"Being black is always cool when it brings in money, gets views or provides entertainment and trends. Let's see if they feel the same way when they're walking while black or getting pulled over by the police, followed in a store or are accosted and questioned or blocked in a building or neighborhood in which you 'don't belong'."
**
2. Aisling Philippa, 2018
"I dunno about everyone else, but it seems like these looks have been modelled off the Kardashian girls’ styles ... who have been (rightly) accused of emulating black looks. It’s a disturbing trend."
**
3. 🚀CYBER PIGEON, 2018
"As the pale Irish girl that I am, I can’t say that I personally who how POC feel about all this. But my cousin who I am very close to is half Irish and half Caribbean. She takes after her Caribbean father though, and throughout her life has been looked down upon because people think that she’s like these woman in the video. It just seems very unfair that people think it’s ok to lose as another race, it’s wrong and hurtful to people that are from that race/mixed race. The same goes for people who try to look Asian, that’s wrong too."
**
4. astoldbydes, 2018
"someone wrote on twitter "they want our rhythm but not our blues" bet they've never spoke on issues in the black community.
I'm not surprised AT all they just think being black is "lit" and "trendy"."
**
5. Shay, 2018
"A couple of these women for sure are going out of their way to look racially ambiguous, but it’s a bold claim saying they are “posing as black”. Streetwear is everywhere, it’s a part of mainstream fashion. You cannot say a person is trying to be black for wearing streetwear. Style is also a product of where you grow up, a couple of the women you named are from the UK, that has a unique streetwear culture.. so that explains the style. Most of these women obviously tan, it’s popular for young women, especially in the UK, to use tanning beds to achieve a “holiday glow”, it’s how they prefer to look. Also do you somehow have their DNA background to prove they are not black? If not then there is no way you can justify this video. Black skin comes in all different shades, who are you to race label a person you only know through Instagram?. It’s dangerous and stupid, these young women, they’ll receive hate/bullying online and maybe it could affect their personal lives. ✌🏼"
**
6. niyah w, 2018
"It makes me feel sad and cheap. I am light skinned, and have aunties and other relatives/friends that are naturally like what they’re imitating. It’s confusing...I find it hard to explain myself...feels like appropriation in a way. I’m looking to discussions and opinion sources like this to help develop my thoughts."
**
7. WikiPamela, 2018
"Sadly, I'm not shocked at this next level cultural appropriation. 😕"
**
8. Star ***, 2019
"They say “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” but, this is beyond. It’s actually kind of creepy as well as outrageous. I would love to spend the day in the mind of one of these ladies. Find out exactly what it takes, to manipulate your looks to the extreme extent of looking like an entirely different race/person."
**
9. Vlogs by Miss Candice, 2020
"I think it’s perfectly fine to admire the features and beauty of the black race, but don’t try and copy it. Just be you and who you were born to be. We are all different for a reason."
Warning; A few comments in this discussion thread contain profanity. One of those comments is given below with the word that is considered profanity given with amended spelling.
1. karlie brooks, 2018 "everybody wanna be black until the cops come 🤧" ** Reply 2. wyrefrog, 2019 "Haha-ouch! It's funny and it hurts! (because it's true) 😭" **
3. Cee G. L, 2018 "I see sh-t* like this a lot.
So many Whites want to be Black, until it's time to actually...be
Black! Being Black isn't something that you can "pick & choose" from, like you're at an all you can eat
buffet where you decide which dish you'll have and which ones you don't feel is right for you. Our Blackness is an everyday, lifelong thing, that comes along with struggles, battles, deep passion and strong culture, and that's not something any White person could every truly appreciate because the experience has to be lived and not imitated, mocked or played with for personal or financial gain. This is "Blackfishing" in the very extreme sense of the word, but there were others before these girls, long
before these girls came about. There was the dancer/movie star, Fred Astaire & Gene Kelly, who stole & imitated the dance moves/routines of Black dancers, there was Elvis Presley, who also stole & imitated the dance moves of Black dancers as well as the music of Black artists. In more modern times, we have the Justine Timberlakes, Justin Beibers & Iggy Azalea, who also imitate Black music and the style of Black people, but once again, when it's time to be Black, they become lily White.
The struggle is real for the Black & Brown people, so don't steal, imitate or mock us with your attempts to patronize us with insults, and for any Blacks who does not see a problem with this "Blackfishing" fad, you people really need to get your heads out of your ass and wake tf up!"
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
4. MissPYT78, 2018
"I’m not mad at this at all. Them finally seeing our beauty as legit makes me so happy. I’m 40
and have seen us black women spend years perming hair, wearing wigs, weaves and hiding from the sun to avoid getting darker. It’s sad but this is all true. The years of bleaching cream and dressing to look slimmer are moving to be out of trend. When I started working rockin breads was not professional. We’ve come along way in the last 20 years. Why not let them stress over trying to live up
to a different standard of beauty. I say more power to us!"
**
5. Emmanuelle, 2018
"I just think that black fishing is just as bad as blackface, and by this I think we should treat it the same. If someone is unaware of blackfishing being wrong we should inform them. If they still don't understand explain it to them and not just insult them. I live in Europe and where I am we're not taught the basic ethics around race, ( because of the lack of diversity). Blackfishing is cultural appropriation and I in her case I don't think there are any racist tendencies, however, it is still harmful because they are unaware that they are exploiting a minority to get paid promotions."
**
6. Lily, 2018
"Oh? So you think people painting their faces black, over exaggerating what are common prominent black features with makeup, and pretending to be idiots while doing so in order to make black people look idiotic, is just as bad as someone dressing in a way they think makes them look beautiful (even if some might view it as appropriation)? K "
**
7. Vlr Kth, 2019
"I find black people beautiful! Gorgeous faces and bodies. I love the diversity and beauty in their culture but I won't change my looks for it. I mean, anyone can still appreciate other people's culture and beauty without changing your appearance for it right? 😄"
-snip-
I believe this commenter is a non-Black Asian woman, based on her photograph.
Based on
This commenter's photograph is
****
NEWSWEEK ARTICLE EXCERPT From https://www.newsweek.com/blackfishing-meaning-definition-explained-1637979 ""What Is Blackfishing?
Blackfishing is a term that became popular after it was mentioned in a 2018 Twitter thread by journalist Wanna Thompson, NBC News reported in 2019.
Back in 2018, Thompson shared a thread highlighting several non-Black public figures who had used makeup, Photoshop and cosmetic surgery to appear Black or mixed race.
Thompson tweeted at the time: "Can we start a thread and post all of the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram? Let's air them out because this is ALARMING."
Can we start a thread and post all of the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram? Let’s air them out because this is ALARMING.
— Wanna (@WannasWorld) November 7, 2018
Blackfishing has been compared to blackface, the racist centuries-old practice of a non-Black person wearing dark makeup, often to mock the features of Black people.
In a July 2021 interview with CNN, Thompson explained: "Blackfishing is when White public figures, influencers and the like do everything in their power to appear Black."
This can entail tanning their skin excessively in an "attempt to achieve ambiguity," and sporting hairstyles and fashion trends pioneered by Black women, she added.
Leslie Bow, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, described blackfishing as "a racial masquerade that operates as a form of racial fetishism," in a July interview with CNN.
Alisha Gaines, an associate professor of English at Florida State University and author of Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy, told NBC News in 2019: "On social media, they're curating a performance of themselves that's reliant on appropriating parts of black culture."
Why Do People Engage in Blackfishing?
[…]
Bow told CNN in July that there's a power dynamic in American society driving the notion that aspects of racial culture must be validated by those with status for them to be deemed positive or valuable.
"They might think that it operates as an homage because it appears to honor Black style. In this case, they graft off of what academics have called the esthétique du cool that attends Black culture," Bow explained at the time.
"In reality, Blackfishing situates that style as a commodity. It has the effect of reducing a people with a specific history to a series of appropriable traits or objects," the professor said. "Blackfishing is one form of racist love, how we appropriate otherness."
Gaines said blackfishing was "rooted in white privilege" and those who engage in it profit from brand endorsements and collaborations.
"They put themselves out there and have all of these followers thinking they're someone that they're not," Gaines told NBC News in 2019. "It's so deeply rooted in white privilege because they can take up a space that an actual black woman could have had."
-snip-
The fonts are the same as those that were originally used in this article.
****
QCITYMETRO ARTICLE EXCERPT
From https://qcitymetro.com/2018/12/11/blackfishing-appreciation-for-black-culture-or-cultural-appropriation/ ‘Blackfishing’: Appreciation for Black culture or cultural appropriation? by Katrina Louis, December 11, 2018
"Some are comparing 'blackfishing' to 'blackface and
pointing out as another example of how mainstream wants Black people's rhythm
but not our blues.
Social media has been buzzing about ‘blackfishing,’ the newly coined term which Urban Dictionary defines as a trend commonly perpetrated by white women who use tanning and makeup “to appear to have some type of Black African ancestry.”
Last month, Toronto writer Wanna Thompson launched a Twitter thread looking to bring “all of the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram” to the forefront. The viral post was shared nearly 25,000 times.
At the center of the controversy are several social media influencers accused of cultural appropriation — using makeup to get darker skin tones, fillers to get fuller lips, etc. — although many have strongly denied the claims. For instance, social media has deemed Swedish model Emma Hallberg the face of blackfishing, even though she says that her skin tone is a result of warmer seasons and tanning.
When asked, Hallberg — who boasts nearly 280,000 Instagram followers — told BuzzFeed News that she doesn’t see herself as anything other than white.
Many of her followers felt deceived by the misrepresentation
as a woman of color, believing that she was Black or biracial. Hallberg was
particularly criticized for not correcting accounts that identified her as a
Black woman (she was featured on a variety of social media accounts celebrating
Black women)."...
****
NPR TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
From https://www.npr.org/transcripts/694149912
Blackface To Blackfishing ["Code Switch" NPR Radio series] , Feb. 13, 2019
..."[Gene Demby, Host of Code Switch] "Which brings us to this phenomenon that people are referring to as a new form of blackface - blackfishing, you know, like catfishing. Lauren Michele Jackson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. She's the author of a forthcoming book called "White Negroes." And in a piece for Slate, Lauren wrote that these blackfishers aren't trying to be black exactly. What they're doing is something more complicated and insidious.
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