[imagesource: Instagram / Beyoncé]
Beyoncé once famously revealed that she comes from a “slave-owner who fell in love with and married a slave” in an interview with Vogue.
Then, she released her celebratory statement song ‘Black Parade’ in the final hours of Juneteenth, the holiday observing the June 19, 1865 date which marked the end of slavery in the US.
More recently, she and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co., where she wears a yellow diamond with a very unfortunate history.
After some Twitter sleuths brought it to light, it turns out that the 128-carat Tiffany Diamond is a blood diamond discovered in South Africa’s colonial De Beers’ Kimberley Mine.
Charles Tiffany, the founder of the luxury jeweller, purchased the stone from the mine in 1879:
Here is the ‘About Love’ campaign in all its questionable glory:
The Carters for Tiffany & Co. #AboutLove #TiffanyAndCo
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© Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York pic.twitter.com/bTGZUts4DU— Tiffany & Co. (@TiffanyAndCo) August 23, 2021
The Washington Post gets to the heart of the matter by saying the “campaign does not celebrate Black liberation — it elevates a painful symbol of colonialism”:
In South Africa in the 1870s, when the Tiffany diamond was found. British forces launched battles of conquest and harsh discriminatory practices against African tribes and labourers.
South Africa’s conflict-ridden mining industry paved the way for apartheid. Tiffany labelled its new advertising campaign “About Love,” but there’s not much to love about that.
Worn once by Audrey Hepburn and Lady Gaga, Beyoncé is the first black woman to don the gem, but people are not impressed and are calling her out left, right, and centre:
Beyoncé flexing her blood diamond extracted from the Kimberley Mine in South Africa in 1877 using enslaved African labor. https://t.co/QrZdV6zwz1 pic.twitter.com/YAiPO5Kttm
— SLANK (@DabSquad_Slank) August 23, 2021
this is not just “a necklace” it’s a blood diamond that was mined off the blood of south africans, if they didn’t meet their quota their hands and feet were mutilated or were just killed. beyoncé doesn’t have the timeline “up in arms”, nobody should wear the diamond https://t.co/YgsxDtvnTv
— h! (@movingnostalgia) August 24, 2021
its the fact that beyonce did a whole album and went mama africa then went to wear a blood diamond. abeg. i love beyonce but its very contradictory https://t.co/uHTEw5TW43
— Mide (@Ewmide) August 24, 2021
The Citizen reports how Tiffany received a reply from a South African (@WhatCeeSaysss), saying “return the stolen jewel back to Africa” but the company chose to hide it from the replies section of their tweet.
Naturally, that only served to bring more attention to the saga.
Clearly, not all diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
[sources:thecitizen&thedailymail&thewashingtonpost]
