More examples are in the links below:
This week, Black Twitter has been having a heated conversation about a phenomenon that's been hiding in plain sight on the internet for a while now: blackface thots.
What are blackface thots? They are regular thots — to clarify, "thot" is not being used in a derogatory sense here; I love thots — but with an extra side of racism. And they are everywhere.
Twitter users @WannasWorld and @yeahboutella (who, to clarify, did not coin and disapprove of the term "blackface thot") began the conversation earlier this week with threads calling out white women online darkening their skin to look black or racially ambiguous.
While several of these influencers have been doing this for years at this point, in the last few months people on the internet have been documenting these in tweets and other ways in mass. And while the girls and women doing this do not technically identify as black the same way Rachel Dolezal did, they are still appropriating black culture and reaping the rewards of deals such as free items and endorsements.
BuzzFeed reached out to Emma Hallberg and she responded:
Looking at her Instagram, you can see that a lot of the clothing, accessories, and hairstyles she has in the pictures are more associated with African American women than Sweedish white women. That holds true for many of the women discussed in the articles and tweets.Hallberg told BuzzFeed News the accusations have distressed and confused her.
"It made me sad that some of my natural features are hurting and upsetting people. It also made me upset and scared that I can't look the way I look naturally, without receiving false accusations, hate, and threats," she said.
"I do not have any specific intentions other than [to] show my passion for makeup and fashion."