Cultural Appropriation is defined as “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture” (Cultural Appropriation).
I believe everyone reading my post has come across a discussion of cultural appropriation in their lives, but have you ever heard of the term blackfishing? Urban Dictionary defines blackfishing as an action “commonly perpetrated by females of European descent (white) which involves artificial tanning (spray tanning and tanning booths) and using makeup to manipulate facial features in order to appear to have some type of Black African ancestry. The general point of blackfishing is for a female of European descent to appear of African, Arab, or Hispanic ancestry.”
One of the most famous cases of blackfishing in American culture is that of Rachel Dolezal, she has since changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, who identifies as African American despite being Caucasian (Pérez-peña). Dolezal has written a memoir, In Full Color, which “describes the path that led her from being a child of white evangelical parents to an NAACP chapter president and respected educator and activist who identifies as Black” (Dolezal, Storms).
Dolezal identifies as transracial – “a woman who is the product of two white parents but identifies mentally, emotionally, physically and culturally as black” (Millner). Her identity has understandably raised a lot of concerns and criticisms.
The damaging effect Dolezal’s claim of her identity has on African American communities is described in this article, “It is being followed in the store and told what you can and can’t afford by a salesperson whose weekly salary is what you just spent on a casual lunch; it is sitting on the curb outside your apartment building with your hands behind your head, waiting for the police officer to decide if he’s going to let you go or put you in the back of his squad car. Blackness is all up in the bones — in the sinew. And it is the ultimate in white privilege, really, for a white woman to see that diamond, all shiny and hard and unbreakable, and pluck it for her own, like it’s a gift from Tiffany’s, with seemingly zero regard for the pressure, the heat, the pain it went through — that we went through — to earn that shine” (Millner).
Cases of blackfishing have appeared on Instagram in recent years, such as with Swedish Instagram model Emma Hallberg. Unlike Dolezal, Hallberg does not claim to be transracial (Chen). An alarming thing I see with this trend is in the form of two major celebrities, Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande.
Jenner and Grande have both been called out online for cultural appropriation and manipulating their appearances to mimic those of different ethnic origins. Jenner received this response on twitter to a photo she posted on March 5th saying, “When will your family be done cosplaying Black Women?” Grande faced criticism in an article on thetempest.co that states, “Whilst continuing to look at the broader spectrum around race and race discussion it is intriguing to acknowledge Grande’s skin color on her Vogue cover. It shows her in her white, pale skin. Publications like Vogue have a history of lightening the complexions of darker-skinned people. Ariana’s cover showed her without her fake tan. As a white woman, she wants to be seen as white on an acclaimed publication, but she’s brown or black everywhere else. The argument about the fact a prestigious magazine like Vogue doesn’t show her fake tan, implies that she is, in fact, using blackface” (Hussain).
So why did I chose this topic for my blog this week? Did I come here to shoot down Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande? No, but they need to start taking responsibility for their influence. I don’t think that my one blog post can make too much of a difference, but I think talking about it is still very important. Jenner and Grande have massive social media platforms and have a large following of adolescents who may be influenced to think that this behavior is acceptable and not damaging to large populations of people who have fought through oppression for centuries.
If they see nothing wrong with presenting themselves on social media with appearances that continue to raise concerns with people of color, what is going on here? What value system do they follow?
WORKS CITED
“CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” CULTURAL APPROPRIATION | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cultural-appropriation.
Pérez-peña, Richard. “Black or White? Woman’s Story Stirs Up a Furor.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 June 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/rachel-dolezal-naacp-president-accused-of-lying-about-her-race.html?searchResultPosition=65.
Dolezal, Rachel, and Storms Reback. “In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White Worl.” Amazon, BenBella Books, Inc., 2017, www.amazon.com/Full-Color-Finding-Place-Black/dp/194464816X.
Millner, Denene. “Why Rachel Dolezal Can Never Be Black.” NPR, NPR, 3 Mar. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/03/03/518184030/why-rachel-dolezal-can-never-be-black.
Chen, Tanya. “A White Teen Is Denying She Is ‘Posing’ As A Black Woman On Instagram After Followers Said They Felt Duped.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 4 Jan. 2020, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/white-instagram-teen-emma-hallberg-accused-of-performing-as.
Hussain, Sara. “Ariana Grande’s Excessive Use of Fake Tan Is ‘Blackfishing,’ and That’s a Real Problem.” The Tempest, 22 Dec. 2019, thetempest.co/2019/03/07/entertainment/ariana-grande-fake-tan-blackfishing/.