“You should stop using GIFs/videos of black women for your own personal self-expression”
Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
March 26, 2018
Blue check social justice warrior Andy Baio was roasted by the internet after he tweeted out a demand that white people stop using ‘digital blackface’ – meaning gif images of black people’s reactions.
Presumably working out of his mother’s basement, Baio tweeted out a link to a Teen Vogue article from last year which made the ridiculous argument that it is racist for white people to post images of black people to emphasize their own feelings.
And if you’re white, please read up on digital blackface and why you should stop using GIFs/videos of black women for your own personal self-expression. https://t.co/cxWPKp4bn2
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) March 26, 2018
The article attempts to link black reaction gifs on the internet to Blackface minstrelsy dating back to the early 19th century, where white people would ‘black up’ and dance around for the entertainment of a white audience.
The BBC even got in on the act, with writer Victoria Princewill claiming that white people employ black gifs on social media to “blacken up,” a form of cultural appropriation that is actually coded racism.
“Minstrel shows depicted black people in all sorts of negative ways. They were mocking, demeaning stereotypes and they exaggerated black people’s facial features and their expressions,” Princewill states in the video.
“And digital blackface is the 21st century version of that,” Princewill claimed, also adding that it is a problem for white people to use dark-skinned emojis.
The reactions at the time were predictable, with many calling out Princewill and the Vogue writer Lauren Michele Jackson as the ‘real racists’.
The implication these people are making is that white people should only use gifs of white people to express themselves, and…