Christina Milian's Man Under Fire For Mocking Her Daughter's Bantu Knots

Source: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis / Getty

As a Black woman, whether you’re open to interracial dating or not, you have to recognize that dating someone of another race, particularly someone White is a risk. There’s a risk that this person might have some latent (and in some cases blatant) racist ideologies that may ultimately present themselves in your relationship.

These ideologies can be particularly damaging when children are in the relationship and have to be exposed to these thoughts, without the benefit of understanding their origin and falsehood.

Recently, Christina Milian’s boyfriend and father of her second child Matt Pokora posted a video on his Instagram stories that raised some eyebrows.

Pokora filmed Christina’s 10-year-old daughter Violet with producer The Dream, focusing in on her hair style which happened to be Bantu knots. While he doesn’t speak in the video, he zooms in on the style and then included a virus emoji, a crying laughing emoji and a heart at the end. He drew an arrow from the virus emoji to a Bantu knot on Violet’s head, in case there was any confusion about the connection he was attempting to make.

The only speaking in the video comes from Violet who asks Pokora, what are you doing?

It’s a valid question.

I’m sure Pokora doesn’t know that Bantu knots are a culturally significant hairstyle with roots in Southern and Central Africa that stretch back to over 100 years. The name comes from 300-600 ethnic groups who speak the Bantu language. It’s a protective style that can be used for stretching, maintaining moisture, adding curls all the while honoring African culture.

Matt Pokora is a French singer and songwriter. As a White man, I doubt he was aware of the style’s cultural and historical significance. But it’s unfortunate that as a man with a Black partner, a Black child, parenting two Black children didn’t at least understand the problematic nature of likening Black hair to a virus.

You don’t have to be a student of Black aesthetics to see the error of sending that message out to your 2.6 million followers and the rest of the world.

You can watch Pokora’s Instagram story featuring Violet in the video below.

When Black people in France saw Pokora’s story, they had a lot to say about it. Check out their reactions on the following pages.

“Matt Pokora in the sauce because of ordinary racism. If you are in a mixed couple with a black person, please educate yourself there are a lot of things which seem to be only humor in your eyes but which are micro aggressions which echo a lived experience that you n don’t have.”

This perhaps is the best analysis of the situation. As a White man he’ll never be able to relate to his hair being ridiculed for any reason whatsoever and he should be wary about doing so, not fully understanding the politics and demonization of Black hair. Even a cursory education would have prevented him from posting this video.

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https://twitter.com/Laurene__o_O/status/1245688374167515137

“”Matt Pokora compared his daughter-in-law’s hairstyle to a virus.” No, Matt Pokora posted a gif full of spikes like his stepdaughter’s hairstyle and he found it funny. Surely she too. You really get bored during this confinement.”

There were quite a few people who didn’t take issue with Pokora’s actions. They felt that he was just making a joke, likening the hairstyle to a virus. They thought for sure that Violet found it funny as well—thought I don’t know where they found evidence for that. People blamed the quarantine on our taking this video seriously.

“Matt pokora’s black fans when they saw his video.”

There were some Black people who weren’t willing to call Pokora’s video racist. But this woman argued that failure to do so represented some level of internalized antiBlackness on their part as well as a lack of concern for Black women and girls. I tend to agree. We think that racism has to present itself in cruel and malicious ways in order to register it as unjust.

“In none of my remarks I said that he was racist, I see how he loves his beautiful daughter from the bottom of my heart, but this kind of “joke” is simply not to be done.”

Others didn’t feel that Pokora’s actions were racist but still believed that this type of joke was unacceptable.

There were those who’d previously held Pokora up to a very high esteem—I’m guessing because of his attractiveness. But after this stunt with Violet, they’re seeing him in a different light now. I can’t say I blame her.

https://twitter.com/ATNADV/status/1245687810952253441

“Black females who do not see the problem with the video of Matt Pokora I do not know what to say to you except start to love yourself and to be worthy.”

“Matt Pokora he did that to laugh, you take them wrong just because he is white, but if you know Matt Pokora you know he has black in him, in the heart. I’m sure his own wife didn’t take it the wrong way, but you want to judge.”

https://twitter.com/MDFR93/status/1245718735282987008