United Nations Women is facing backlash for its Valentine’s Day graphic shared on social media. The now-deleted post depicted three diverse couples either embracing or holding hands and an individual dark-skinned Black woman left to embrace herself.
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Twitter users flooded the responses of the UN Women account after the animated GIF was shared on the platform.
Author Roxane Gay responded to the tweet and simply stated “Y’all should know better.”
Another Twitter user @nisslbodies gave UN Women a full breakdown of how the animation exhibited what she identified as a representation of how society views Black women.
“The fact that you left the Black woman out in the cold to love herself really accurately represents the historic and current way the world views Black women as unworthy of receiving love, doesn’t it?” she tweeted. “If that’s what you were going for, you nailed it. If not, seek antiracism help.”
Journalist Nadine White tweeted “Everyone else is loved up while the Black woman is alone, hugging up on herself? Flipping hell.”
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The organization has since removed the controversial tweet and issued a new post, acknowledging the comments made in response to the original upload were not ignored.
“We posted an illustration on Valentine’s Day, depicting love in all its diversity,” UN Women tweeted, along with a new GIF that does not incorporate imagery of couples. The refreshed animation featured text only and says “love is love” with each letter a different color of the rainbow and stacked hearts appearing on the side.
“We listened to what you said in the comments & decided to take it down. UN Women works for gender equality&empowerment of all women & girls regardless of age, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
Still, the new upload does not replace an apology for some. Political commentator and analyst Ameshia Cross shared a screenshot of the original tweet and expressed disdain for the action taken by UN Women.
“I’m still waiting for @UN_Women to apologize to Black women for their since-deleted ignorant, insensitive and woefully stereotypical and grounded in racism tweet,” she stated. “If you forgot what it was here you go. Do better UN, do better. Intersectionality fails often…this one is epic.”
theGrio contacted United Nations Women for comment and is awaiting response.
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