Cut It Guys! That Justine Skye ‘& Co’ Business Had Nothing To Do With Her Skin Colour

The Internet has been going wild since yesterday over a rather unfortunate tweet by British Vogue.

The tweet which linked back to the Burberry and LOVE party held during the London Fashion Week had a picture of models Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Lily Donaldson and ROC Nation signee, Justine Skye. Now here is why (black) people got mad. The accompanying text named everyone in the picture except for Justine who going by everyone’s interpretation was referred to as “& co”.

 It’s very easy to pin the omission on racism because it looks very suspicious that the only black girl in the picture and the one with arguably the most talent was the one who wasn’t acknowledged. And Justine added more fuel to an already blazing fire by playing the race card. “Hi, my name is & co,” she tweeted. “This really isn’t that big of a deal compared to other situations we face as black women. But I appreciate how y’all were on GO for me luv”

Everyone including Nigerians who were particularly angered that our biggest music star’s rumoured girlfriend was so brazenly disrespected by the publication, screamed racism. And it’s all very understandable but I beg to differ.

This has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It is simply not that deep!

There are many explanations for the unfortunate tweet but none of them, in my opinion, has anything to do with Miss Skye’s melanin.

While she might be the most talented, and even beautiful, girl in that picture, Justine is far less popular than the rest of the girls with the exception of Lily (maybe) but this is “British” Vogue we’re talking about here and Lily is one of Britain’s top models who has graced campaigns and walked for the biggest names in all the major fashion shows across the world so it’s understandable that the fashion magazine is on a first name basis with her.

And the truth is, this isn’t the first time Justine will be referred to as “& co” or something in that line by a British publication. I’ve seen one too many photos of her with either Kendall, Kylie or the Hadid sisters on Daily Mail where she’s simply referred to as ‘a friend’, so it’s possible that our “Iyawo” isn’t quite as popular in the Queen’s land as she is in the States or even in Nigeria where a good number of the very few people who know her, do not necessarily know her for her songs but for her rumoured relationship with Wizkid.

As I pointed out to a friend of mine who also believe the omission was intentional and racist, if that were to be Jourdan Dunn or even Winnie Harlow sitting in Justine’s place, I’m 100% certain that the magazine would have mentioned their names. And these are black girls too. They just happen to be more popular in that world than Justine.

And no I’m not excusing British Vogue – or all the other magazines. This is lazy journalism. It wouldn’t have cost them anything to find out who the girl is and include her name in the tweet but they just couldn’t care less; or maybe it was intentional and whoever tweeted that wanted to provoke a reaction and they succeeded but judging by the backlash which led to the tweet being deleted, someone at Vogue will learn to put some respeck on Miss Skye’s name.

So dear Justine, we could blame that unfortunate tweet on the fact that you spend more time hanging with the Jenner girls and their BFFs than you do putting out music and building your own brand; we could blame it on your publicist(s) not doing enough and we could blame it on ignorance on the part of the journalists. There are 99 things we could blame that tweet on but your delicious melanin isn’t one of them!