MadameNoire
Source: Jim Spellman / Getty
@soyouwanttotalkabout creator Jessica Natale has apologized to best-selling author Ijeoma Oluo after capitalizing on the writer’s 2018 NYT best-selling book, So You Want to Talk About Race.
Amidst the racial reckoning that followed the death of George Floyd last summer, Natale, who is white, started the Instagram account @soyouwanttotalkabout and “published posts about voting rights, gun reform and the sentencing of Derek Chauvin,” according to The Root.
As it grew and tackled a wider variety of social justice issues, including racial inequalities, Natale amassed over 2 million followers on the account from its success. She even scored a book deal with Little, Brown and Company publishing this past April.
On her Instagram Stories, Oluo said that the @soyouwanttotalkabout Instagram account was “duplicitous,” “shady,” and “harmful.” Further, she described Natale as a “white woman that is capitalizing off of the work of other people of color and other marginalized populations.”
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Oluo became aware of Natale’s page last summer, as her book sold out in stores worldwide. The author detailed her feelings about the page more in-depth recently via her Instagram Stories.
“Last summer, in the middle of this global uprising for Black lives, the popularity of my work and the work of a lot of other writers on issues of race and racism in America skyrocketed. And so in the middle of this, while dealing with the trauma of being a Black person in America… I’m getting these messages from people saying, is this you?” the writer said of the confusion and hurt Natale’s page had caused at that time.
“I’m like, this is exactly one word short of my book title that is currently selling out in stores everywhere, and it’s talking about race and other issues,” Oluo shared. “So I reached out to the page and I was like, this is really similar to my book title, I would like more information, I would like to know who’s behind this account.”
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The writer shared that the question about who ran the account was “completely ignored” by Natale. Still, the Instagramer offered to add a small disclaim on @soyouwanttotalkabout’s account, so it explicitly wasn’t affiliated with the writer.
“I knew from their response this was a white person immediately because otherwise you wouldn’t ignore that question of who’s behind this account,” Oluo expressed. “It’s actually been really heartbreaking to hear from hundreds of people who didn’t know this wasn’t my page.”
You can hear all of Oluo’s recent commentary on the situation via the highlights saved from her Instagram Stories to her account.
Natale’s page has since been renamed to @so.informed “out of respect” for Oluo.
The Instagramer also apologized “for the harm” that she caused the writer and shared that her book’s publication plans were now on pause.
“I recognize that once again people of color have had to carry the burden of education, and I regret that my actions have increased that burden,” Natale shared on August 10. “This page is about truth and dialogue. This conversation will be ongoing. Thank you all for holding me accountable.”
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According to The Guardian, Oluo has criticized the way accounts like @so.informed share information.
Read the writer’s thought-provoking commentary below.
“I am not interested in the meme-ification of anti-racist and social justice work. I am not interested in making this over-400-years complex system simple for white people to digest. I’m not trying to give you an easy way to feel like you have been doing something just by reading a post,” she said on Instagram. “I hope that from here on out those 2.8 million people who come for easy, quick, feel-good information to help them feel informed will actually be connected to the people doing real work.”
