Yesterday I was peeved by what I perceived to be an over emphasis in media on the egos of Artists of Color. I pointed out that the accusations of egocentrism or self centeredness are usually not levied equally on White artists and that I believe it’s part of an overall narrative of “bringing down people a notch”, or “putting them in their places”. It was an intuitive observation and not one based on any kind of objective measurement. Today, I ran the searches in the screen capture above and lo and behold, look at the results. I am aware these are still not scientific proofs of anything (google algorithms are secret and I cannot vouch that all results are 100% accurate) but yet, it is quite telling that the word ego seems to be disproportionally associated to Black women. The over the top amount of results for Rihanna also seems quite telling and I cannot dissociate these results from the overall way media has treated her so far.

Now, I am aware I am not conclusively proving anything here, but I do believe this is an interesting angle in the way media treats Women of Color and which attributes get associated with their success.

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