It's a new year and a new decade, and yet Blackness remains under attack. 

Just as the new year rang in, a clown of a Twitter user thought it was his dutiful job to make comments on two beautiful Black queens minding their business. His comment, comparing rising soulful artist Ari Lennox and our forever body goals Teyana Taylor to rottweilers, triggered a deeply rooted conversation around the parallelism of Black people and animals and colorism. 

One of the first to rise to the conversation was Lennox, who retweeted the comment, blasting and denouncing the odious remarks.

Taylor agreed, commenting, "No lies detected."

The Washington, D.C. native, who has been forced to constantly defend her physical traits and identity, continued the conversation with more tweets. 

"Black women literally the most disrespected. Period," the singer wrote on Twitter.

And we know her comment to be all too true. Black women have consistently been deemed animalistic for their features and abilities. The two singers, Lennox and Taylor, are just the two most recent notable women added to the list.

First Lady Michelle Obama, while living in the White House, was thrown into headlines when a white woman referred to her as an "ape in heels."

"It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House," the woman wrote at the time.

Tennis legend Serena Williams has been constantly belittled and disrespected as onlookers often compare her to animals for her athletic physique. Most recently, a cartoon was drawn following her match against then-newcomer Naomi Osaka during the U.S. Open.

The iniquitous drawing showed what was suppose to be Williams acting out in ape-like mannerism with her figure being dramatically altered.

Even Lennox has been scrutinized in 2019 for her physical features that she's remained adamant about embracing.

While attempting to defend her beauty, the 28-year-old encouraged parents to teach their children to love themselves and their Blackness.

"Moms and Dads please love on your beautiful black children. Tell them they’re beautiful constantly. Tell them Black people are beautiful. Tell them Black features are beautiful," the singer wrote.

But the conversation didn't just stop on Twitter about the problematic AF remarks on comparing Black women to animals. For years, there's been a colorism battle in the Black community, with darker-skinned Black women often being bullied and discriminated against.

Back in June, artist Tory Lanez called out colorism in the music industry after a director suggested swapping out a dark-skinned woman for a lighter-skinned woman for a video he was shooting. 

In an emotional video on Instagram Live, Lennox reiterates her earlier claims, diving deeper into the matter.

"I'm not with it," she said. "How people hate Black people so much. How Black people can sit up here and say 'That's not my problem.'"

Fans doubled down on her claiming she was trying to deny their First Amendment rights of free speech, but she wasn't having it. The singer continued to break down how rare it is to see other races tearing each other apart and the toxicity of spreading hate within the Black community.

"Why are you comfortable tearing down Black women and no other race? Look around. When are Hispanic women compared to dogs? When do they do that to white women? When are white men doing that to white women? When are Hispanic men doing that to Hispanic women? They're not doing it," she said wiping away tears.

“I made this live because I want people to know I really do love myself. I love my nose. I love Black features I want us to get to a point where we are becoming aware of the self-hate sometimes when you are referring to black women as a dog. Because we’re not doing this to other races. Or to races of women who have a nose like this,” she added.

While the beginning of 2020 already seems to be off to a rocky start, we can only hope that through speaking out and denouncing toxic beliefs within the Black community, that we can reduce similar ignorant comments.

#RacismAri-LennoxTeyana Taylor