A Youtube couple apologized after they were accused of making colorist comments about their newborn daughter.
The drama started on May 23, when Biannca and Damien Prince shared a vlog documenting the birth of their daughter Nova Grace. As Biannca cradled little Nova, she began to examine her facial features.
“When do they get their eye color? Like, 6 to 12 months?” she asked a nurse. “She going to have brown eyes for sure.”
Biannca, who has green eyes, seemed disappointed.
“I thought you were going to have pretty eyes,” she said to the baby.
“She do have pretty eyes,” Damien responded.
The conversation eventually moved to Nova’s skin color.
“Do you think she’ll be DJ’s color or a bit darker?” Biannca asked, referring to one of their older children.
“No, she’s going to be darker,” Damien said.
“But she’s beautiful!” said one of the nurses.
Twitter user Alia Cureton screen-recorded the exchange and tweeted it on May 31.
Imagine being 1 hour old and your parents are obsessing over your skin/eye color ???? The nurse had to remind them that she’s a beautiful baby pic.twitter.com/S8jAo4ZzbC
— Lia (@_karbashian) May 31, 2019
“Imagine being 1 hour old and your parents are obsessing over your skin/eye color,” she wrote. “The nurse had to remind them that she’s a beautiful baby.”
Cureton shared the video because she saw it as an example of how pervasive colorism is in the Black community.
“There are people getting illegal surgery done on their eyes to achieve a lighter look,” she told Buzzfeed News. “In the Black community, the hate for certain skin colors runs deep. We’re told not to stay in the sun too long because we’ll get dark.”
Cureton’s recording was shared over 90K times and many were disgusted by the Princes’ comments about their baby girl.
This is so sad. I hate when people fetishized having mixed babies. We all do not have blue eyes and light colored blonde hair w curls or whatever . It always made me sick in HS when white girls felt they could confide in me their “want” to have a mixed baby.
— ❀ (@clarelacole) June 2, 2019
Light skin dark skin combo couples be the weakest link
— ok… (@nimfemanea) June 2, 2019
Omg. That poor girl is going to see this when she grows up as her first home video? Dont bring kids into the world if you aren’t going to love them unconditionally. I hope this lil girl has someone in her life who will tell her every day that she’s beautiful exactly how she is.
— queen value range ???? (@kamagohaze) June 3, 2019
This video is so cringy. I was so overjoyed to hold my new babies, the last thing i was thinking about is their melanin levels. Kids aren’t cute accessories.
— Trash Boat (@__BabySlut) June 1, 2019
"But she’s beautiful" it took a nurse to fucking say that bruh. The whole family is garbage. And even when the nurse said that they sounded unsure. This is just sick.
— Trinity (@McWilliams_Miss) June 3, 2019
The saddest part to me is if she gets excited to watch her birth vlog when she’s older just to find out all her parents talked about was how she’d be dark with disappointed looks
— i fuckin hate grandma swan’s dumb ass (@Mexi421) June 3, 2019
To all the Black People specifically those of darker shades, matter of fact all Black People with morals, integrity, who are proud to be Black should unsubscribe to The Prince Family YouTube channel. To narrow down a newborn looks bc she doesn’t have light skin and blue eyes
— teee.bee特里????????????♂️ (@TerreB1999) June 3, 2019
Let’s just imagine for a second how such viewpoints in a family can damage a child’s self-esteem and self-image into adulthood as they don’t value themselves because they’re not lighter which becomes synonymous with prettier????????????
— Francis????????♂️ (@franciisxa) June 2, 2019
On Tuesday, Damien and Biannca posted a video titled “NOVA HAS COLORIST PARENTS” to address the backlash.
“Apparently, we were saying some ‘colorist’ things?” Damien said. “At the end of the day, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
He attempted an apology.
“We want to give an apology to all of our fans, all the real supporters,” he added. “We want to give our apologies because there’s a lot of disheartening stuff that’s being said about us that’s absolutely not true. We want to apologize to you guys for even having to deal with this.”
Biannca explained what she meant by “pretty eyes.”
“When I said ‘I wish you had pretty eyes,’ I didn’t mean literally she doesn’t have pretty eyes. When I said ‘pretty eyes’ I meant the term of ‘green eyes.’”
She explained how she received attention because of her eye color and claimed people with brown eyes don’t receive compliments.
“Brown eyes don’t get complimented like green eyes or hazel eyes or blue eyes,” she continued.
Biannca doesn’t believe she’s colorist because she’s in a relationship with a dark-skinned man, according to Inside Edition.
“If I was a colorist why am I dating a Black male?” she asked. “Half of my family is Black. I had three kids by a Black man. That does not make me a colorist.”
The family plans to keep the video up since it documents their daughter’s birth.
Cureton hopes the Princes will learn from the backlash.
“I hope they learn to disassociate from the ‘pretty eye/perfect skin tone’ mentality and more importantly, please because of what you post online,” she told Buzzfeed. “Younger children watch their channel and the comments they made can be harmful to other children’s self-esteem.”
