Bella Hadid’s older sister, Alana Hadid, has gone viral after her rather controversial reply on Threads regarding racism, White people, and positions of privilege. The California-based celebrity was replying to a question from another social media user regarding racism towards White people, and her take that White people can never really experience racism has led to polarizing discussions.
The online drama began when Republican radio host Heather Overstreet posted on Threads asking, “Why is it becoming normal to be racist towards white people?” The most popular reply came from lanzybear aka Alana Hadid, 41, who currently lives in California and is Bella Hadid’s older half-sister. Alana, who’s also half-White and half-Arab, replied that what Heather Overstreet experiences as a White person supposedly isn’t really racism but more of prejudice, meaning it basically doesn’t count.
“Racism is prejudice plus systemic relationship to power,” Alana argues, adding that, “Because white people are systematically closer to power structures or systems of power favor them they cannot, by definition, receive racism.” Or simply put, according to Alana, “White people cannot receive racism.” Alana’s reply has since gained millions of views and thousands of likes.
However, not all of the replies agreed with her take regarding racism towards White people. One critic even called her out for using only one, rather technical definition, writing, “You’re using one academic definition of racism. Many dictionaries and legal contexts define racism more broadly as prejudice or discrimination based on race, regardless of who the target is. If someone hates or discriminates against a person because of their skin colour, that’s racism under that definition.”
People online continue to argue against Alana Hadid
Others even resorted to insults, fuming at Alana, with comments like, “You’re an idiot. White people are not a monolith. Maybe in your world-view they are. That’s like saying that all Arabs are terrorists. Grow up and stop neatly packaging every social problem for easy digestion leaving out the nuances.” Another commenter even challenged Alana’s point through technicality.
“By your definition, if I, being an Asian foreigner in US, is verbally racist to a black US citizen (in which citizens of coz hold more power on their land), then that black person now cannot receive racism????” asks one Threads user. Still, there is also no shortage of people who agreed with Alana’s point, especially on certain social media platforms like Reddit where her reply was shared.
“So true. Same with misandry. It doesn’t exist,” comments one Reddit user, with another saying, “Racist white people want to be victims soooooo badly.” It’s also not clear how Alana’s words reached the person she intended to argue with, but the Republican radio host followed up with another post, “Stop being racist towards white people and ALL people. You’re not better than me because you’re a different race than me. I’m not better than you, either!”
