If your Twitter timeline was not completely overwhelmed with the photos of beautiful black people these past two days, you’re probably following the wrong people. It was national #BlackOutDay, a campaign dedicated to the celebration of black beauty. The social media camapign, which was originally concieved by a Tumblr user named expect-the-greatest, broke the top trending hashtags on Friday and continues to trend strongly throughout the day. It took off when actress and comedian Franchesca Ramsey jumped into the fray, posting photos of herself and her mom.
“Unfortunately, in most popular media talking about black people and our bodies, it’s mostly of us breaking the law, being killed, or mistreated,” Ramsey said to ABC News. “So it’s nice to combat these negative images and stereotypes with positive representations of ourselves.”
In fact, cursory Google image searches of “beautiful women” and “beautiful men” garner photos of mostly white and light-skinned people. These images are reflections of a popular culture that is largely dominated by white faces—on fashion runways, on TV screens, in theatres, and in magazines. Definitions of beauty are characterized by physical features associated with white people—thin noses, small lips, straight hair and large, light colored eyes. Because pop culture doesn’t already provide us with images that contradict these notions, it becomes imperative to assert alternative definitions of beauty through other other channels.
Still, this specific cultural context didn’t stop white people from being salty as hell about #BlackOutDay.
Some of them were even compelled to create a #WhiteOutDay. These people are at worst white supremacists and at best white supremacists. If you contributed to the #WhiteOutDay hashtag positively, you, too, are probably—most definitely—a white supremacist. Please take a day off and reevaluate your perspective on the world.
