Vunderkind
Social Member
Earlier in the week, several pictures surfaced online featuring TV personality Eku Edewor and Singer Lynxx (real name Chukie Edozien) in a photo-shoot for Thisday Style titled “Heritage shoot”. However, one of the pictures was singled out to receive a tirade of abuse and if I might add, undue scrutiny.
This picture in question shows Eku dressed in a white long-sleeve fitted maxi gown standing under an umbrella held by a young boy whilst being surrounded by other boys quite like himself carrying suitcases which appear to be her luggage.
The issue? Apparently the picture, on the one hand is a re-imagination of slavery-era photographs; a white mistress and her young slaves carrying her belongings, and on the other hand it supposedly is a campaign for child labour.
The slavery argument that originated from the picture was solely because Eku is light-skinned and therefore a lot of people deemed it inappropriate and spoke out against it as a result.
It is only fair to state that the theme in the said photo was quite unfortunate and one can easily see how it can be misconstrued to portray slavery, but that happens a lot when things are taken out of context. The title of the shoot provides some insight as to its concept: Eku and Lynxx, both indigenes of Delta state Nigeria are shown throughout the shoot as ‘royalty’ and are depicted as such.
Having understood this, the exaggerated reaction of Nigerians majorly of the twittersphere and the media to this image is called into question. Personally I would attribute it to a need to vent their frustrations on anything other than the actual object of their annoyance – the postponed elections, because quite frankly I find it difficult to agree with their point of view.
A sound contrary argument is put forward thus: ‘would the backlash have been this enormous if Eku was dark-skinned?’ The answer of course is a resounding ‘NO’, comment sections would have been rife with such words as ‘bae’ and ‘slay’ and the creative input would then be rightfully appreciated.
Eku has since taken to twitter to redress this misunderstanding, saying: “an image depicts younger members of society helping a young bride as she walks the short distance to her new home”. And in one fell swoop, put to rest every allegation of slavery, racism, child labour and possibly colourism (yes, colourism, some people are fighting very hard to make it a thing and drag that word, kicking and screaming into the English vocabulary).
The whole Eku furore brings to mind similar situations where a big deal was made and, unnecessary frivolities suddenly became issues of high importance for example, Guiliana Rancic and Zendaya Coleman’s locs at the Oscars and recently, Seyi Shay and the President. In each case, a particular group of people overreacting about non issues and in each case, way too much ado about nothing.
Article written by: Nwankwo O.J.
