It doesn’t matter how rich, grownup or successful you might be, sometimes your mum still feels the need to come to your rescue. Tina Knowles-Lawson, AKA Beyoncé’s mum, has just had a very sharp word on social media with critics of her daughters’ new advertising campaign.
Beyoncé, you see, has been getting some flak for wearing a 128-carat yellow diamond in a new campaign for Tiffany & Co. She is only the fourth person in the world to have worn this fancy diamond apparently, and she is the first black woman to wear it.
Which is all very lovely, except the diamond has a dodgy colonial history and people have been accusing Beyoncé of helping to sanitise a “blood diamond”. “How many of you socially conscious activist [sic] own diamonds?” Knowles-Lawson said in response to the controversy. “I thought so! Well, guess what did you go to try to check to see where the diamond came from? Probably not.”
Beyoncé’s mum makes a good point there, but I’m not sure she is really doing her daughter any favours with it. Knowles-Lawson is right that the diamond industry as a whole is hugely suspect.
For the rest of this article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/01/what-is-ultimately-at-stake-in-the-tiffany-diamond-row-it-isnt-beyonces-ethics