Teen girls thrown out of Boston Sephora applying ‘Blackface’ divides social media as some stated the girls were behaving offensively, while others wondered if they were simply applying a face-mask and that too much was being read into the situation while others came up with other nuanced points of views. See what you think?
Video showing a Sephora worker in Boston ‘telling off’ a person in apparent blackface has led to the makeup store issuing a statement reiterating the ‘type of behavior tolerated’.
The video, originally posted to TikTok, shows a ‘white’ teenage female wearing a large circle of brown makeup/face-mask (?) on her face. The teen along with two other teens are in the company of a chaperone who appears to make no effort to reproach the young woman before video cuts out, catching the women laughing.
Another person, who appears to be an employee, is heard on video commenting on the teen’s apparent blackface, ‘This is the stuff that can influence jobs, college acceptances, let alone how incredibly offensive this is.’
NEW: Teen girls use dark makeup to dress up in what appears to be “black face” at a Boston Sephora location.
The group of three girls was confronted by a worker who blasted them for their “incredibly offensive” behavior.
It gets worse. The person who filmed the video claims… pic.twitter.com/WA1qhLPrfL
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 13, 2024
Were three teen girls being racist and offensive?
The people filming can be heard calling what they were watching ‘so shameful.’
Video cuts out to the teen girls giggling upon realizing that they are being filmed.
While the original TikTok has been deleted, other versions of the video have gone viral.
Sephora released a statement on the incident to NBC10 Boston stating: ‘Sephora’s top priority is to create a welcoming and inclusive shopping experience for all. We are extremely disappointed by the behavior of these shoppers at our Prudential Center location, and as such, they were asked to leave our premises. Under no circumstance is this type of behavior tolerated at Sephora.’
The company’s statement didn’t offer more details about what happened.
The person who posted the TikTok said the incident left her ‘so disgusted and disturbed,’ Boston.com reported. She said she saw a ‘group of teenage girls and their mothers come in and go to the make up section to use the samples for black face whilst giggling and making animal sounds.’
A new counter-culture?
The video didn’t show anyone in the group making animal sounds; the identity of the people who were thrown out of the store wasn’t immediately clear.
While some commentators on social media condemned the teens for their lack of respect and offensive behavior, others wondered out aloud if younger generations of Americans don’t necessarily convey the degree of racism on the ‘black-face’ image and its connotations that previous generations have.
Reflected one commentator: A new counter-culture is here and it was inevitable. The younger generation is done with cancel culture and political correctness. Between the forced diversity agenda and all the anti white rhetoric, things like this are now considered edgy.
Which elicited the following response from one commentator: ‘Being edgy is fun but this is just buffoonery. Not a good look.’
Others meanwhile blamed the individual who filmed the video in an apparent attempt to stoke controversy, indict and stir up allegations of racism within a climate of enveloping woke awareness.
Retorted one commentator: ‘That’s probably a facial mask, and you know that! Shame on you for stoking racial hatred!’
What exactly is blackface and why does it matter?
Blackface is a racist tradition that dates back to American minstrel shows, post-Civil War performances where white actors wore makeup on their skin as they put on songs and skits mocking enslaved Black people. The skits were considered offensive and racist, as they are commonly still today as it evokes a ‘painful’ history for African Americans who were initially brought to the United States as slaves.
Notes CNN: ‘The first minstrel shows mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations, depicting black people as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual, according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).
The performances were intended to be funny to white audiences. But to the black community, they were demeaning and hurtful.’
Such negative representations of black people has left a damaging legacy in popular culture, especially in art and entertainment as ‘demeaning’ representations of a subjugated collective. Such themes continues to resonate in modern America, where racism continues to remain a focal point of contention, with African Americans more often subjected to poverty, a lack of social mobility, police brutality, a higher percentage of arrest and incarceration along with structural racism and prejudice that continues to influence public attitude.
