One of the downsides to social media are the internet trolls that come with it. Former Miss Universe 2013 and Dominican singer Amelia Vega recently had to shut a hater down for attacking her 9-month-old daughter, Alía. That's right, apparently the troll had the nerve to call Vega's baby's hair "malo" but Vega wasn't having it.
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It all started after Vega decided to post an adorable pic of her daughter Alía. As you can see, the kid is gorgeous.
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But that didn't stop one troll from dropping a cruel comment about the baby's hair. She literally referred to Alía's hair as "moño malo" which in English means "bad hair." Seriously, how do call a baby's hair bad? And apparently it was all because Alía's natural hair is curly. Vega wasted no time coming up with a smart response though. She really gave it to her.
"Ma'am do you have nothing better to do than criticize a baby's hair on the internet?," she wrote to the woman in Spanish. "No hair is bad because I have yet to meet one that has killed a person. You don't know me or my daughter to go around giving your opinion of what you haven't seen. Since I saw you read the Bible and have a psalm on your profile I recommend you look for the verse 'from the abundance of his heart, his mouth speaks," she added.
DAMMMNNNN she gave it to her all right!
Just like Vega, her response was stern but still graceful. She used this troll's comment as an opportunity to educate her about what she did. Not only was it cruel to put down a baby's hair but it was also incredibly uneducated of the woman to call curly hair "bad hair." This is a subject that's particularly common in the Latino community, where anti-black sentiments are still, unfortunately, prevalent. But wait, because Vega didn't end there.
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She took it one step further by sharing another post about the problem with the whole "pelo malo" mentality along with the issue that's arising with trolling on social media, specifically when it's aimed at children. "Where have we come as society when we're criticizing babies on the internet?," she wrote in Spanish.
Vega used this an opportunity to bring light to something that's become a huge problem today. She also wanted her followers with curly hair to not feel less beautiful or like they have "bad hair" just because it's not straight.
"I responded to this prejudice because I don't want any young person that follows my account to believe that because they don't have straight hair, they are not a beautiful person. As simple as it may read, we can measure the impact this can have on someone, especially those who are still forming as individuals," she added.
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We might have made a lot of strides in social media and when it comes to doing away with Eurocentric beauty standards, but this troll's comment proves we still have a very long way to go. And thank god for people like Vega that are willing to take the time to let folks know what's up. We can't continue having people going around referring to ethnic or textured hair as "pelo malo" and we can't continue to allow grown-ass adults to criticize children. Period.
h/t Vivala
