Let’s get one thing clear from the outset, I do not read Teen Vogue.  Neither does my sister, but she did send me a really interesting op-ed on Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs written by Lauren Michele Jackson, that I will link here in case you want to check it out.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/digital-blackface-reaction-gifs

A lot of what Jackson says makes sense in regards to the use of certain black images to express hyperbolic, exaggerated emotions.  However, she does at one point state that non-black people ought to stop posting videos of police killing black people, which is odd because it is exactly those types of videos, specifically the one where George Floyd was murdered in cold blood, that has been the catalyst for protests for black equality all over the world.  That’s all I’ll say about that here as it strays from the main point.

I can see the point that Jackson is making in regards to the historical use of black likeness for exaggerated behaviour.  However, I think there are two things to consider:

A. Black comedy (as in racial not the literary device) employs the use of hyperbole, overstatement, and exaggeration.

B.  People are not always thinking of someone as black when they use a reaction GIF.

The second point is my main point.  For instance when I use:

I’m not attempting to perform cyber black minstrelsy.  This just is unequivocally the best GIF for any conversation where I’m communicating to someone that they should:

A.  Think about it

or

B.  I’m smart and used my brain.

If my girlfriend says she’s bringing me food and I react with

it’s not because I’m performing a contemporary interwebs version of the old racist practice of blackface, but rather, the opposite.  Since I’m a huge fan of the TV series created by Quincy Jones, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and because I tend to unconsciously dance or hum when I really enjoy what I’m eating, this is the first image that comes to mind when I look to express my excitement.

While Jackson makes some good arguments regarding the stereotypes created as well as advanced by Hollywood in relation to black characters, her furthering of the term digital blackface is where I find the problem.  The radical Left, under the guise of “shining light on” or “bringing awareness to” often serves to further distinguish us as different based on our skin colour rather than unite us as human.  Culture ought to be celebrated, but that’s where it ends for me.  To continue to compartmentalize us according to the amount of melanin that we produce, literally 378 genetic loci out of the entire human genome which is roughly 20,000-25,000 is absurd.  The extreme Right harbours racists in their company.  The radical Left uses racism as a political device for divisiveness.  A racist might say something to you about mixing genes for being an interracial couple.  A leftist might call your marriage to a black person “fetishizing black skin.”  Racializing the use of GIF’s is just another way to distinguish blacks as “other,” and separates all of us as belonging to different categories, when in reality we have more in common as members of the human race than we do differences.

Racism is an idea that we should only deal with when it unfortunately manifests into speech or action.  Otherwise we are giving weight to something that doesn’t deserve it.  Some of you may take this to mean that I’m saying we should ignore racism.

I’m just saying we might be doing more to create problems where they don’t exist.  Yes racism exists in some spaces, but when we constantly make it a thing it begins to engulf all spaces, and realistically…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrgrbUNxzk