Rihanna’s financial firm is under fire after racist comments about her being attractive because of how light she is have surfaced.
Here are the details via NY Post:
Flynn Family Office partner Alan Kufeld regularly made obscene comments and once described his hopes that a new intern had a body like her mom, who he said “is banging the drummer from [heavy metal band] Skid Row,” according to the Manhattan federal court lawsuit.
Kufeld, 47, also talked with FFO founder and CEO Rick Flynn about how sexy various former assistants had been, noting that one assistant “lost points in his eyes because she was too dark,” the suit states.
“It was a locker-room mentality,” said ex-FFO marketing head Robert Solomon, 42, who claims he was fired after a year for objecting to the sexist banter.
Kufeld would regularly comment on how hot FFO’s female clients in the entertainment sector were, making the “not too dark” comment about Rihanna before giving a “monologue on what Caribbean nationalities were the most attractive based on skin tone” and discussing “sex tourism and the relative hotness of Asian women,” the suit states.
Flynn also talked dirty in the office, mentioning a female worker’s “ass of steel,” then saying, “F–k her” after the woman quit a few weeks later, according to the suit.
It’s sad that people of color are still being compared to how attractive they are to how dark or light they are. As black women, we face adversities in media about our appearance. We get criticized about our skin, hair, and features. Even a woman as beautiful and successful as Rihanna, is judged because she is black. I wish people would worry less about appearance and worry more about the work that we do.