Willow Smith, daughter of Hollywood A-list actor Will Smith, sparked controversy among the Muslim and North African communities worldwide after an excerpt of her new fantasy novel portrayed Amazigh tribes as “savages,” and “dangerous on their best day.”
The excerpts from her novel, entitled, “Black Shield Maiden,” which was published on February 21 as part of the promotional campaign for the book, outraged Amazigh natives and Muslims for the “damning, discriminatory and offensive portrayal.”
Tell me I’m not crazy for being horrified by how the Amazigh (indigenous North African group) & Muslims are portrayed (third pic) this is a preview from Willow Smith’s new fantasy book (first pic)- I saw EXPLICIT Muslim rep (second pic) & thought omg so cool! Then I read on ? pic.twitter.com/VEhSs8keuv
— S. Mughal / سدرة (@readswithsid) February 19, 2022
The book follows two young women, an African warrior named Yafeu and a Viking princess, Freydis, who encounter both Muslim and Amazigh characters throughout the story.
Smith and co-author Jess Hendel reference the indigenous people of North Africa in a passage that reads “the Amazigh are dangerous on their best day. They have little regard for anyone who doesn’t worship the Muslim god—and even their own tribes are always at war with one another.”
Co-author Hendel took to Instagram to “clarify the misunderstanding,” writing that “prejudices, stereotyping, and ignorance about the Amazigh and other Islamic peoples are issues this novel tackles directly,” arguing that this is just an excerpt from a larger story that the novel deals with.
“Islamic peoples” ? just say Muslim!
Begging people to realise that Islam/Muslim denotes religion and not culture or ethnicity. I’ve come across this so often, it’s mindboggling how ignorant people are https://t.co/6KAu6XOxD4
— Aneela ✨ (@anee1a) February 21, 2022
A Twitter user, however, stated that “the use of language in the text had colonialist tones which characterizes Amazigh people as feral lawless savages.”
Other social media users described the extract as “dehumanizing.”
this is why americans need to mind their business lmfaoo the intent was to write an empowering historical fiction centered on a strong black female protagonist but it’s full of the same racist bullshit any white girl YA novelist could push out https://t.co/N8yMxzYpIu
— furry respecters for palestine ?? (@whorientalism) February 20, 2022
Several internet users, active on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok called out Smith’s descriptions of the much-contested and common use of indigenous communities in fantasy fiction, rich with stereotypical and orientalist themes that support the narrative of an “uncivilized savage tribes.”
“The Amazighs aren’t some ancient mythical people, we’re very much real and alive and she’s basically portraying us as this harmful stereotype of barbaric savages,” wrote one Twitter user.
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