This is the Tweet: Blackfamous
This past Friday, Author, and Senior Writer at The Root, Michael Harriot, tweeted:
““Blackfamous” is the gap between black stardom and white anonymity.
For instance: The highest possible rating on the “blackfamous” scale would be someone EVERY black person knew but was unknown by EVERY white person.
So I ask: Who is the most “blackfamous” person of all time?”
The immediate response [and major headline] was the fact that white people really didn’t know who Frankie Beverly was until this Twitter thread. But the conversation it created amongst the culture was refreshingly nostalgic, and quite informative. So much so that I shared it with a few of my friends, and we came up with a pretty interesting list of people we considered “Blackfamous”.
While entertaining this conversation, and coming up with a list of my own, I learned the names of so many black faces I knew growing up - but never their names! I also learned that there is a fine line between Blackfamous, and formerly Blackfamous (i.e. Jenifer Lewis, Tyler Perry, Meagan Good…the likes). And even if you are Blackfamous, there are different types of Blackfamous…it gets deep.
Nonetheless, see a list of my favorite “Blackfamous” people below. And a major shoutout to all the formerly Blackfamous faves out there, you know who you are!
