CNN Writer Says White People Using Black Memes is ‘Digital Blackface’

A CNN author has spurred a wholesome debate about Internet tradition, and has posed the query of whether or not it is okay for white folks to make use of Black memes … he says it is not.

John Blake revealed a piece Sunday that is gotten an enormous response on-line. It’s titled, “What’s ‘digital blackface?’ And why is it fallacious when White folks use it?” In the evaluation article, he makes his argument — particularly, utilizing these memes/GIFs is modern-day minstrel present fare.

For starters, he describes digital blackface this manner … “[It] includes White folks play-acting at being Black,” citing a Teen Vogue author who outlined it. He goes on to cite that writer as saying, “[T]he Internet thrives on White folks laughing at exaggerated shows of Blackness, reflecting an inclination amongst some to see ‘Black folks as strolling hyperbole.'”

Blake continues to reference Teen Vogue in zeroing in additional … “[Digital blackface] consists of shows of emotion stereotyped as extreme: so glad, so sassy, so ghetto, so loud… our dial is on 10 on a regular basis — not often are black characters afforded refined traits or emotions.”

Now for the haymaker from Blake, who says digital blackface is fallacious and that it needs to be halted. The motive … he says it is embedded in racist traditions of creating enjoyable of Black folks — and whereas Twitter customers in 2023 won’t essentially see it that approach from the surface wanting in, that is actually the way it’s being perceived by many … deliberately or not.

There are numerous Black memes that the Internet commonly recycles — together with some that characteristic well-known folks from TV exhibits and/or motion pictures — however there’s one which Blake focuses on particularly as his Exhibit A … particularly, the 2012 Sweet Brown interview from Oklahoma.

Brown had simply skilled a respectable tragedy on the time — she was coping with an house fireplace — and whereas her remarks have been animated/memorable … they have been coming from a severe place of concern. And but, the web made a complete autotune track out of it — seemingly discounting her real-life emotions and easily making a joke out of the entire thing.

Ditto for Antoine Dodson‘s TV information interview from years in the past, the place his household additionally had simply gone by means of a very terrifying encounter — however his feedback additionally went viral.