The NCAT Shade Room made a shocking post about biracial students that has the students questioning the page’s credibility.
The NCAT Shade Room is an Instagram page that allows students to keep up with the current trends on campus. It serves as a play on The Shade Room which is a huge celebrity gossip and news website famous for their Instagram page.
They are also known to acknowledge the accomplishments of students on campus. The page has managed to gain popularity, while the owner has kept an anonymous identity.Their reputation was questioned recently as new content began to raise eyebrows.
The controversy began when a post was made entitled “Biracial” to the page of an outstanding 8,534 followers. The caption explained the purpose was to “highlight every shade of melanin on campus.”
The post successfully celebrates only those of only a lighter complexion on the campus of N.C A&T.
Students expressed their outrage almost immediately as they fled the comments with their opinions and even quite a bit of laughter.The lack of credibility also raised eyebrows among its viewers. The caption also misleads viewers as it implied that everyone pictured is biracial.
“It was kind of senseless given that not everyone in the post was biracial to begin with,” said Brandon Flowers, sophomore marketing student. Being biracial and light-skinned are not interchangeable. One’s race does not guarantee the reason why a person’s skin is the shade it is.
Due to the backlash, the post was deleted within an hour of its upload.
The NCAT Shade Room has yet to address their remarks. They instead moved on by posting new content such as talent and a student led business.The post has opened a discussion about the prevalence of colorism within the black community.
Colorism is the idea that lighter-skinned people are given more privilege than their dark-skinned peers, according to NBC News. Colorism has played major role in black history just as well as slavery, segregation, racism or Jim Crow.
Colorism further divides the black community by portraying the idea that light-skinned people are better than those of darker complexion. Each shade of melanin should be highlighted in society. In 2019, there is still a lack of representation within Hollywood, entertainment and the corporate and creative workforce.
In the end, there is a lesson to be learned. Not only does representation matter, but proper representation matters most. N.C A&T’s students should remain proud of their melanin and continue to hold each other accountable.
