A full 20 years after the Spice Girls released their “Wannabe” single, people are freaking out about how “racist” it is that the one black member, Melanie Brown, was known by the nickname “Scary Spice.”
The group recently announced that three of its original members, including Brown, will be reuniting under the name “GEM” — and, according to Heat Street, SJWs just couldn’t resist using that news hook to scream “problematic” about an issue that they’d apparently forgotten to be mad about in the ’90s.
By all appearances, however, Brown herself completely embraced it. There are no reports of her ever complaining that it was “racist,” she certainly seemed to enjoy playing it up by making “scary” faces in photos, and in a recent interview, she gave the impression that she considered it an empowering compliment:
“I’m still Scary Spice. It was because I was very opinionated and people perceive that as being a bit scary. But these days women who have opinions speak up – they know what they want.”
But apparently, it’s not up to this black woman herself to decide what she should be comfortable being called as a black woman. Many people — including, of course, many “woke” white people — came out on Twitter suggesting that they know better:
https://twitter.com/robjyeo/status/748958515377700864
https://twitter.com/GoonerGordo/status/747182565858095105
in retrospect, nicknaming the only black member of the spice girls 'scary' was a bit racist wasn't it
— richard (@auspices) June 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/Sven8nine/status/749751650265411585
https://twitter.com/GirlAlexB/status/712340393707360257
Yikes. Welp, someone had better tell her. After all, that’s much less offensive than allowing her to decide these things for herself.