The Twitter spat between Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift is far more than two pop princesses having a go at one another. Minaj is reminding us how appallingly black women are treated by media, says Louise O’Neill.

I am mildly aggrieved that nobody told me it was International Say Something Stupid Week. And yet what a week of utterances it has been. All kinds of stupid, which for the purposes of this column I will condense into three: Political Stupid, Academic Stupid, and WTF Stupid.

The woman who resigned as the head of a local NAACP branch after her parents revealed she was white said that she started identifying as black around the age of five, when she drew self-portraits with a brown crayon, and said she “takes exception” to the contention she tried to deceive people.

Controversy is swirling around a prominent civil rights activist, with family members saying a local leader of America’s National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People has falsely portrayed herself as black for years.