Jenner first posted a snap from the shoot with the caption, “What I wish I looked like all the time,” which some commenters took to mean she wished she was black, pointing to Jenner’s penchant for using makeup to achieve bigger lips, a feature common for many black women. This, coupled with Jenner’s darkened skin tone under the blacklight caused many people to label the photoshoot racist. Commenters quickly called out Ms. Jenner, who deleted the image only to post two others from the same shoot.
“This is a black light and neon lights people lets [sic] all calm down,” she wrote for one of the pictures, which was bombarded with a slew of comments from people lambasting the reality star. “Every time you change one of your features to look like a BLACK woman we can clearly see you have self-hatred towards yourself,” one angry user wrote. “It’s sick to not embrace what God gave you…you were meant to have pale skin,” another commenter said.
But there were plenty of commenters who see things Jenner’s way. “I feel like this whole thing is idiotic. She made her face dark. How tf is this offensive?” Others simply found the accusations of blackface ridiculous, noting the practice’s historical relevance and arguing that Jenner’s look is not even close to what blackface looks like. “Anyone calling this blackface seriously needs to look up on their history,” one person wrote.
Whether the photo offends you or not, one thing’s for certain: the media storm has definitely given Jenner an unexpected dose of publicity, which to the Karashian-Jenner family is probably not a bad thing.
[via @KylieJenner]
