Guest Post: Checking our Online Behaviour for Digital Blackface

Checking our Online Behaviour for Digital Blackface

by Estelle Frank

In today’s digital age, we have more tools at our disposal to express ourselves virtually than ever before. From memes to GIFS to emojis to Bitmojis, visual representations of the emotion we may want to convey online is easily done on messaging or social media apps. But as Jackson (2017) writes, “no digital behaviour exists in a de-racialized vacuum”. If you look at the “popular” section on WhatsApp’s GIPHY extension, you’ll find the large majority of these GIFs convey images of Black bodies and expressions. Who has agency over these images and why they are so popular? We must reflect on these questions and how our digital modes of expressions may be implicit or explicit displays of digital blackface.

 

Digital what?

While digital blackface might seem like a recent term, its practice is actually deeply rooted in 19^th century minstrel blackface (Jackson, 2017), a tradition that involved white performers covering themselves in dark makeup to portray exaggerated features of Black people (Vaughan, 2005).  While you may think this is an extreme example of radical white supremacy, many scholars point out how it’s actually not much different from non-Black social media users posting memes of Black people, thus cloaking racist ideals as humour and “harmless” jokes (Sevel-Sørensen, 2019 and Matamoros-Fernandez, 2020).

 

Memes

Of course, not all non-Black people share this content with the malicious intent of making fun of Black people. Some might feel like they relate to what the image and text convey — which often derives from African American Vernacular English (Jackson, 2017). That is, after all, where the French-originating term “même”, meaning “same”, comes from (Dean, 2016). The issue with claiming “relatable!” by circulating memes that are made by and for Black people is that it disregards the struggles and inequities that many Black people face. This is a manifestation of how systemic racism works exactly how it is set up to — in a way so insidious that only those directly affected by it tend to notice its effects.

 

GIFS

GIFS are files that put images on loop, which tends to present the subject as overemotional or unusually receptive—a depiction labelled “animatedness” by Ngai (as cited in Chua, 2007). By taking these expressions out of context and using them for our own purposes, as in the meme above, we’re appropriating them and removing agency from the creators. Take the well-known example of Kimberly Wilkins, alias Sweet Brown, and the wide-spread use of her phrase “Ain’t nobody got time for that”. The issue with this notoriety is that “[i]n much of the media content about her, Sweet Brown had little or no agency, and was the ‘object’ of social commentary and ridicule” (Dobson & Knezevic, 2018, p. 382). Why do these images become so viral, anyway? Harris (2013) has one explanation: that it’s rooted in an unconscious desire to see Black people perform, to reduce them to a caricature and dehumanize them.

 

Conclusion

This post is a brief introduction to digital blackface and its pervasiveness on social media. My hope is that it will encourage social media users to take an active approach to educating themselves about the implications of many popular memes and GIFS, thus resulting in us checking out our own digital behaviour for displays of digital blackface and holding our peers accountable when we witness this behaviour on our feeds.

 

Where have you encountered digital blackface online? What is the most effective way to address this kind of behaviour? Feel free to share your thoughts so we can work towards normalizing this much-needed conversation.

 

References

Chua, E. (2007). Review of Sianne Ngai, Ugly Feelings. Retrieved December 17, 2020, from https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/vol6/iss2/3/

Dean, A. (2016, July 25). Poor Meme, Rich Meme. Retrieved November 9, 2020, from        https://reallifemag.com/poor-meme-rich-meme/

Dobson, K., & Knezevic, I. (2018). “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”: Framing and stereotyping in legacy and social media. Canadian Journal of Communication, 43(3), 381-397.             doi:10.22230/cjc.2018v43n3a3378

Harris, A. (2013, May 07). The Troubling Viral Trend of the “Hilarious” Black Neighbor. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://slate.com/culture/2013/05/charles-ramsey-amanda-berry-rescuer-becomes-internet-meme-video.html

Jackson, L. M. (2017, August 2). We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in GIFs. Retrieved November 9, 2020, from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/digital-blackface-reaction-gifs

Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2020). ‘el negro de WhatsApp’ meme, digital blackface, and racism on social media. First Monday, doi:10.5210/fm.v25i12.10420

Noise Blankers Radio Group. (2013, January 16). Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That [Illustration]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/92278124@N07/8385958091

Sevel-Sørensen, S. (2019). Racial Performances On Social Media – A study of the Sweet Brown        memes (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from: https://muep.mau.se/handle/2043/30430

Vaughan, V. M. (2005). Performing blackness on English stages, 1500-1800. Cambridge, New York : Cambridge University Press.

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Written by Estelle Frank

Edited by Rachael Bradshaw

Featured image Man in Brown Leather Jacket Sitting Beside Woman in Brown Coat from Kiera Burton used under Pexels License