Influencers Tone Deaf Black Lives Matter Make-Up Tutorials Include Blackface

11 June 2020, 12:37

Influencers are trying to demonstrate their support for Black Lives Matter- but their efforts are being met with accusations of insensitivity and even racism as some have donned blackface.

YouTubers and TikTok influencers are coming under fire for their tone deaf Black Lives Matter make-up tutorials which have included people painting 'I can't breathe' across their mouth and even painting blackface on.

Here's why some of the ways people are trying to show their solidarity with BLM using make-up trends isn't suitable and actually more offensive than good!

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White people making their face look battered and bruised isn't a show of solidarity as it trivialises the injustices Black people face daily at the hands of police- and only further highlights how this isn't something white people have to worry about.

It can also be pretty traumatising for Black people to have to see, or re-live, all for the sake of a make-up tutorial.

Writing 'I can't breathe' or quotes from Martin Luther King alongside the Black power symbol to finish off a glamour lewk is also not going to be doing anything to help the plight of Black people facing systemic racism, and it's pretty much for the influencer to get likes whilst serving some kind of 'woke' glam.

As for one influencer painting half of her face brown to show some kind of 'there's only one race- the human race' philosophy, we needn't explain why this is perhaps extremely disrespectful and unhelpful to the cause.

She has already removed the post and apologised multiple times, but the TikTok has been immortalised on Twitter and has been viewed 1.59M times.

They apologised writing: "I've never heard [of] blackface before. I only wanted to send a message against racism, but I did it wrong. I'm only 16 and have to learn much more about world history."

However, it isn't all doom and gloom over in the influencer/make-up sphere, as more people than ever are promoting and pledging their support to Black owned beauty business owners, understanding a need for a shift in the industry.

Beauty giant Sephora has also signed a '15 percent pledge' to stock more Black-owned brands, and the more visibility and say Black people have in this area, the less likely we are to have these tone deaf tutorials posted about!

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