This weekend, one corner of the internet felt like a battle of Muni Long vs. Black women.
Recently, the “Hrs & Hrs” singer was on TikTok Live, where she was heard saying: “It’s only ever Black women that say they don’t like my personality cause I’m being myself. I’m acting just like your raggedy mama and your aunties with them ashy cankles. This is how they act, but something is wrong with my personality…Take a look in a mirror hoe, you don’t like you.”
Based on the clip, it appears the singer-songwriter was responding to a specific user trolling her in the comments of her live. However, social media users were particularly offended by Long’s decision to lump all Black women into one category instead of calling out the specific social media trolls/haters. As the clip began to make its rounds on social media, so did the commentary. One creator, “Never Stop with Shari,” caught Long’s attention:
“You better watch what you say out here, talking about it’s only Black women that don’t like your personality. It might be because it’s only Black women [who] know you. It’s only Black women that ever gave you a damn chance. But that can be stopped. We can take that card back if you’d like to see who really supports you out here,” the creator said in her video. “Didn’t nobody like ‘Hrs&Hrs’ and all these songs [until] we liked it. You know, I’m saying no one liked your music till we liked it. And now, cause you think you got other people from diverse communities liking your music, you don’t really want to recognize who made your s**t hot. You bumped your head, little girl. Instead of you talking about Black women, you need to be talking about the people that troll you because Black women also supported you.”
In a since-deleted TikTok video, Long responded directly to Shari commentary.
“I know I look young because I drink water and mind my business, but I’m 36 years old. I’ll be 37 in September. I’ve been grown and taking care of myself for a long time. Nobody will talk to me like that,” she said, going on to call out the creator’s comment about Long not “dealing with the trolls as a Black woman.”
“Is that our assignment to be strong Black women and just deal? I’m not doing that,” Long added. “I’m not dealing with nothing I don’t want to deal with…and you don’t have to either. Stop letting these people treat you like anything.”
“Break the generational curse. Black women it is okay for you to speak your mind, for you to take up space, for you to assert yourself, for you to be kind instead of nice, for you not to keep taking the shirt off your back and giving it to the next man…you ain’t mammy.”
While Long made a point about Black women’s right to speak up, her argument quickly took a turn in the eyes of some audiences when she pointed out that her “largest demographic is Brazil and the Philippines…and it’s been that since the beginning, so…”
Long’s video sparked further discourse on social media as users shared mixed reactions to the star’s comments.
“Yeah I find nothing wrong with this at all. She said what she said. When you look at the comments, that’s literally all you see,” one user tweeted.
Another wrote: “Muni Long making those comments about black women is mad disappointing as a fan of her. Idk it rubbed me the wrong way cause what you mean by that?”
“Muni Long saying that black women are the ones that hate her is crazy……The only group who cares about you is BLACK WOMEN. Nobody else does,” another user shared. “Imagine disrespecting the people keeping you afloat and somewhat relevant.”
Now this is not the first time Long has called out the criticism that she receives from the Black community. In June 2022, the star tweeted:
Similarly, while on TikTok Live last night, the star addressed the comments while hosting “a funeral for her career.”
“I was speaking about somebody specifically who came on the chat and was being rude to me,” she said noting how social media trolls tend to come into her livestreams. “And it be nothing but Black women that do it, and I’m not taking that back. I definitely didn’t say all Black women though.”
