Disclaimer: This thread is geared toward black women especially dark-skinned black women. Anyone is free to enjoy but please save your complaint on why it is racist to make tweets addressing dark-skinned black women because #LoveIslandUSA

Disclaimer 2: I’m not a grammarian. I can almost guarantee run-on sentences and a few typos. If this is a deal-breaker for you feel free to check out now. Also, this is made in fun so don’t expect anything deep or earth-shattering. Just sharing some thoughts out of boredom

Now let’s begin. This thread is about the infamous Rachel Lundell. Sis is a drop-dead gorgeous 21-year-old, 5 feet 9 inches pure chocolate black woman. Rachel joined the cast of love island USA on day 2 and left on Day 12.

I will be discussing what she did wrong and why she earned her notoriety among Love Island US fans. I will also like to discuss how as a dark-skinned black woman she was a victim of her circumstance but unlike Justine, Rachel panicked and unfortunately crashed and burned

I will not be bashing or saying negative things about Rachel because quite frankly sis has received her fair share of that. I want to analyze her actions and see how as fellow dark-skinned women we can learn from her on how to navigate this anti-black colorist world we exist in.

As I said earlier, I see Rachel as a victim (to an extent). She was one of two dark-skinned black women in a dating competition surrounded by mainly white women who fit the prototype of beauty and desirability.

Add to this the fact that the show producers select male contestants for the show who are almost always white men or biracial black men.

It’s also pretty obvious that based on who the male contestants gravitate towards, the producers are not selecting men that are interested in dark-skinned black women or have a preference for black women.

If you are smart you already see where I am going. This environment creates a crab in a barrel mentality for the black women who have to vie for the attention of the few men who are even interested in getting to know the black women over the white women.

The way it usually works in these dating competitions is that the dark-skinned black woman/women end up in a default coupling and suffer the indignation of rejection after rejection till they are put out of their misery by being voted out-

Either by the audience who are tired of watching the humiliation or by the castmates who feel sorry for them because they can’t make any connections.

So as a black woman on these shows you either force a connection and hope it sticks or you try to look for genuine connection and hope a miracle happens before you get inevitably kicked out.

See with dark-skinned black women on these shows you don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing because quite frankly you don’t. You have to play a game of luck and hope for the best

Rachel came in as a “bombshell” contestant. Bombshell contestants usually come in after a recoupling to try to cause problems for already coupled up contestants. Rachel chose Jeremiah and I think sis was very strategic in her choice.

In my opinion, Jeremiah was the logical choice at the time. He was the only one in a couple where he wasn’t romantically attracted to his partner. He is also biracial so there is a higher possibility he has dealt with a black woman and would be open to getting to know one

I’m not sure if Justine was genuinely feeling Jeremiah but sis knew it was either sink or swim because no one else had approached her or shown interest in coupling with her so needless to say she wasn’t happy Rachel was interested in Jeremiah

Btw, When Rachel requested a date with Jeremiah we saw the most disrespectful display of “I don’t f*ck with you” any man could show a woman. Jeremiah didn’t even know what Rachel looked like but he was jumping from the rooftop to celebrate in front of Justine but I digress

Rachel meets Jeremiah and they form a connection and decided to couple up with each other.
Things seemed okay with Rachel and Jeremiah till Caleb joins the cast. Before I go any further I want to talk a little bit about Rachel.

Not much was shown about her but the little that was shown about her gave the impression that she was amiable, smart, kind, and generally a cool person. She was one of the first to welcome Lauren, she encouraged her castmates especially Kierstan when they were down.

Even though she gave the impression of being a type A alpha female but nothing wrong with that (Caleb actually found that really attractive about her).
We were also given a glimpse of her friendship with Justine and

they seemed to commiserate with each other over the unfavorability of their environment inside and outside of the villa. We also learned from her talks with Justine that she is adopted into a predominantly white family. Do with that info what you will.

Now back to Caleb. Caleb came in as one of the bombshells on day 5 and requested to go on a date with Rachel and Kierstan. The dates went well but we got the impression that Rachel and Kierstan were still more interested in their respective couplings

So Caleb was pretty much left fending for himself. Caleb took his situation in stride and made the decision to get to know the other girls in the villa and hopefully build a real connection with one

At this point, Justine is now with Tre in a default/friendship couple but is trying to force a connection. Either way, Justine doesn't seem very interested but is trying to be a good sport.

At this time Justine has also been getting to know Caleb and starting to like him romantically over Tre but not overtly so. Caleb eventually narrows his choice down to a few of the girls but he was most vocal about wanting to get to know Justine as well as Rachel if open to it

Now I’m only speculating here but it seemed like even though Jeremiah and Rachel were outwardly connecting and showing affection for each other, it also felt like Rachel wasn’t necessarily Jeremiah’s type. #loveislandusa

She seemed more like a placeholder and someone to get him out of his friendship coupling with Justine. I say this because Jeremiah seemed to check out of his coupling very quickly as soon as Rachel hinted she wanted to possibly get to know Caleb

As soon as Jeremiah made it known that he wasn’t 100% into being with Rachel she sent him home in the next recoupling and picked Caleb instead. Again I’m only speculating but I feel like Rachel made another strategic rather than romantic move.

I believe Rachel chose Caleb because Caleb liked her more than she liked him. The reasoning behind that would be that unlike Jeremiah who wasn’t really into her and likely to have his head turned any time, Caleb came in with Rachel being one of his top choices.

Rachel sends Jeremiah home but unfortunately for her, Justine is developing more attraction for Caleb and vice versa. While Rachel was building her relationship with Jeremiah Caleb and Justine both left vulnerable found each other

We catch a glimpse of how far they had gone when we realized how much time they spent chatting with each other away from others and that they were building a friendship with each other. They even had a nook in the villa where they met up to chat.

So what did Rachel do wrong?
In my opinion, the first mistake Rachel made was she panicked. When she realized Justine and Caleb may have been building something while she wasn’t paying attention she felt some type of way.

She saw her chance getting away now that she had sent Jeremiah home and Justine and Caleb were showing genuine interest in each other. In my opinion, Rachel didn’t do anything wrong until she started directing her hostility to the wrong person.

I’m sure she was relieved at the thought of her competition getting sent home but ultimately she didn’t try to send Justine home.

Another thing I think Rachel did wrong was seeing Justine as her only competition. I always felt like she could have worked with Justine to send Lauren home because sis was there for only 3 or 4 days. That would've bought her time to hopefully connect with someone else coming in

The third mistake Rachel made, in my opinion was not getting to know the other guys especially Calvin (Calvonte). I think she would have gone far with him but hind sight is 20/20

Now what I learned from this whole saga was that Rachel panicked and got hostile towards the wrong person. I really wished it didn’t end like that for her because I was going to put my support behind her if Justine got sent home.

I liked her as a dark skinned black woman and I saw her as someone trying to navigate her environment the best she could. The end