Influencers Doing Blackface In ‘Solidarity’ Proves How Much Work Needs To Be Done

Whether it be cries for clout or earnest naivety, influencers doing blackface to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement are a living indictment of white privilege in the face of systemic racism. 

While chants echo through the air, the online reception is on a scale the likes of which activism has never seen. Petitions, footage, resources, documentaries, films: all shared at the hands of netizens. However, some influencers believe they’re taking a step further by doing blackface – thereby ensuring racism’s survival, not curbing it.

Blackface became a highly popularised form of entertainment in the 19th century, with white people painting themselves as caricatures of black people for ‘minstrel’ shows; vastly perpetuating harmful stereotypes such as being ‘dim-witted, lazy, superstitious, hypersexual, criminal and cowardly’, for the entertainment of white audiences.

One such Algerian influencer, Souhila Ben Lachhab, posted in half-blackface, writing: ‘Just because we are black on the outside, doesn’t mean that we are black on the inside. Racist people are the true black heart ones. They are black on the inside, though they do not know it.’

Another influencer, Tania Saleh, posted a photo of her face photoshopped onto a black woman, writing: ‘I wish I was black, today more than ever… Sending my love and full support to the people who demand equality and justice for all races anywhere in the world.’

In response to this egregious circulation of blackface, Saint Hoax – a prolific Instagram political commentator and satirist – condemned the users in a grouped post, calling them out for refusing to take the photos down despite criticism and supposedly spreading awareness ‘about a subject you know so little about’.

They wrote: ‘If you genuinely care about a cause, the least you can do is educate yourself about it. It’s infuriating that we still need to educate people about the racist and painful history of blackface. We shouldn’t be having this conversation in 2020.’

Saint Hoax also added a quote from Dr. David J. Leonard, a professor at Washington State University’s Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies, which read: 

It is time to stop with the dismissive arguments those that describe these offensive acts as pranks, ignorance and youthful indiscretions. Blackface is never a neutral form of entertainment, but an incredibly loaded site for the production of damaging stereotypes… the same stereotypes that undergird individual and state violence, American racism, and a centuries worth of injustice.

Efforts to support Black Lives Matter with blackface aren’t just misguided, but detrimental. Simply, it’s perpetuating the theft and manipulation of black lives for white people’s gain; a selfish, racist act of performative activism. Don’t just do the right thing: do better.