In all of the coverage of the back-and-forth, one voice hasn’t been heard at all: Maryam’s. COMPLEX.com called her up to get her take on the situation.
How did you feel when you saw his response?
Honestly, I laughed. And then I went around and I showed my co-workers. People think that I’m angry about it or I’m depressed or I’m crying or I’m going to delete my Twitter, and I’m really not.
Honestly, I think I made him poppin’. Because if you look at his Twitter, he has like 200-300 retweets [per tweet], and then he quoted me [and got 25,000 retweets]. So I basically put him in this position to have fame again, because he was not relevant until he quoted me. No one was talking about him. He was not trending on anything. And it just happens he quoted me, and there’s two songs after [French released “No Pressure” and “Unforgettable” hours after the incident with Barksdale]. So it’s just weird.
What were your mentions looking like after it happened?
I got more love from my black women than anyone else—especially not from black men. I got more hate from black men than I got from anyone else. There are videos of [them talking about] me on YouTube, defending [French] from one little comment.
The whole “nappy-headed” thing, and black men defending that, knowing that that term was used during the time when black people were discriminated against, getting lynched. White supremacists [saying] “nappy-headed ho,” I see that all the time. And so for black men to be defending that and saying, ‘Oh, it’s not racist, it’s not an insult,’ it doesn’t really make sense.
What did you think when you started seeing people starting to clap back at French? What were you feeling?
I felt happy. Trust me, I saw hate but…I just felt happy about it. I can’t really explain more about it. I rejoiced. And it wasn’t specifically just black women. It was all women.
What about when the media coverage started happening? Was that surreal?
I mean, yeah. That was crazy. But I was kind of irritated that they didn’t ask for my name, and they keep referring to me as “a black woman.” It was crazy because I’d had a lot of my co-workers messaging me. I even posted before it was on the internet [in articles]. I screenshotted it, and then I posted it on my Instagram and on my Facebook. And then after that, I saw links. A lot of magazines—you guys, BET, even E! News covered it. But they didn’t say my name.
What do you think about French? Do you think that he’s personally racist or sexist?
Um, yeah. I think a lot of men in the industry are. He definitely would not have said that I was “nappy” if I was any other race, and everyone knows that. I think a lot of the men in the industry are definitely misogynistic, and something needs to change.
Would you think twice now about talking shit about a celebrity on Twitter?
No, because everyone does it. It’s just my specific tweet. I’m in Stockton, California, the littlest town in California. So for my little tweet to blow up like that, it was surreal. I’m going to express my opinions about anyone. If you’re a celebrity, then you need to handle criticism. And if you can’t handle criticism, then you need to get out of the industry.
I’ve noticed that a lot of these celebrities, they retweet negative things about them and they retweet hate. They never retweet the love. Out of all those opinions, you just had to retweet mine? I’m not going to stop just because he retweeted me. I’m not going to delete my Twitter, like I said. I’m not pressed about it. As much as people want me to care, I don’t.
I find it absolutely repulsive that she faced the most backlash by black men. What Is the world coming to. Then we black people get mad when other races disrespect us. You know what their response is to this? Look at how you treat your women!
Daily reminder French Tickler is a culture vulture, he’s not even black he’s arab, he’s just like those convenience store “homeys” who pretend to be down to get black business but it’s all about money, jacking up prices and gouging the black community.
There’s a video of him getting pulled over by police and shouting black lives matter like it’s all a big joke to him.
Jacking up prices? It’s called price discovery, if you fools buy it, they will sell it.
french told her to do what he does to diddy…
Black women are just scandalous whores that are unworthy of sympathy.. straight trash.. all they go is bring black mn down
This piece of writing should be in the bible. Well said. They are more upset at being called Nappy Headed than Ho!!!
@Anonymous 4/10/17 10:31 — You should be happy then that YOU didn’t come through the vaginal portal of a Black woman, but through a STRAIGHT-HAIRED APE-HYBRID RECESSIVE CAUCASIAN woman. If your greatest grandmother was NOT an AfRAkan woman, she was an APE!
Black people using flawed pseudo science that was used to justify slavery, and think they can use it to hit out a white people are the TRUE definition of coon. To use their racist books (Galton, Darwin) to justify your argument shows that the American Negro is lost.
The light-skinned-ed Turk/Persian/Hindi (Arab impostor) French Montana has revealed his authentic assessment of Africoid/Negroid aesthetics. I don’t know why American Blacks continue to entertain brotherhood with that Caucasian. It does not matter if he has 1 drop of Black blood. He is UNDESERVING. His criminal immigrant/invader Asian-descendant relatives STILL enslave, abuse and traumatize Black AfRAkans to date.
The young woman’s post didn’t warrant the type of vitriol he unleashed in his response to her. She used no profane, obscene, threatening or vulgar language in her message to him. His SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT overreaction is highly suspicious. His response came from deep within his bestial/deviant ancestral consciousness.
I never heard not one French song but one I know him from dating khloe that’s it I barely listen to hip hip when I do its all sounds the same all these new young dudes sound line gay ass robots
News outlets likely referred to her simply as “a black woman” to give her some anonymity as to avoid any lawsuits by divulging her real name or Twitter handle (especially if she is a minor). French responding to another user like that during a “Twitter war” was very immature, but that’s about all it was. He reacted the way one would expect a rapper to react. He is certainly not the first rapper to call someone a nappy headed hoe. This girl just wants her 15 minutes and seems to think she’s capable of making celebrities relevant again. Make no mistake – this is the best thing that has happened to her. You can tell she is loving every minute of her newfound Twitter “fame”.
How the fuck is the black race the only race that goes against each other and during slavery and during MLK’s time we were all we had. It’s kinda funny how some black men want to talk down on black women and date white cave monsters and majority of them came from a black women that equals self hate. At least during the civil rights we stuck together I feel like now it’s just getting worst you know it’s a problem when your own ppl look down on you