Azealia Banks Pens Essay On Black Mental Health

Azealia Banks has dominated pop culture headlines this week—for all the wrong reasons. After launching into a racist tirade against former One Directioner Zayn Malik on Twitter, the rapper had her Twitter account suspended while Rinse FM cancelled her appearance at its Born & Bred Festival in the U.K.

Not one to be silenced, Banks has continued the fight on Instagram, where she took advantage of no character limits to express her thoughts on black mental health and the events of the last week.

"This is 100% true," Banks wrote in response to a letter from a fan who said the rapper has let her frustration turn her into "something ugly." "Black folk are the first to discard their own especially when white media/society hangs one of us out for public crucifixion. From the minute I appeared on the scene I was told by black men in black media that I was ugly, skinny, had bad hair, was weird, made music for white people etc... And those messages penetrated the social consciousness of black America very quickly."

She continues: "I'm not blaming anyone or anything for any of my actions, but I think it's really important to for people outside of us (black folk) to understand the detrimental effects of whiteness and white supremacy/white cultural pervasiveness on black peoples MENTAL HEALTH as a whole and the MENTAL HEALTH of black individual herself."

Banks also touches on her tiff with Zayn, saying her major problem with the singer—other than her belief that he has appropriated her style and art—is that he acted as though he was "too good to acknowledge [her.]"

"Calling him racial slurs was my way of trying to angrily remind him that he is in fact not one of them, he is one of US," Banks wrote in a second post. "The white privileges he's so eager to take part in do not apply to him."

The two-part essay can be found in Instagram posts here and here. Meanwhile, Banks' account on Twitter remains suspended.