Quotation:
“Black fishing Instagram models are not only appropriating black culture aesthetics in their personal brand but are subsequently drawing up boundaries around which expressions and representation of blackness are desirable. The light skinned, loosely textured hair, and plump lips featured in their content are indicative of normal white beauty standards as a measure to which the black feminine body should aspire.” (Stevens 12-13)
Comment:
It is hard to comment on this article being a Middle Eastern and white girl. I don’t know how it feels seeing blackfishing through the eyes of a black individual. Blackfishing is a term used to accuse someone of pretending to be black or mixed. In my opinion, I don’t agree with some of the things stated in this article (again, that’s just my opinion and I don’t know how different my opinion if I was black or mixed). I believe that calling Kim Kardashian racist for blackfishing is too much. The Kardashians naturally have ethnic features, even before all the surgeries, because they are Armenian. She is also the mother of 4 biracial children, so she isn’t purposely trying to hurt the black community; she is just embracing black beauty. There are some cases where I do believe that there is a lot of black fishing, like when fully white women get spray tans that are 5 shades darker than their natural skin tone. I think that influencers sometimes do this to try to “relate” to other races, but it will almost always backfire them, so they should just embrace the features they naturally have.
Question:
Do you think celebrities don’t know they’re blackfishing, or is it always intentional?
