Racism in The Metaverse: Selling African American Slaves as NFTs
Racism is a global hangover of White supremacist ideology and theory. Racism exists even in the metaverse. Even in the new NFT collection. For African Americans, this is wearisome.
Meta-Human
According to Vice, the growth and expansion of non-fungible tokens (NFT) cryptocurrency has led to a rise in the number of racist collections. The collections continue to shock the masses with NFTs depicting George Floyd deemed as “Floydies” to more recently a project by the name of “Meta Slave.”
Meta Slave
Rather than apologize after backlash, OpenSea has simply rebranded to have the collection include images of black, Asian, and other non-black people.
Meta Slave Trade
The creation was crafted by a user known as Unipic, whose Twitter handle is now deactivated, @UniqueFractal.
Metaverse Trading NFTs in the form of African American Slaves
The collection initially pledged its support to the Black Lives Matter movement and intended to honor George Floyd, but the images associated with the project prove contrary.
Slave Trade During Black History Month
“Hi, there! We are glad to inform you that we have launched the first sales of NFT META SLAVE,” read one announcement of the project on Twitter. “This project was inspired by Black Lives Matter and also in honor of George Floyd.” This is obvious deception. Has any money from these “floydies” been donated to his family or foundation? No. This was done in mockery. Despite polite language hiding the true intent.
Racism: Alive and Well in FaceBook’s Metaverse
Amid backlash, Meta Slave, an NFT project, is rebranding after racism is found in the project. The project was first reported in late January. They have posted some interesting tweets along with the NFT collection. In response to uproar and outrage, it seems to be rebranding as Meta Humans.
NFTs of real African Americans Sold in The Metaverse
According to a number of tweets by the project, this is all a big misunderstanding. In one tweet. In one Tweet they said, “In creating our project, we wanted to show that everyone is a slave to something. A slave to desires, to work, to money, etc.” If this was the case why not sell slaves of another race or ethnic group? Should onlookers believe it as a coincidence that blacks are being sold as NFTs during Black History Month?
Anti-Black racism in FaceBook’s Metaverse
The explanation obscures the fact that the project is flagrantly racist and has obvious racial connotations. An individual with even a shred of humanity would realize this is not a good idea and raises serious questions about the project’s intentions.
Meta Slave NFT Collection Points to a More Significant issue in NFT Space
Firstly, every image in the 1865 piece algorithmically generated NFT collection is of a Black person. This seems to be an intentional mockery of a brutal and barbaric system that killed millions of people.
In fact, slavery’s consequences still echo through society today; it wasn’t so long ago. The number of NFTs (1865) was also the year that slavery was abolished in the USA.
Polite Racism With Insincere Apologies
In addition, the project lists one NFT as “Hard Work” with a smiling face and a plant emoji. All of this can’t possibly be a coincidence.
Members of the NFT space should do more to call out racist projects like Meta Slave. Such projects are simply not welcome. OpenSea promptly removed the project, and thankfully the NFT community has not accepted the NFTS. So far, only two units have been sold. The majority of the NFT community is disgusted by racist NFT collections.
