However, alas, my 12-hour suspension from Twitter was reason enough to come back to it.
The whole suspension started when a horrific picture of Kim Kardashian dressed up as Selena in her ICONIC purple bodysuit from her last concert at the Houston Astrodome showed up on my feed.
Now, one would think, lots of women dress up as Selena for Halloween, what’s the big deal? Well, said women (myself included) are women of color, with the utmost respect for the legacy that the Tejano Queen left behind. Keke Palmer dressed up as Selena last year and killed it. America Ferrera wore the same purple outfit during the Halloween episode of her NBC comedy show Super Store, and she knocked it out of the park, Kim Kardashian, and Demi Lovato’s version, disrespectful at best.
Not to say that there’s anything wrong with dressing up as a pop culture icon, heck, I have done it. However, Selena is not just a pop culture icon; she represents Mexican-American culture. In her time as a singer, she was the epitome of what Latina beauty meant. During an era when being tall and slender was in, Selena embraced her curves, frowned upon by many. Her long, black locks, at times frizzy contrasted with those blonde perfectly placed locks seen on other women. She represented the, “too Mexican for the US, too American for Mexico.” She was neither entirely American nor Mexican, and this duality of being Mexican-American allowed her to break barriers, her songs in English, participation in Mexican novelas, her reach opened the doors for those who came after her. There would be no Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin or Jennifer Lopez without Selena paving the way.
I was offended by Kim Kardashian’s choice of costume, what does a rich and entitled Armenian-American from Calabasas even know about Selena? Alternatively, the legacy and ever-growing popularity of the Tejano artist? Or the hurdles her and her family went through to break it into the music business. Kim Kardashian was born rich, her wealth catapulted by a sex tape, and reality show. Her choice of dressing up as Selena was to promote herself, to create controversy as she knew people would not be OK with her choice of costume.
One of my tweets ended up embedded in an article posted by Latina Magazine, and my subsequent twitter exchange with the user who initially retweeted Kardashian’s tweet, and exchange with one particular user made my phone almost explode. I went to bed that night unaware of what was waiting for me the following morning.
During my tweet exchange, one of my tweets was reported by Kim Kardashian fans who were angry at me for calling out her costume as cultural appropriation. In the said tweet I did call Kim Kardashian a “hoebag,” an insulting term, sure, but one I stand by. She and that entire family are absolute trash, and partly to blame for the decadence of our youth.
Ask any Kardashian fan a particular detail about any of the members of the family, and they will spit out an essay. Ask them about who their councilmember, Mayor or governor are, and you will get crickets.
The tweet replies I keep getting go from silly to offensive, although let’s face it, I will not take it to heart if some random person behind a computer calls me a pendeja or a dumb ass hoe. Others, agreeing with calling Kim Kardashian a culture vulture. It’s pathetic for those siding with her even to come out and defend Kim Kardashian, she does not need it, and all these people are part of the fake commodity for her "empire."
I muted the conversation as soon as I got the notification that my account was suspended. I only went back to the thread to grab the screenshots, and people are still tweeting me with insults, boring!
My biggest beef, if you would, is with Twitter, the site has literal WHITE SUPREMACISTS attacking users, sexual predators starting with Donald Trump, and still, Russian bots who infiltrated our election process, yet, Twitter decides that a tweet with the word “hoebag” is a violation of rules? Twitter ought to do better, although we know they will not. These tech giants only care about user engagement and ways in which they can get more money, Kim Kardashian & Donald Trump provide for these two fundamental ways, and they will go at length to preserve their gold mine.
Anyway, this story was just too long for a tweet thread, best explained in a blog post, hence the revival of my baby aka my blog.
