The most annoying side effect about the propagation of social media is how so many feel that because they have platforms to say whatever is on their mind, that they should actually publicly share every single thing that pops into their head. About fourteen years ago, that shit was only mildly annoying because our collective timelines were constantly inundated with our parents talking about gardening, our uncle bragging about his bluetooth headset (which he’s still proudly rocking in these streets over a decade later), and coworkers occasionally sharing pictures of their dog or a their opinion on the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

But today, our timelines have dramatically transformed from vacuous and innocuous posts about the mundanity of everyday life, to hateful, pseudo intellectual and puritanical critiques about anyone and everyone, especially celebrities. And even though (thankfully) no one knows my ass, it sometimes sucks to see people trending or getting dragged for doing nothing but existing in their own skin.

Enter: Rihanna.

Rihanna is pregnant. And from early on in her pregnancy, through her actions, she put us all on notice that her growing belly would not stop her from continuing to be a fashion icon, a trailblazing entrepreneur, and a beautiful, comfortable, big-foreheaded Bajan woman. And, as usual, folks managed to find a problem with that.

In every godforsaken comment section online, some rasshole is whining like a bitch about Rihanna “not being modest enough” for proudly displaying her belly everywhere. Or some idiot is bitching about being annoyed at seeing Rihanna’s belly as if it’s her fault that paparazzi’s stalk her every-blasted-where she goes to take pictures of her and her baby bump.

Now Rihanna is not new to being criticized online. Rihanna is not new to folks invading her privacy and diving into her personal life. Rihanna isn’t even new to people critiquing the most intimate parts of her body in both pictures she’s taken and pictures she never consented to being released publicly. So I’m sure 99.9% of the shit that a lot of y’all be saying online doesn’t reach her and even if it did, it wouldn’t register at all. So this piece is not me trying to defend my fellow Bajan Rihanna by speaking for her, but rather to register my own annoyance because, unlike her, I see what a lot of y’all write and not only do I want y’all to know that your opinions are whutless and unimportant, but mostly I want to ask y’all: do you see you?

Like, have you actually viewed yourself through any relevant lens of self awareness?

Some of wunna real frowsy. And everyday I have to see you badly built niggas in the subway or at self-checkout at Wal-Mart and I somehow manage to muster the strength to ignore your musty heelback. If I can manage to achieve that level of self-control in public, you can manage to keep your hateful, ignorant, unimportant, trivial and inconsequential-ass opinions about Rihanna’s body to yourself.

In a world where Black women face disproportionately more risk during pregnancy, the last thing in the fucking world that any Black woman should be doing is going out of her way to small up herself to make your ass feel more comfortable.

This Is Your Conscience