Rita Ora gets blackfishing accusations

[Chromatography 9,706]

@Runway

thanks also for the react and not actually answering the question. never mind then.

[Enzo 37,977]

Thanks God such things as hairstyles are not controversial where I'm from

[Xoxo Adriana 15,040]

42 minutes ago, GagaSine said:

She got called out on tumblr way back when lol I think people are just recycling old drama because of the pandemic less stupid stuff is happening 

 

23 minutes ago, xoxo Craig said:

Well lets be honest... blackfishing only really became a scandal from 2018 onwards.  It wasn't really a thing in 2012.

Its just obvious, like she doesn't look black or mixed race. You can tell she has that European/Mediterranean inheritance in her blood, but it was like common knowledge that she comes from Kosovo and her mother is Albanian. She made a big deal out of telling everyone how proud she was because Bebe Rexha and Dua Lipa, along with Rita Ora, were nominated for the Brit Awards. 

Plus, what Rita was doing isn't blackfishing. She isn't darkening her skin to appear black, or dressing to appear black to mock black people. Rita has never claimed to be black or mixed race. If she was wearing that afro and mocking black people, then its different. But its just a hairstyle and if she wants to wear dreads, then she should be able to. Gaga has worn dreads and stuff    Obviously I can't tell people not to be offended, but she never came across to me as if she was imitating a black person for the sake of success or mocking black people, which is what blackfishing is. 

Just like the accusations with Ariana Grande, tanning is not blackfishing. People with European/Mediterranean blood in them will tan more and get darker in the sun. I just don't see how a tan is blackfishing.

ok thankyou for informing me about this stuff guys. i’m not a rita stan so tbh i had no clue and saw a few others on here say they didn’t know either. hopefully the pandemic ends sooner everyone is clearly bored and i feel the frustration lol

[HEARTSTOP 3,129]

46 minutes ago, GagaSine said:

Yep it didn’t happen to you/in front of you so it never happens 

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/22/893970329/texas-school-board-keeps-grooming-code-that-led-to-suspension-of-black-students

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/health/microaggression-medicine-doctors.amp.html

 “Dr. Otugo recalled overhearing her Black female colleagues in Chicago discuss how they were going to style their hair for their clerkships. Many of them worried that if they wore their hair naturally, instead of straightening it or even changing it to lighter colors, their grades and performance evaluations from white physicians might suffer.”

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-53516009 (this is the UK but  the point still stands)

“Discipline policies banning black hairstyles [...] are being blamed in part.”

“She says hair styles, and the requirement for all pupils to look the same, can be a flashpoint.

Ms Ogunseitan said: "I have seen in schools when parents have had their child's hair cut low, they thought they were getting their child school ready, and that child ends up in an isolation unit."”

“"You are having to tame your hair, tame your blackness, and it's happening from when you are a child," she says.”

A literal scholarly, academic paper you can read abt black hair and employment discrimination -> http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_url?url=https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D3177%26context%3Dlawreview&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2ag-dxLgTbgAp_9TeoMvb1NoChqA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna973346

https://daily.jstor.org/how-natural-black-hair-at-work-became-a-civil-rights-issue/

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.instyle.com/hair/black-womens-hair-regulated-us-school-workplace-discrimination%3famp=true

I understand your point, but just because some people don't have food to eat, it doesn't mean I shouldn't eat my food.

We should raise awareness and end these injustices, but we should not give up our own freedoms for that.

If a white kid with cornrows goes to a school that doesn't see natural hair as "tidy" or "well-kept", it opens a debate that wouldn't be had by people who thought that way before and weren't open to black people's experiences before. It helps "normalizing" it. I know it is f*cked up that they wouldn't consider a black person's experience valid, just like all racism is f*cked up. But in a way, white people doing things that are usually associated to black people, ends up being a lesser evil that will help change the views of those racists over time.

[GagaSine 7,464]

13 minutes ago, HEARTSTOP said:

I understand your point, but just because some people don't have food to eat, it doesn't mean I shouldn't eat my food.

We should raise awareness and end these injustices, but we should not give up our own freedoms for that.

If a white kid with cornrows goes to a school that doesn't see natural hair as "tidy" or "well-kept", it opens a debate that wouldn't be had by people who thought that way before and weren't open to black people's experiences before. It helps "normalizing" it. I know it is f*cked up that they wouldn't consider a black person's experience valid, just like all racism is f*cked up. But in a way, white people doing things that are usually associated to black people, ends up being a lesser evil that will help change the views of those racists over time.

I strongly disagree. But I am white so it is not my place. But I think black people should be free/equal before white people are comfortable.

it would be different if you took someone else’s food and everyone said ‘wow you made such a delicious meal! I love it!’

[killerstiletto 185]

I thought she was mixed and I've never heard the term 'blackfishing' before. I feel so left out. 

[petty 9,408]

50 minutes ago, HEARTSTOP said:

If a white kid with cornrows goes to a school that doesn't see natural hair as "tidy" or "well-kept", it opens a debate that wouldn't be had by people who thought that way before and weren't open to black people's experiences before. It helps "normalizing" it. I know it is f*cked up that they wouldn't consider a black person's experience valid, just like all racism is f*cked up. But in a way, white people doing things that are usually associated to black people, ends up being a lesser evil that will help change the views of those racists over time.

Nope not true at all. Cringing at this example. The issue is that white peoples take from black people and black people continue to be dragged for it while white people are praised for it. That will never change. And it doesn’t help black people one bit because if someone’s a racist they’re going to be a racist and they’re never going to see black people as an equal so no, white people are not "normalizing" anything by doing this.

[KNJ 4,170]

7 hours ago, KanyeWest said:

So u call that a tan?

Let's not be biased. It's blackface 

 

6 hours ago, SeIena Gomez said:

Definition of blackface:

BLACKFACE

noun

black·face | \ ˈblak-ˌfās  \

Definition of blackface

: dark makeup worn (as by a performer in a minstrel show) in a caricature of the appearance of a black person

 

fake tan is not makeup 

 

and usually blackface is used to make fun OF black people. No where in the article were black people even made fun of or even mentioned if I recall.

 

also to people saying Gaga should be cancelled or this will come back to her are clearly living under a rock because this constantly comes back to her when she does anything. Super bowl announcement, Oscar win etc. We all know Gaga wouldn’t do this now so what is the point in bringing up these receipts 

 

5 hours ago, Lord Temptation said:

But you’re the one being biased. Gaga was trying to mimic a spaced out Jersey Shore airhead, mouth wide open and all. She had just released an album parodying fame called the The Fame.

Don’t you remember the late 2000s when every reality TV starlet was getting spray tanned? 

As a Black person (born and raised in NJ), I've never ever taken this as blackface whatsoever. 

This is NOT blackface, it's summer goals.

This shoot was made when Jersey Shore was blowing up. Everyone was spoofing something from the show. This photoshoot was a sendup of the extreme tanning they were popularizing. Also something teen Gaga did herself as a NY/NJ Italian-American of the aughts, just like the Jersey Shore cast. The way people are all about face masks now, are how they were with fake tanning/bronzing then.

Outside of the tan, what exactly makes this a caricature of Black people? 

If anything, it's an overlapping self-referential pop culture spoof = TanGa

 

 

 

 

[holy scheisse 20,799]

1 hour ago, HEARTSTOP said:

The concept of blackfishing outside of black activism is so insane and farfetched that I can't even begin to comprehend it.

It implies that she is pretending to be a different race for other people to pay attention to her art. So, if a person is black or mixed race, you will listen to their music just because of it? How is that not racist? Sure it's a "good" consequence of racism, but it is still damaging to the races involved.

If you're a black person (or any person really), you should not be listening to artists JUST because they're black. That is racist. There's nothing in her music that relates her to black culture, so you can't even say relating to her music's cultural references is why you would listen to her if she was black.

I feel you. I don't think the point is that ppl go "oh it's a Black artist, I'm interested." It's the cultural contributions to fashion, beauty, presentation, and music that come from (at least American) Black culture being taken on by a non Black person, bc these things are universally appealing and "cool", despite the systemic racism that still exists on a sociopolitical level against Black people. I think people call blackfishing when a person capitalizes on the image, sound, and aesthetic of Black culture by putting it on like a hat, and then having the freedom to take it off at any point meanwhile for Black individuals that is their one truth and reality, they can't take off their skin or the context in which their race exists, and they suffer such adversity and mistreatment by society as a whole.

Her debut single heavily referenced Biggie and featured her in a Rastafarian color scheme bikini btw lol idk much about her career since then but that initial intro to her def gave me, personally, the impression she was at least mixed

[KNJ 4,170]

2 hours ago, PETTY said:

Nope not true at all. Cringing at this example. The issue is that white peoples take from black people and black people continue to be dragged for it while white people are praised for it. That will never change. And it doesn’t help black people one bit because of someone’s a racist they’re going to be a racist and they’re never going to see black people as an equal so no, white people are not "normalizing" anything by doing this.

Thank you!!!

Everything is "ghetto"or "low class" or "unbecoming" until it is appropriated/stolen/accepted by a gatekeeper of white culture. It is a very sensitive subject here bc Black American culture has always been one of this country's biggest exports, and we rarely have a hand in how that goes down  I don't know to what extent it is in other countries, but in the US, this has always been the case.

Fashion, food, music, everything. They take credit, pretend we had nothing to do with it and they get away with it. Effing always!

 

 

 

[freebit 6,084]

It's so arbitrary when people feel the need to truly get outraged. Trust that some of these same people probably still like Ariana Grande or were jamming to 7 Rings  early last year. Not defending Rita as she's talked about her ambigious look & is aware enough to try to capitilize on it. I find it sad/funny that she attracted Prince & actually kind of became one of his protegé's when he was so about promoting black artists (Prince was known for being into light skin black women).

[KNJ 4,170]

White people take everything from Black culture but the burden

Great article from USC underscoring and answering many thoughts and questions here. Please read...

 

https://dailytrojan.com/2020/06/09/the-afterword-white-people-take-everything-from-black-culture-but-the-burden/

Like systemic racism, appropriation of Black culture is so ubiquitous and normalized that most white people can actively engage in it and never, not once in the course of their lives, be forced to confront that fact — not that that’s anything new. The infatuation with Black culture by white people has historical roots; look no further than the whitewashing of the rock ‘n’ roll genre and hip-hop culture, along with other cultural thefts, for evidence. The enduring influence of Black culture in America as well as white people’s enduring exploitation of it is not a matter of opinion — it is fact.

In 2020, white girls in Jordans populate Instagram’s “Explore” page; rap is the No. 1 genre; public figures like the Kardashians and Billie Eilish, among many, many others, successfully exploit Black trends and behaviors (everything from cornrows to use of a “blaccent”) that their very pioneers have been persecuted for embracing. Why? Because the business model is such that Black culture sells when white people hijack it. 

 

 @Economy @HEARTSTOP

[JohnnyVersace 8,592]

15 hours ago, Economy said:

Make up trends and fashion you choose to follow now makes u trying to pass as another race????

 

The reach of this accusation if that's their only evidence

Yes, cultural appropriation is actually a real thing! 

[LilyLark 9,703]

I mean...yes her early career & her hair & her fashion choices (rastafarian stuff))...it's pretty clear she was aware/tried to play off the fact that she's racially ambiguous. It's not one little thing but a lot of little things added up together....Cultural appropriation is a real thing, and the problem isn't so much wearing braids as it is that people act like white people invented them/criticize Black people who do wear them. Until that field is level, it is insensitive to wear braids/dreads (but not the worst thing in the world obviously).

*I will be fair...7-10 years ago it was VERY common for white girls to wear cornrows, dreads, etc. Gaga, Kesha, Madonna, Katy, etc. all had them at one point. And in Rita's defense, she never darkened her skin or enlarged her lips. I do think many people in the US (where I am from) have a very US centered point of view & don't realize that there are people who are white but can be quite dark/have very tight curls/etc. I am a WOC and one of my closest friends is Greek...she's almost as dark as I am.

[elijahfan 23,816]

15 hours ago, Doot said:

wait what?!

this whole thread has me shook 

who else?! 

Say hi to Björk's parents