Many on social media have urged Tiffany & Co to return the blood Diamond purchased in south Africa as they accused @Beyonce of double standard for pretending to promote African culture while at the same time wearing a Diamond mined and sold during colonial era.
Mined in Kimberley in 1877, the diamond is one of the largest of its kind with problematic colonial history. Black South Africans worked in the Kimberley mines with extreme poor conditions and their labours is often regarded as stolen.
According to RT, Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany purchased the diamond the following year, and it has remained with the company ever since. It weighs 128.54 carats.
The anger erupted after @Beyonce wore it, the fourth person ever to do so. Twitter users were not pleased:
Fixed it for you hun x pic.twitter.com/dg8VXIXQav — Amal @amalsayshello) August 23, 2021
Colonialism makes me sick in the stomach. Even in 2021 it’s still thrown in our face. Like some guy was just walking and he discovered it. Then try to sell the exclusivity that @Beyonce is the first black person to wear it when n it was stolen from Africans. Disgusting! — A Neutrino… @kay_lovelie) August 23, 2021
We can’t still be using terms like ‘discovery’ to refer to colonial looting in 2021. This diamond was stolen from South Africa in 1887 https://t.co/TzHffGE2JO — #BamakoIsHere (@simphiwedana) August 24, 2021
“When they say ‘discovered’ they mean ‘stolen’,” reacted one woman, while another user called on Tiffany & Co. to “give it back to South Africa.”
“So many wealthy white institutions created their wealth stealing priceless resources from Africa. Then the colonizers sell us feel good stories about the first black woman to wear a stone stolen from a black continent,” one black American woman protested.
Several users referred to the stone as a “blood diamond,” and Maclean’s Magazine’s contributing editor Andray Domise dug up several quotes from a spokesperson of the Kimberley mines – where the diamond was discovered – disparagingly referring to “n******” who worked in the mines at the time. This is literally a blood diamond https://t.co/esaX4YQfTl — nina (@visibleANG3L) August 23, 2021
Quoted from a spokesman for the Kimberley mines, from which this blood diamond was excavated:”If niggers can dig for themselves and sell diamonds unquestioned, the employment of native labour becomes practically useless” pic.twitter.com/7nPLA84CCc — Brother Q (FKA Andray Domise) (@andraydomise) August 24, 2021
Tiffany & Co. announced on Monday that Beyonce has become the first black woman – and only the fourth woman ever – to wear the “legendary stone” as part of the company’s new ‘About Love’ campaign, fronted by Beyonce and her rapper husband Jay-Z.
“The priceless Tiffany Diamond has only been worn by three women since its discovery in 1877,” Tiffany & Co. declared on Twitter. The three previous wearers were Mrs. E. Sheldon Whitehouse in 1957, iconic actress Audrey Hepburn in 1961, and pop musician Lady Gaga in 2019.
