narrow minded’ naysayers who attempted to “bully” her online.
“The past 24 hours has allowed me to realise that most of yall are stuck in a hive mentality,” she shot back.
“You do what the group tells you to do and think what the group tells you to think. Witnessing someone break free from ‘the agenda’ sends you all into such a panic that you will do whatever it takes to force them back into the box that you feel they should exist in,” the fashion model continued.
The Twitter-verse did not agree. One user, Khadijah Mannaseh dismissed her arguments, saying “I absolutely expect this from Kanye but Selah Marley has disgraced the name and memory of her grandfather Bob Marley and everything her mother stands for. He was the world’s Black freedom fighter. If you don’t know her mother is the legendary Lauryn Hill.”
Still, Selah Marley stuck to her guns. She continued, “You cannot bully me, manipulate me, or coax me into silence. Nor will you bully me into being who I don’t want to be. I don’t care how many tweets you make, DMs you send, or articles you write.”
Selah Marley concluded her IG statement by writing, “Throughout all the chaos, I have yet to speak on my experience. If you know me, you know that nothing I do is without deep thought and intention. Wait til you hear what I have to say.”
Most social media uses who reacted negatively to Kanye West’s “White Lives Matter” point to the rapper’s apparent embrace of white supremacist ideologies espoused by the Alt-right movement populated by white supremacists and white nationalists who seek to downplay the Black Lives Matter movement.
Feeling the heat, Selah Marley also shared a text she apparently sent to Kanye West which appeared to encourage him to continue the conversation about the “White Lives Matter” apparel to validate “the purity of our intentions”.
