That Azealia Banks Vs Iggy Azalea Spat Is About So Much More Than Twitter

Eric Garner, a black man, was killed by a police officer in New York in July. He’d just broken up a fight, and when the police were called to it, they suspected him of selling untaxed goods and decided to arrest him. He verbally resisted and was then restrained and pushed to the floor.

A video was recorded of the incident by Eric’s friend, Ramsey Orta, and despite this evidence existing, and the choke hold seemingly employed (something which the NYPD has banned since 1993), a grand jury decided not to indict the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo. You can watch the video below but be warned, it’s totally harrowing.

If you can’t bear to watch the video, these are Eric Garner’s last words: ‘Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today…I’m minding my business, officer, I’m minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me along. Please. Please, don’t touh me. Do not touch me. [garbled] I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’

Who was indicted after Eric Garner’s death, which was ruled a homicide in August? Ramsey Orta, the guy who filmed the whole thing. The news that the officer here won't be arrested comes just a week after another grand jury in Missouri decided that Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot dead unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson earlier this year, would not be indicted.

Anyway, you might be wondering what all this has got to do with a couple of rappers? Well, Azealia Banks quite rightfully got angry about the grand jury’s refusal to indict Pantaleo. And she decided to get angry about it on Twitter, explaining how America is thoroughly fucked up for the effective state sanctioning of the killing of unarmed black civilians:

She also recommended a book called The Mis-Education Of The Negro to her followers, and explained a brief overview of how it’s important that people of colour interact with one another to understand their entwined history.

How does Iggy Azalea come into all of this? Well, Azealia Banks seems to accuse Iggy of borrowing from black culture but never wanting to be there for black people’s struggle.

As you can see, Azealia went literally below the belt. We get that there are problems with white people being positioned further ahead in rap than their black counterparts, but there really is room in our heart for Iggy Azalea and Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks. Plus, we figure pop stars are more a symptom of a shit culture rather than the cause of it, and it’s about time the cause got disrupted. There’s so much to talk about here that’s not about in-fighting with pop stars.

But Iggy Azalea’s measured response seemed to sum up exactly why she shouldn’t feel obliged to tweet about certain things:

Meanwhile? Azealia Banks tweeted at Iggy asking why she likes to copy black women so much, then had a go at gay men appropriating black female culture, but this totally valid point soon descended into an argument with Perez Hilton. He's hardly our hero, but by defending the fact she called him a 'faggot', by using the word 'faggot' against him, it left us pretty disappointed with her.