The BBC has taken down an online news article linking the bare nails fashion trend to white supremacy because it fell below the British broadcaster’s editorial standards.
On Saturday, BBC News published a story, headlined ‘How the bare nails trend became a class issue,’ which examined the enthusiasm for naked nails.
The story included a quote from a New York City-based beauty journalist, who said the phenomenon promotes an “erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities.”
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The journalist added: “They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty.”
The article was lampooned in comment pieces in British newspapers and went viral in Conservative media circles in the U.S. Fox News picked up on the story, while the likes of radio host Dana Loesch shared it critically online.
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The BBC removed the article on Tuesday after an editorial review. Social media posts linking to the story have also been scrubbed from the internet. The piece is archived here.
In a statement on its corrections and clarifications page, the BBC said: “This article examined the trend of bare nails and what might be motivating it, hearing from a range of contributors as well as looking at the cultural significance of manicures.
“It was removed on 29 September pending an editorial review. Following this review the article was permanently removed on the same day because it reported criticism of the bare nails trend without sufficient context or challenge and so did not meet our editorial standards.”
In an op-ed headlined ‘Your Outrage Is Out of Fashion,’ The Wall Street Journal attacked the article for being “embarrassingly retrograde – displaying outdated intellectual fashion – in its attempt to locate offences against social justice in the decisions of individual women whether of not to paint their nails.”
In The Telegraph, Celia Walden — wife of Piers Morgan — wrote: “No, BBC. Bare nails are not racist.”
News flash for the Beeb: Sometimes people are too busy or perhaps too poor to visit a manicurist. Others like me are simply not motivated.
It was an absolutely racist, stupid, and aggressively unhinged article. BBC should be ashamed that it even released such a “think” piece.
Lol because the article was totally rational and not absolute batshit to begin with?
Categorizing the sane, moderate, and overwhelming majority of the public as “the MAGAsphere” is why Trump got a second term.
Objective reality is MAGA