Aaronology
Member
Let's sidestep how in the wrong she is or isn't for a moment. I am not sure it's accurate to call this blackface. Her intent clearly was not mockery or any of the other historical reasons white people have dressed up as caricatured people of color, and the level of deception is so extreme here it can't be compared to much else.Blackface precedes both me and her. I didn't decide anything.
I'm a little impressed with the lengths she went to become a black woman, a little disturbed by how far she went covering up her past (something no one should have to do) and actually a little sad that she felt the need to.
Not really angry, though. This is all too bizarre to me for that.
Edit:
It is a white woman pretending to be a black woman. Using tanner and bronzer to darken her skin, trying to style her hair in ethnic black designs such as afros, braids, using brown/muted colored lipstick etc. Trying to deny the existence of her white father and her white heritage. Just because she's not doing it maliciously doesn't remove the fact she's reduced the identity of black women to nothing more than a certain hairstyle and darker skin. It's a caricature and almost costume for her.
Copying black women is not the same as making a caricature of them, Madness. And this woman, crazy as she clearly is, has black siblings, has a black husband, and joined and worked for the NAACP. Had she never been discovered and "outed", she likely would have spent her life on that course. This isn't a defense of her deception; I just think it's a little unfair to claim this was a costume for her. This was her life, albeit one built on lies.
I'm not entirely sure how to feel about any of this, honestly.