On Wednesday, the United States Chargé d’Affaires Karen B. Decker posed what might be the greatest question of our time, and the response to it could hold the answer to peace in the Middle East.
“Are Afghans familiar with #BlackGirlMagic and the movement it inspired?” the woman who “specializes in conflict resolution and crisis management” in Afghanistan on behalf of the State Department tweeted. “Do Afghan girls need a similar movement? What about Afghan Women? Teach me, ready to learn. @Beyonce @lizzo @ReginaKing.”
The obvious answer is that, no, Afghans are not familiar with “#BlackGirlMagic.” Most people probably are not. A cursory glance shows that the hashtag was popularized in 2016 as part of a global effort to promote positivity amongst black females.
“We’re using it to celebrate ourselves because historically black women haven’t had the type of support that other groups have,” Cashawn Thompson, a caregiver from Washington, D.C., told the BBC at the time. “Black Girl Magic tries to counteract the negativity that we sometimes hold within ourselves and is sometimes placed on us by the outside world.”
The phrase has since been shared hundreds of thousands of times across social media.
On Wednesday, when this author clicked on the hashtag for more detail, the top result was a video of a curvaceous black woman bending on all fours on the ground, posing in suggestive manners while looking at the camera. The user who shared that tweet observed, “The hips spread out when she takes backshots #BlackGirlMagic.”
Admittedly, this author has no idea what that means, but it isn’t tough to guess that it is about something pornographic. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “You know it when you see it.” Needless to say, that post in question will not be shared.
It is probably safe to assume that is not what Decker envisioned in Afghanistan. Instead, it seems likely that she is inquiring about how to start a new hashtag movement to support the women facing ultimate oppression under Islamic Extremist totalitarians.
In reaction to Decker’s idea, the conservative writer and editor Christoper Bedford bluntly observed, “We are not a serious country.”
Popular Twitter user @ComfortablySmug tweeted, “We are ruled by administrative class paper pushers like this, who think every problem can be solved by listening to a Beyonce song.”
“Is it a mystery why the Taliban took Afghanistan in a week? Or why China sends balloons over America? Because their opponent is literally a Karen,” he added.
Indeed, since the Taliban took over the country in less than three days after Biden botched U.S. troop withdrawal, women have faced a living hell.
In early January, The Daily Wire reported that the terror group has enacted a series of strict laws, especially restricting women’s freedom. In December, Taliban leaders banned women from attending universities in the country. Women are also under other strict regulations, such as a rule banning them from traveling outside their homes without a male guardian.
At the time, State Department spokesman Ned Price told the media, “We are working with our partners throughout the government and also with like-minded partners around the world to devise an appropriate set of consequences that register our condemnation for this outrageous edict on the part of the Taliban, while also protecting our status as the world’s leading humanitarian provider for the people of Afghanistan.”
It now seems the big solution might be a hashtag. What doesn’t really make sense is calling on Lizzo for this job. The larger-than-life singer has claimed she is oppressed in America as a female. So what would her message be to women who actually have no freedoms?
One should hope we never find out and that the U.S. government creates a better solution than #BlackGirlMagic for the situation at hand.
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