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News
In response to the backlash, Biannca said, "Brown eyes don’t get complimented like green eyes or hazel eyes or blue eyes."
(Photo: Birdland/Getty Images)
By Rachel Herron
June 5, 2019 / 10:47 AM
A popular YouTube couple is being called out for “colorism” after a video showed them asking if their newborn baby would have “pretty eyes” and light skin just moments after her birth.
Last week, Biannca and Damien Prince, who run the "Prince Family" YouTube channel, posted a vlog documenting the birth of their new baby, Nova Grace. During the video, which received over one million views, Bianca and Damien can be heard discussing Nova’s physical features just moments after she was delivered.
"When do they get their eye color? Like, 6 to 12 months?" Biannca asks a nurse in the room. "She's going to have brown eyes for sure. ... I thought you were going to have pretty eyes."
"She do have pretty eyes,” Damien responds.
Later in the video, Biannca brings up her eye color again, saying, “She’s going to have brown eyes for sure.”
“How do you feel about that?” Damien asks a relative. “About her eyes being brown?”
“That’s OK,” the relative responds.
Biannca then begins asking about the baby’s skin and whether she’ll have a light or dark complexion.
"Do you think she'll be DJ's color or a little bit darker?" Biannca asks, comparing her newborn to her son.
"No, she's going to be darker," Damien responds.
Eventually the nurse in the room interjects by saying, "But she's beautiful.”
Since the video was first posted, people on YouTube and Twitter have criticized the parents for fixating on their child’s eye and skin color.
"Whats up with the focus on how dark she will become and the color eyes," one wrote. "Be thankful that the baby is healthy."
"Why bianca says 'She's not going to be Damien's colour' like it's a bad thing...shameful," wrote another.
On Twitter, Alia Cureton (@_karbashian) shared a clip of the video. Along with the video, Alia wrote, “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.”
Alia told BuzzFeed News that she was “disgusted” by the color comments and felt like the parents were sending the wrong message about brown eyes being ugly.
"That’s basically saying her eyes aren’t pretty because they aren’t light," Cureton told BuzzFeed. "They spoke about her color quite often — about how dark she was going to be. The eye color comment was disgusting. So was her reaction to the possibility of her baby being her dad’s color.
"There are people getting illegal surgery done on their eyes to achieve a lighter look," she added. "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."
Other people have also echoed similar sentiments on Twitter.
In response to the criticism, the Prince family posted a new YouTube video called “Nova Has Colorist Parents.”
The 23-minute long video started off by apologizing to their fans for having to “deal with this.”
“Apparently we were saying some colorist things. I guess we’re colorist now?” Damien says while putting his hands in air-quotes.
They then explained what they meant in the video when they used the term pretty eyes.
“When I said pretty eyes, I meant green eyes,” Biannca said.
She then asked if Damien has ever been complimented on his eyes and said no one in her family with brown eyes has been noticed for their eyes.
“Brown eyes don’t get complimented like green eyes or hazel eyes,” she added.
Biannca also said she thinks her daughter is beautiful and she should not have made the comments immediately after her birth.
Both Damien and Biannca also referenced a series of questions from their fans about the color of the baby’s eyes.
“Everyone was asking if she was going to have my eyes or Damien’s eyes,” Biannca said.
“So why is it a problem when we say it?” Damien concluded.
In the end, Bianna said she didn’t mean to offend anyone, but she just has a “preference” for at least one of her children to have the same green eyes that she has.
Under the video, the couple received more criticism for not doing enough research on the issue of colorism.
“PSA: Don’t apologize if you don’t know the problem, because at that point your ‘apology’ is irrelevant,” wrote one person on YouTube.
“Whew, the ignorance,” wrote another.
national newsviral newsColorismYouTube
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