.png)
📷
Writer: Marlize Duncan
Photo Credit: kimkardashian/Twitter
On the spread of a new 7 Hollywood magazine cover for the December issue, Kim Kardashian West is seen laying in a sparkly black dress on a white-sheeted bed. Nothing out of the ordinary for a well-known fashion magazine, until Kardashian’s face is seen considerably dark in appearance.
When the magazine cover was first released on Twitter, Kim captioned the photo with “WHAT A DREAM” but was quickly met with much backlash from Twitter users claiming that Kardashian had been using blackface and cultural appropriating black women.
A user stated, “ Kim Kardashian often appropriates Black female culture to get attention. It says a lot that she continuously pulls these antics to get attention, knowing she'll upset Black women--the same Black women that have supported her businesses. She's a culture vulture in blackface” echoing many of the thousands of other comments Kim Kardashian West received in response to her images.
This is not the first time that Kardashian has been under fire for actions of this sort. When she had released her KKW Beauty line, the campaign had an image of Kim with a much darker complexion than her usual skin. Though obviously tanner in the promotional image, Kardashian West was accused of being in blackface.
📷
Photo Credit: kimkardashian/Instagram
In that instance back in 2017, Kardashian released a statement about her darker skin tone in the shoot saying in an interview with the New York Times, “I would obviously never want to offend anyone. I was really tan when we shot the images, and it might be that the contrast was off. We saw the problem, and we adapted and changed right away. Definitely, I have learned from it”
This photo is also present in a time when “blackfishing”-- when white women change their appearance to appear black for profit reasons -- has become a phenomenon amongst many influencers on social media platforms like Instagram. In November of 2018, images of white influencers who were seemingly posing as black women circulated on the internet. In the case of Emma Hallberg, a 20-year-old Instagram influencer from Sweden, many of her followers believed that she was black when in actuality she was white.
📷
Photo Credit: Emma Hallberg/Instagram
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Hallberg denied the use of artificial tanning methods saying she hasn’t “claimed or tried to be black or anything else.” She goes on to say, “I do not see myself as anything else than white. I get a deep tan naturally from the sun.”
Another white Instagram influencer who was also accused of blackfishing, Aga Brzostowska, a 21-year-old student at the University of Birmingham, stated I don't feel like I need to stop doing something because... why would I stop doing something that's benefitting me or that I enjoy doing?" in an interview with Radio Newsbeat 1.
What makes the photoshoots Kim Kardashian has done so controversial to many is the idea that black influencers are being cast out, while white women can benefit by looking the way black women do naturally. In an interview with Radio Newsbeat 1, Dara Thurmond admits her frustration about the blackfishing phenomenon by addressing “the struggle that black women go through just to be accepted as who they are."
Thurmond brings attention to the struggles that black women go through for just existing stating, "Even now in certain workspaces, black women can't wear their natural hair out. They have to wear weave. They have to press their hair so that it's straight, because to wear an afro or to wear braids or to wear locks is seen as unclean or untidy - it's not professional."
She continues by saying that the accused women who blackfished are being “unfair” to black women who are trying to put themselves out into the sphere of influencers.
"You take away from them," Dara says.
Whether it be accidental blackface, blackfishing, or anything in that arena, the underlining issue of the situation is the struggle that black women already endure as they work to be successful, especially in influencer related work. When women of another race are benefitting and profiting off of black looks when black women are shunned for them creates a larger conversation as to how race operates in the social media/ marketing sphere.
Sources:
Comments