Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza

Don't do digital blackface.

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Happy Wedthursfrimonday? Hard to tell these days.

In an interview regarding his books “Home and Exile” and “Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe stated that “the whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify.” But what happens when stereotypes become imitated, replicated, scaled and normalized because of social media? Today’s newsletter analyzes our nation’s history with blackface, blackface in the digital age, and who benefits from Black culture. It’s part of our ongoing series on cultural appropriation – catch up in our archives.

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Research to find a specific example of a racist stereotype shared through digital blackface – like a gif, TikTok or other form of content. Consider the following:

What harmful stereotype(s) does this content perpetuate?
What was the intention of the person who shared this content?
What is the impact of the person who shared this content?

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By Nicole Cardoza

What's the deal with TikTok?

TikTok, a social media app with 100 million users in the U.S., has caught Trump’s ire. The app, known for highly-sharable short videos, often created based on viral themes, was created by ByteDance, a Chinese-based media company. Trump argues that the Chinese government could compel the company to share American users’ data or use the platform as a form of propaganda to worsen U.S. and China relations (Wired). Although it seems this is more a PR tactic than a national security threat, millions were outraged that they may lose their social media platform. Unsurprisingly, Instagram took this time to launch their TikTok competitor, Reels, which adds a copycat TikTok experience. This news also aligned with new criticisms of the app’s role in perpetuating digital blackface.

To understand digital blackface, we must start with understanding the history of blackface. Minstrel shows gained popularity in the 1830s in New York, where white performers with blackened faces (most used burnt cork or shoe polish) would don tattered clothing and imitate enslaved Black people. These performances characterized Black people as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, and hypersexual. They would intentionally make them hard to understand and prone to thievery or cowardice (NMAAHC). From the late 19th century and into the early 20th, these shows gained national popularity, moving with ease from stages to radio shows (NYTimes). Popular American actors like Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Shirley Temple brought these caricatures to the big screen. And this imagery extended beyond performances to marketing anything “from tobacco to molasses to breakfast cereal” (NYTimes).

And these weren’t merely comical performances. These shows helped to build a national consensus of the role of slavery and discrimination against Black people. These tortured depictions “embodied the assertion that blackness was grotesque in itself because it could never achieve the mythical ideal of whiteness” (NYTimes). Consider that the first popularly known blackface character was named “Jim Crow” and depicted “a clumsy, dimwitted black slave.” The name became a common slur against Black people, so it was used to refer to the anti-Black laws implemented after the Reconstruction period (History). 

Also, consider that it took until 2020 for Aunt Jemima to change their branding based on these stereotypes (CNN), and Gucci thought that this turtleneck was appropriate in just 2019 (NPR). There’s a comprehensive list of public figures that have used Blackface (CNN). We are still watching blackface unfold in real-time. 

Unpacking Digital Blackface

The term “digital blackface” is a bit different. Coined by Joshua Lumpkin Green in 2016, digital blackface describes how technology enables non-Black people to appropriate Black culture and adopt Black personas (Wired). This trend is particularly relevant on social media, where likes and views reign supreme, so anything goes. Blanketed by the relative comfort of anonymity, anyone can leverage Black language and culture without claims to the experiences or identities that create the community.

We’re watching this unfold on TikTok in real-time. Jaliah Harmon, a 14-year-old who loves dancing, created an intricately choreographed dance to the song “Lottery” by the Atlanta rapper K-Camp and uploaded it to Instagram. The dance, called the Renegade, quickly got to TikTok, where it went viral. But Charli D’Amelio, a white TikTok dancer with the most followers on TikTok at the time, is considered its CEO because she, like many others, copied it without crediting its source (NYTimes).  Jaliah is only now seeing her due, but Charli charges an estimated $100,000 per sponsored post (Cosmopolitan), launched her own nail polish line dance and has been in a series of high profile partnerships, like dancing with Jennifer Lopez and appearing on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon (Variety).


TikTok is designed for ideas to be shared and remixed, so what happened with Renegade isn’t surprising, but disappointing in a world that often undervalues Black women. But this same model fuels deeper harm against Black people, allowing, for example, white people to create videos lip-synching the words of Black people to exaggerate them, or imitating racial stereotypes – both of which sound more relevant to the 1830’s than the 2020s (Wired). As this comprehensive Wired article notes, TikTok users likely aren’t always doing it to be racist, but simply for the virality, clout, and followers. Nevertheless, disparaging posts on slavery, perpetuating police brutality against Black people, and other terrible stereotypes aren’t just posted, but encouraged, because of the algorithm.

:Virality often occurs through shocking behavior. Whether it's acting provocatively, bullying, or using racial slurs and stereotypes, a lot of users see that their questionable behavior gets a reaction, and that just encourages them”.

Morgan Eckroth, barista and TikTok user, in Wired

Although TikTok’s algorithm fuels this trend, digital blackface isn’t new. Vine, a similar social media platform that enabled users to create and share 10-second videos launched by Twitter, had several racist trends and challenges go viral on their platform, sparking accusations of blackface as early as 2013 (Metro). In 2016, Snapchat released a Bob Marley filter on 4/20 that literally gave users digital blackface and dreadlocks, which is both racially insensitive and minimizes the life and legacy artist (Wired). And AAVE (explained in a previous newsletter) is used so frequently across social media platforms that a TikTok user declared it simply “internet culture” (Daily Dot).


Digital Blackface and Gifs
 

Digital blackface manifests in other ways online. A common way is how many people use gifs of Black people and Black culture to express themselves, despite not being Black themselves. Certainly, we can all love a scene from a movie that just happens to feature a Black actor or feel that a kid’s facial expression suits how we feel right now, regardless of the kid’s race. But as Lauren Michele Jackson, the author of White Negro, explains in this brilliant Teen Vogue article, the gifs of Black people shared tend to depict overexaggerated expressions of emotions. And our society often associates Black people with being excessive. Consider the trope of the “angry Black woman,” the “angry Black man,” or the “aggressive Black boy”. These caricatures have been perpetuated in the media throughout history and used to justify condemnation, subjugation, and violence.  See Serena Williams, Christian Cooper, and Michael Brown for specific examples.   

“Digital blackface in GIFs helps reinforce an insidious dehumanization of Black people by adding a visual component to the concept of the single story”.

Naomi Day, Speculative fiction and Afrofuturist writer, on Medium

Beyond digital blackface, there are more common ways people can use Black culture and imagery fo their gain. They may seem innocuous but are just as harmful. Consider how, after the protests, brands started using more photos of Black people on their social media feed, despite not addressing internal culture or practices that contribute to their oppression. Although they’re not directly adopting a Black culture or persona, they are trying to align themselves with a community that they haven’t earned the right to represent


What do we do about it?
 

This isn’t to say that an individual sharing their favorite gif or jumping into a TikTok trend is inherently racist. It’s the system that these actions are couched in. As we’ve explained in other posts regarding cultural appropriation, Black people experience significant discrimination and harm for expressing their culture – while white people are celebrated and compensated for it. I’m not taking away your favorite gifs for the sake of doing right. It’s another opportunity to keep doing the work. As you speak in a cultural language that’s not your own, consider what it says for the people who speak that culture fluently.

And social media platforms have a responsibility to protect their users from harm. The worst part of the TikTok story is how Black creators on TikTok are regularly experiencing racism harassment and censorship on the platform, especially when speaking up against these issues (Wired). And despite their public announcements, the company still hasn’t taken sufficient action to protect and center the needs of the Black community, despite naming Black people as “the most inspiring, creative voices on our platform” (Wired). The safety and security of TikTok is in question, but not for the dangerous space it’s created for communities of color on the app. And as other companies rush to acquire or compete with TikTok, I hope they make mitigating digital blackface a priority.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Digital blackface describes how technology enables non-Black people to appropriate Black culture and adopt Black personas

  • Blackface has deep roots in the founding of America, and was used to normalize racist stereotypes against enslaved African people

  • The TikTok algorithm exacerbates digital blackface while exposing its Black community to harm

  • We need tech to take responsibility for digital blackface on their platforms, and hold ourselves accountable for our own actions

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