Non-black people should not distribute Oprah Winfrey memes from the interview of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle because it supports’ digital ‘black face’, complains a non-profit organization.
The Slow Factory Foundation, which is committed to social and environmental justice, issued the warning on its Instagram page on Tuesday, saying ‘digital black level’ is an ‘online phenomenon’ where white and non-black people share images of black people for emotion. pushing it out.
Oprah Winfrey’s variety of facial reactions during the interview led to a series of viral memes.
“While seemingly harmless, the problem with a digital blackface is that it reinforces negative stereotypes about black people, such as being aggressive, noisy, boring and simply here for your consumption and entertainment,” the report reads.
The organization added: “Executing blackmail, whether IRL or online, is not an acceptable form of response or dissatisfaction, especially not in exchange for preferences and retweets.”
“Since the #MeghanandHarry interview about Oprah, we’ve seen a lot of digital transgressions with some GIFs and images of Oprah’s response, but that does not mean you should use them,” the Slow Factory continued.
One popular Oprah meme shows the media mogul with a shocked expression on her face after Markle revealed to her that someone in the royal family once raised concerns about Archie’s skin color with his birth.
Some people on social media praised the organization for making them aware of ‘digital blackface’.
‘Thank you for explaining it so clearly. Very useful, ‘wrote one Instagram user.
“Thank you very much for this – it’s something I did not realize and I will definitely be more considerate about the poisons I choose and why,” wrote another user.
Meanwhile, others felt that the Slow Factory’s messages went too far.
“Blackface is a violent and harmful representation of black people rooted in violence. The use of a poison from Oprah is NOT a black face, ‘one person wrote.
“Reaction pictures / gifs and memes are universal and certainly not part of a digital black face,” said another person. “I feel like it’s extremely divisive. People use reaction photos of another race all the time and I do not see how harmful it is. ”
The term “digital black level” has been around for years, but author Lauren Michele Jackson popularized it in an essay for Teen Vogue in 2017.